LEGIC prime Cards: Identifying, MIM Memory & Replacement

A LEGIC prime card is a 13.56 MHz smart card built on LEGIC Identsystems' original, legacy technology generation. It stores LEGIC applications in segmented on-card memory and secures them with a proprietary LEGIC encryption scheme. Prime cards were the mainstay of LEGIC installations before LEGIC introduced its standards-based advant generation.

Physically a LEGIC prime card looks like any contactless card, so the distinguishing feature is its technology generation rather than its appearance. On an operating site, a prime card is one enrolled under LEGIC's older prime scheme and managed — like all LEGIC — through the Master-Token key hierarchy. Knowing a card is prime is the starting point for any security or replacement decision.

You generally cannot tell LEGIC prime from LEGIC advant by looking at the card; it is read from the chip with a LEGIC-capable reader or encoder. An integrator with a LEGIC Security Module (SAM) can identify the technology generation of a card, because a SAM reads both prime and advant and reports which scheme a given credential uses.

This matters because the two generations have very different security properties, and a mixed estate often contains both after a partial migration. Before ordering replacements or planning an upgrade, the practical first step is to have the credentials read so the split between prime and advant cards is known. Guessing from card artwork or printed part numbers alone is unreliable.

MIM256 and MIM1024 are LEGIC prime card variants named for their on-card memory. The number reflects how much segmented storage the card carries for LEGIC applications — MIM1024 holds more than MIM256, and smaller variants such as MIM22 exist for single-application use. More memory allows more independent applications (access, canteen, print, transport) to share one prime card.

For a site auditing its stock, the MIM designation is useful because it indicates how much a given prime card can hold, and therefore what an advant replacement needs to match. When migrating, a MIM1024 prime card carrying several applications maps to a larger advant memory size, whereas a single-application MIM256 maps to a smaller one. Matching memory capacity avoids under-provisioning replacement cards.

LEGIC is retiring prime because it predates open, standardised cryptography. LEGIC prime secures data with a proprietary LEGIC scheme, whereas the access-control industry — and LEGIC itself, with advant — has moved to published, peer-reviewed algorithms such as AES. Standardised, openly reviewed cryptography is considered more trustworthy than a closed design, which is the core reason LEGIC promotes advant over prime.

This guide deliberately avoids stating a launch year for prime, because commonly circulated dates are not confirmed from a primary LEGIC source. What is documented is LEGIC's direction: advant is the certified, AES-based generation LEGIC positions for current use, and LEGIC's own tooling exists specifically to move prime installations onto it. A site on prime should treat replacement as a planned migration, not an emergency.

The table summarises common LEGIC prime memory variants and what they imply for replacement.

Working LEGIC prime cards are provisioned under your installation's Master-Token and encoded by a LEGIC Security Module, so an independent supplier cannot produce a keyed, ready-to-use prime credential. Because prime is a legacy generation, most sites are better served replacing cards with LEGIC advant than extending a prime population — a decision made with LEGIC or the integrator that holds your Master-Token authority.

What we supply are the open-format cards used around a LEGIC estate — serial-number cards for simple readers, and hotel or legacy cards for adjacent doors. Those are the formats below.