Electronic & Electrochemical Materials

GORE™ Secure PCMCIA Card

Anti-Tamper Physical Security for Electronic Hardware

GORE™ Secure PCMCIA Card detects physical intrusions by sensing attempts to open, remove, or penetrate the envelope surrounding the PCMCIA card. The application of GORE™ Tamper Respondent Sensor is designed to provide complete coverage around the board with no direct openings at any corner or overlap. Detection typically triggers erasure of critical security information such as cryptographic keys or sensitive algorithms.


The GORE™ Tamper Respondent Sensor is extremely low power and, being non-metallic, is impossible to analyze by X-ray. It is designed to detect penetration by drills and probes as well as by erosive and chemical attacks.

The GORE™ Secure PCMCIA Card is targeted to meet the requirements of FIPS 140-2, Level 4, DoD, NSA Type 1, and CESG Enhanced Grade security.

Features and Benefits

  • Provides anti-tamper volume protection in a convenient form factor
  • Generic offering protects a PCMCIA card—Other sizes available
  • Enclosure acts as a tamper sensor that enables zeroization of critical keys or information stored within the protected volume
  • Attempted penetration (cutting, drilling) or case separation causes detectable permanent change in electrical state
  • All-polymer sensor construction precludes X-ray analysis by an attacker
  • Targeted at FIPS 140-2, Level 4, DoD, NSA Type 1 security and CESG Enhanced Grade security
  • Easy to monitor with low power consumption
  • OEM needs only simple design rules
  • From the only commercial supplier of protection of secure electronics having many independent certifications
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Applications

  • High security cryptocards and tokens
  • Highly secure communications (COMSEC)
  • PCMCIA Hardware Security Modules (HSMs)
  • Key management cards
  • PCMCIA secure storage cards
  • Any sensitive electronic modules in a similar form factor (e.g., ExpressCard)