ISO/IEC 23651:2003 specifies the physical and magnetic characteristics of an 8 mm wide magnetic tape cartridge containing a memory chip to enable physical interchange of such cartridges between drives. It also specifies the quality of the recorded signals, the recording method and the recorded format - called Advanced Intelligent Tape No. 3 (AIT-3 format) - thereby allowing data interchange between drives by means of such magnetic tape cartridges.

ISO/IEC 23651:2003 specifies two types of cartridge depending on the thickness of the magnetic tape contained in the case.

Information interchange between systems also requires, at a minimum, agreement between the interchange parties upon the interchange code(s) and the specifications of the structure and labelling of the information on the interchanged cartridge.