Smart card CQM

CQM is a mandatory quality management process initiated by Mastercard, aiming to ensure that Mastercard brand smart card hardware products meet the highest quality standards in all aspects, including design, production, and testing. It covers product quality requirements, including physical properties, functional characteristics, appearance, etc., and also involves quality assurance requirements. It regulates the production management of related enterprises such as card manufacturers, component suppliers, and personalized institutions through self-assessment, on-site audits, corrective action plans, and other means.

In the field of smart cards, CQM usually refers to Card Quality Management, that is, card quality management.

CQM is a mandatory quality management process initiated by Mastercard, aiming to ensure that Mastercard brand smart card hardware products meet the highest quality standards in all aspects, including design, production, and testing. It covers product quality requirements, including physical properties, functional characteristics, appearance, etc., and also involves quality assurance requirements. It regulates the production management of related enterprises such as card manufacturers, component suppliers, and personalized institutions through self-assessment, on-site audits, corrective action plans, and other means.

 

The CQM (Card Quality Management)  mainly covers the following aspects:

Physical property standards: 

The size and shape of the card must comply with relevant international standards such as ISO 7810. At the same time, there are detailed requirements for the thickness of the card body, bending stiffness, warpage, etc. The surface of the card must comply with certain roughness and flatness specifications, and the surface profile, mechanical strength, resistance, etc. of the card's contacts must also meet the limitations of standards such as ISO7816-1. For example, the card size measuring instrument is used to precisely measure the length, width, thickness and other dimensions of smart cards to ensure compliance with the ISO 7810 standard. The contact profile height tester can measure the surface profile and relative height of smart card contacts, in compliance with ISO7816-1 requirements. The card bending stiffness test fixture can detect the bending stiffness of the card body to ensure that it complies with the relevant standards of CQM.  

 

Chemical property standards: 

The card material should have good chemical corrosion resistance and be able to resist the erosion of common solvents, acids, alkalis and other substances. Relevant requirements can refer to standards such as ISO7810, ISO7811-2, and ISO7811-6. At the same time, the card body must be non-toxic and meet the requirements of environmental protection and health. For example:

Durability standard: 

The card needs to withstand a certain degree of mechanical tests such as dynamic bending stress, dynamic torsional stress, impact, corner impact and surface wear resistance. Some test requirements can refer to ANSI NCITS 322. Moreover, the card should also have the ability to resist ultraviolet rays, X-rays, etc., to ensure stable performance under the influence of environmental factors such as light exposure. Part of the basis for this is ISO7816-1. The three-wheel chip card tester can simulate the usage status of the card in the card-swiping device, test the durability of the chip card, and meet the relevant ISO testing standards. The bending and torsion testing machine can apply bending and torsion stresses to cards to test whether their mechanical strength meets the standards. The sandpaper/eraser wear resistance test fixture can detect the wear resistance of the card surface patterns, coatings, etc.  

Functional characteristic standards: 

The electrical performance of smart card chips and circuits must meet the standards to ensure normal interoperability with various terminals that comply with EMV specifications, and satisfy functional requirements such as data reading and writing, and signal transmission. Contact card signal simulation and analysis devices, such as ContactLAB, can conduct comprehensive simulation, monitoring and analysis of the signals of contact smart cards. Contactless card testing tools, such as ProxiSPY and ProxiLAB, can be used to test the wireless communication performance and interoperability of contactless smart cards.  

 

Design standards for appearance: 

The layout, pattern, brand logo, color, etc. of the card face should comply with Mastercard's design rules to ensure the consistency and standardization of the brand's visual image. For example, the embossed character position gauge can verify whether the position of the embossed characters on the card surface complies with the requirements of ISO/IEC 7811-1 and CQM. The magnetic strip position gauge can detect whether the position of the magnetic strip meets the CQM and ISO standards.