About the technology

Near Field Communication (NFC) is a short-range wireless connectivity technology that allows two electronic devices to interact in a simple and safe way, enabling such applications to consumers as contactless transactions, accessing digital content and connecting devices with a single touch.

Contactless smart cards and RFID system are widely spread all over the world in different applications and get even more and more important. These systems are a combination of a read/write device for a smart card and a transponder. The use of NFC technology incorporates both devices, and more, in a single mobile phone, making extra cards useless.

NFC technology is supported by all leading mobile device manufacturers and is compatible with millions of contactless cards already in use worldwide. NFC also simplifies the setup of longer-range wireless technologies, such as Bluetooth and Wi-Fi. With an NFC enabled mobile device, its user can easily access services or operate device functions, i.e. different connectivity options. The user just needs to touch a tag, or share information of an object by bringing two devices close to each other. The high flexibility of NFC, but also the integration into portable devices by manufacturers like Nokia (6131 NFC, 3220 NFC shell...), could make You the leading manufacturer of NFC enabled products.

NFC applications

NFC technology is currently mainly aimed at being used with mobile phones, using Java API, which gives unlimited possibilities limited only by the imagination of consumers.
There are three main use cases for NFC:

• card emulation: the NFC device behaves like an existing contactless card

• reader mode: the NFC device is active and read a passive RFID tag, for example for interactive advertising

• P2P mode: two NFC devices are communicating together and exchanging information.

Plenty of applications are possible, such as:

• Mobile ticketing in public transport - an extension of the existing contactless infrastructure

• Mobile Payment - the device acts as a debit/ credit payment card, already incorporated in some portion by mPay in Poland

• Smart poster - the mobile phone is used to read RFID tags on outdoor billboards, transferring information about a movie, public transportation schedules, historical information, tourist information or connecting to a specific web page

• Bluetooth pairing - in the future pairing of Bluetooth 2.1 devices with NFC support will be as easy as bringing them close together and accepting the pairing. The process of activating Bluetooth on both sides, searching, waiting, pairing and authorization will be replaced by a simple "touch" of the mobile phones.

Other applications, in the future, could include:

• Electronic tickets - airline tickets, concert/event tickets, and others

• Electronic money

• Travel cards

• Identity documents

• Mobile commerce

• Electronic keys - car keys, house/office keys, hotel room keys, etc.

• NFC can be used to configure and initiate other wireless network connections such as Wi-Fi or Ultra-wideband.

In case of technical or application questions, our international team of application engineers will be pleased to support You under the following e-mail address:

marketing@microdis.net

Broad range of services offered by Microdis are available by our sales offices across Eastern Europe.

Complete information regarding Stollmann's NFC products, including various Evaluation & development kits, can be found on: www.stollmann.de.