Laptops and smart card readers

Which smart card reader is present in a particular laptop model? It can be difficult to find out the exact model of smart card reader included in a laptop before buying it.

However, thanks to the Hardware for Linux project, you can submit your own hardware configuration and also consult the configurations of many laptops and desktops to find out what hardware is included.

The website also provides aggregated results for a specific categories such as CPU Vendors.

One interesting result is the Chipcard Vendor aggregation.

Chipard Vendors market shares

The results do not represent exact market shares. They only include systems that:

However, they should reflect reality.

Chipcard Vendor Alcor Micro (26.2%) Broadcom (55.6%) O2 Micro (6.5%) Upek (4.7%) Lenovo (3.4%) Yubico.com (0.8%) Gemalto (was ... (0.6%) SCM Microsystems (0.5%) Advanced Card... (0.4%) Aktiv (0.2%) Others (1.0%)
Chipcard Vendors

#

Vendor

Percent

1

Broadcom

55.61%

2

Alcor Micro

26.17%

3

O2 Micro

6.53%

4

Upek

4.69%

5

Lenovo

3.45%

6

Yubico.com

0.83%

7

Gemalto (was Gemplus)

0.6%

8

SCM Microsystems

0.51%

9

Advanced Card Systems

0.37%

10

Activ

0.23%

An important point to note is that the first five on the list should be correct, as they correspond to the manufacturers of embedded smart card readers. However, the next five in the list are often (if not always) external smart card readers that are connected via a USB port and not integrated into the laptop. For instance, I am not aware of any Yubico readers that are embedded in laptops. These readers are listed on https://linux-hardware.org/ because they were plugged in when the user ran the hw-probe program to scan and report the hardware configuration.

Which laptop manufacturers use which smart card reader?

You can click on a specific slice of the Chipcard Vendor pie chart to see which laptop manuifacturers uses this smart card reader brand.

Broadcom

Notebook Vendors Dell (100.0%)

All Broadcom readers are used by Dell.

Alcor Micro

Notebook Vendors Lenovo (82.4%) Hewlett-Packard (8.6%) Fujitsu (6.5%) Acer (0.7%) ASUSTek (0.4%) Dell (0.4%) Durabook (0.2%) Getac (0.2%) Google (0.2%) Notebook (0.2%) Others (0.4%)

#

Vendor

Percent

1

Lenovo

82.4%

2

Hewlett-Packard

8.6%

3

Fujitsu

6.5%

4

Acer

0.7%

5

ASUSTek Computer

0.4%

O2 Micro

Notebook Vendors Fujitsu (37.3%) Toshiba (19.7%) Fujitsu Siemens (2.1%) Dell (40.8%)

#

Vendor

Percent

1

Dell

40.8%

2

Fujitsu

37.3%

3

Toshiba

19.7%

4

Fujitsu Siemens

2.1%

Upek

Notebook Vendors Lenovo (100.0%)

All of Upek readers are used by Lenovo.

It looks like the Upek devices are "TouchChip Fingerprint Coprocessor" and not an "Integrated Smart Card Reader". I don't know why they are listed as "Chipcard Vendor". Perhaps it is a bug or limitation of https://linux-hardware.org/.

Lenovo

Notebook Vendors Lenovo (100.0%)

Unsurprisingly, all of Lenovo readers are used by... Lenovo.

Corresponding CCID devices

It is possible to list the CCID devices of each manufacturer that I know of:

Conclusion

Only three main vendors of smart card readers are used in laptops: Broadcom, Alcor Micro and O2 Micro.

Do they produce good products? Are their products supported by my CCID driver? These are both very good questions, but for other blog articles. To be continued...