2011

NFC Tags, A technical introduction, applications and products.

1 DECEMBER 2011 AUTHOR: FRANCESCO GALLO

MARTHA YAZMIN GARCIA MELENDEZ |

Abstract An introduction for a business, marketing or technical audience to NFC Forum tags and NFC-enabled tags, describing applicable specifications, currently available NXP products, and potential use cases.

The NFC Forum The NFC Forum is a consortium of industry for the future development and improvement of Near Field Communication (NFC), which ensures the interoperability between devices and services. NFC is a new short range, low power contactless technology. NFC allows intuitive and easy to use communications. NFC technology can be applied to consumer electronics, mobile devices and PC. The NFC Forum Device NFC Forum Device: implements at least the mandatory parts of the protocol stack and NFC Forum meets interoperability requirements NFC Forum. An NFC Forum Device can support different operating modes of the NFC Forum: peer mode NFC Forum, NFC Forum Reader / Writer (mandatory), and the Forum NFC card emulation mode (optional). The NFC Forum device can be a mobile phone, Personal Digital Assistant (PDA), PC or consumer electronics device.

Table 1 shows the possible communication links between an NFC Forum device. NFC devices operation mode read / write In the operating mode of the NFC Forum Reader / Writer, an NFC Forum device has the ability to communicate with NFC Forum Tags reading or writing data to it.

Storing application data in an NFC tag The application data stored in an NFC tag is encapsulated in a first NDEF message and then the data structure specified by the NFC Type Tag Platform. the NDEF message and encapsulated NFC Tag Type platform are used to identify the type of application data such as a JPEG image URL or vCard.

And to ensure interoperability and coexistence between applications. Figure 1 shows an overview of the following 4 elements and how they are encapsulated into one another:

Application data : the vCard in the left hand side , NDEF Message : package . NFC tag platform type ( data structure ) container with the text " Type 4 tag" . Product (NFC Tag ) : for example, the MIFARE DESFire EV1 - card Application data Application data is any information that can be stored in an NFC tag . Examples of application data available are: URI - URL: " http://www.nxp.com/nfc " - Phone Number : ' tel: +49 40 5613 5013 " - SMS: " SMS : +494056135013 Body = Ciao ! " - E - mail: "mailto : nfc@nfc.com " Text - "Hello World!" , " Morjens , maailma " - " NXP web - site" Intelligent Poster = text + + URI ... - " NXP web - site" + " http://www.nxp.com " Transfer parameters - Parameters Bluetooth: Bluetooth Address ... - Parameters WiFi : SSID ... Business Card - VCard Signature NDEF NDEF message is a light format , binary weight can be used to encapsulate one or more application-defined arbitrary type of load and the size in a single construct called NDEF message . A payload defined by the application is encapsulated into one single NDEF record , or fragmented into two or more NDEF records. Each load application-defined and described by an optional identifier type : Type identifiers may be URI , MIME media types or types of NFC - specific

 Optional Identifier allows association of multiple payloads and crossreferences them . NFC Type Tag Platform The type is a container for storing NDEF messages that guarantees coexistence with applications for existing products . NFC Type Tag Platform is a standalone product , but it 's compatible with products such as NTAG203 , MIFARE Ultralight, MIFARE Classic , MIFARE DESFire EV1 and ICODE.La NFC Forum Type Tag Platform should not be confused with the type of NFC Forum Tag Operating Specifications . As in the NFC Forum Type Tag Platform , NXP Semiconductors has also specified in the Operation NFC Type MIFARE Classic tag and label NFC Type ICODE Operation , how to operate the NFC Type Tag Platforms based on the MIFARE Classic / MIFARE Plus and ICODE family. These platforms NFC tags type can store NDEF messages ensure coexistence with existing applications related products MIFARE Classic / MIFARE Plus and products ICODE family. The product ( NFC Tag ) Each NFC Tag Type platform is built on top of the products off-the -shelf existing available. These products are generally known as tags contactless NFC Tags . The following terminology is used : NDEF message Memory size : the size in bytes or kbytes of memory available to store the NDEF message. Active content : the content of the NFC tag can be modified not only by the NFC device , but also because the NFC tag. A typical example is an NFC tag based on Java Card technology that is capable of changing the NDEF content to implement an auto-incrementing counter. This counter can be incremented by one for each read access . Specification of the operation: the NFC Forum documents and application notes describing how to operate , respectively , the NFC Forum Type 1 and 2 label platforms , MIFARE Classic / MIFARE Plus tag and ICODE tag to store NDEF posts. Supporting documents : application notes that describe : - Setting the products that meet the specifications NFC Operation Type label. - How to use the additional product features to be compatible with the NFC Type Tag Operation Specifications . Product Data : Specific data sheets for the products. Use cases NFC tags allow many types of use cases. In the following sections , the following use cases are described in detail : Smart Poster , Delivery, vCard , URL , SMS and calls Application. Smart Poster use case

A typical example of using Smart Poster is when a user uses a NFC device such as a mobile phone to touch the NFC tag embedded in a poster and read application data stored in it. The NFC tag application data can be, for example, the website conduct a concert announced by the poster . In this case the NFC device can open a browser window and connect to the Internet to retrieve the web page.