New NFC Forum Specs Enable NFC Devices to Communicate With Broader Range of Devices, Tags

PRESS RELEASE:

The NFC Forum announced today the availability of three adopted and one candidate technical specifications, following approval by the Board of Directors. The specifications are available on the NFC Forum website.

Significant enhancements to these specifications include the addition of Active Communication Mode (ACM) for Peer-to-Peer Mode (P2P) communication, support of NFC-V Technology compatible to ISO/IEC 15693 and the introduction of the NFC-V based Type 5 Tag allowing NFC devices to communicate with a broader range of devices and tags.

"As global NFC adoption grows, these new specifications bring the ease and power of NFC to more applications and use cases in the Internet of Things, Transportation, Payments, Connected Vehicles markets, and beyond," said Koichi Tagawa, chairman of the NFC Forum. "I'd like to thank the NFC Forum's Working Groups and Technical Committee for their work on these important new specifications in support of product innovation and design."

Updated Specifications:
NFC Controller Interface (NCI) Technical Specification Version 2.0 defines a standard interface within an NFC device between an NFC Controller and the device's main application processor. The NCI 2.0 was published as a Candidate Specification in June 2015 and, after comments were collected from stakeholders, the adopted version of the specification is now published.

The NCI 2.0 adds:
• the support of ACM for P2P communication and NFC-V Technology, allowing NFC devices to communicate with an increased number of devices and tags
• the concept of RF Interface Extensions to optimize the data exchange for P2P and memory tag communications
• an extended Listen Mode Routing mechanism, which provides more flexibility for NFC devices with multiple secure elements. For example, one secure payment application from a bank may be installed on an embedded secure element of an NFC-enabled smartphone and another secure payment application from another bank can be installed on the (U)SIM card inserted into the same NFC-enabled smartphone. The user of this NFC-enabled smartphone is then able to select which of the two payment applications to use for the next payment transaction
• the option for NFC controllers to emulate NFC Forum tags autonomously (for example, to allow an NFC smartphone user at an entrance gate to show an NFC ticket stored on his phone even if the phone is switched off)
• a high-level RF interface intended for Internet of Things devices to support efficient communication with NFC Forum tags