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The tiny chip that powers Montreal subway tickets

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Re: The tiny chip that powers Montreal subway tickets

#131

Post by MBCook »

The article says the chips are made on a 180 nm process and they come out about the size of a table salt grain.

We’re now down in the single digits for fabrication in nanometers, although I know that sort of just a name. This chip is so tiny already, if you were to fab it on a process like 7 nm I’m guessing it would be unworkably small. Too hard to cut, too hard to manipulate individual chips once you did manage to cut them.

So here’s my question: how small can we make a chip in area while still being able to cut them out and easily use them?

It’s obviously not a concern for the hundreds of square millimeters of a large processor, but I’ve never heard about the opposite end of the spectrum before.

Re: The tiny chip that powers Montreal subway tickets

#132

Post by bobthepanda »

akpa1 wrote: post #124
chgs wrote: post #123

Mifare is what’s been used in London’s Oyster cards for 20 years (not the ultralight ones mind), and Hong Kong for even longer. However oyster really is in its way out for most uses. contactless and especially a phone is far more convenient for non season use, and far less wasteful.

I'm looking forwards to the day they somehow manage to link a National Railcard to a contactless bank card.

I feel like the approach will probably be that railcards become digital wallet compatible.

Re: The tiny chip that powers Montreal subway tickets

#133

Post by bobthepanda »

kens wrote: post #52
ClumsyPilot wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed, I didn’t know what kind of ticket we are talking about - folks please include a picture and some context in your blogs, for people from other places and countries

The title says "Montreal" and the second photo in the blog post shows the specific ticket. I'm not sure what else I can do here.

Background information in an article is normally presented first.

Ticket in english sometimes refers to a season or monthly ticket, so it’s pretty ambiguous.

Re: The tiny chip that powers Montreal subway tickets

#134

Post by justusthane »

hammock wrote: post #130
justusthane wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thunder Bay, Ontario. Pop. 110k. We still have the sort of carnival-style paper tickets. I would guess that most smaller cities don’t have fancy NFC tickets.

I’m surprised you have a subway at all

We don’t, we have a bus line.

Re: The tiny chip that powers Montreal subway tickets

#135

Post by Tijdreiziger »

ak217 wrote: post #96
kens wrote: post #2

Author here for all your NFC chip questions :-)

Thanks for the write-up. How does this fit into the broader NFC ecosystem? What do other big metro systems like Omny, Clipper, Smartrip etc use? Apple and Google seem to implement some NFC protocols in their devices but in a much more programmable way, how does that work? Is the protocol used in credit cards related at all? And how do these relate to Felica, the system used everywhere in Japan (which was in the news…

> Is the protocol used in credit cards related at all?

In e.g. London and the Netherlands, the readers were upgraded to support tapping in and out with a debit/credit card or Apple/Google Pay.

However, Apple also seems to have an ‘Express’ mode, which even works when the battery is empty (‘Power Reserve’).

It seems to me that there must be three protocols: the one for the disposable and stored-value tickets (ISO 14443?), EMV for debit/credit/Apple Pay/Google Pay, and Apple Pay Express.

Re: The tiny chip that powers Montreal subway tickets

#136

Post by Tijdreiziger »

kens wrote: post #115
ak217 wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for the write-up. How does this fit into the broader NFC ecosystem? What do other big metro systems like Omny, Clipper, Smartrip etc use? Apple and Google seem to implement some NFC protocols in their devices but in a much more programmable way, how does that work? Is the protocol used in credit cards related at all? And how do these relate to Felica, the system used everywhere in Japan (which was in the news…

That seems like a question for @lxgr :-) As far as I can tell, the NFC ecosystem is a mess of competing, incompatible protocols from different companies, as well as incompatibilities for historical reasons. For example, Clipper uses MIFARE DESFire, which is the more secure sibling of the Ultralight chip that I examined. Washington's SmarTrip cards use MIFARE Plux X. New York City's OMNY, on the other hand, is apparen…

How and why did you learn about this topic? :)

Re: The tiny chip that powers Montreal subway tickets

#137

Post by emmet »

akpa1 wrote: post #124
chgs wrote: post #123

Mifare is what’s been used in London’s Oyster cards for 20 years (not the ultralight ones mind), and Hong Kong for even longer. However oyster really is in its way out for most uses. contactless and especially a phone is far more convenient for non season use, and far less wasteful.

I'm looking forwards to the day they somehow manage to link a National Railcard to a contactless bank card.

I'll have aged out before they ever manage this. Been on the to-do list for years.

Re: The tiny chip that powers Montreal subway tickets

#138

Post by randunel »

chgs wrote: post #123

Mifare is what’s been used in London’s Oyster cards for 20 years (not the ultralight ones mind), and Hong Kong for even longer. However oyster really is in its way out for most uses. contactless and especially a phone is far more convenient for non season use, and far less wasteful.

There's a noticeable delay between contactless cards and oysters. Some people I know prefer oyster cards simply because they open the gates faster, in spite of having to top them off all the time.

I'm looking forward to not having to choose one trade-off over the other.

Re: The tiny chip that powers Montreal subway tickets

#139

Post by chgs »

akpa1 wrote: post #124
chgs wrote: post #123

Mifare is what’s been used in London’s Oyster cards for 20 years (not the ultralight ones mind), and Hong Kong for even longer. However oyster really is in its way out for most uses. contactless and especially a phone is far more convenient for non season use, and far less wasteful.

I'm looking forwards to the day they somehow manage to link a National Railcard to a contactless bank card.

You’d have to have a national railcard first. The only railcards that exist are specific ones for specific groups.
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