Near Field Communication (NFC)

Now a days companies are launching NFC enabled devices. So one would wonder, what is NFC? This article can help you to understand it.

NFC is a short range wireless communication technology that allows communi-cations between devices that are touched or are momentarily held close together.

It can be embedded within devices such as mobile phones or PDAs(Personal Digital Assistant) or NFC stations such as ticket barriers or cash registers.

Near Field Communication is an open platform technology, developed by Philips and Sony.

Applications:

• Ticketing.
  
  One can buy tickets such as movie tickets, air tickets, concert passes etc with the help of NFC enabled devices. Or you can travel without hard copy of tickets.
  
  
• Payments.
  
  One can pay bills with the help of it. You can use your mobile phone as your credit card. No need to carry credit cards.
  
  
• Electronic Keys.
  
  It can be blessing for those who tend to forget keys here and there. The person just have to remember his mobile phone as it can be used to open the door of car or door of home/office. NFC enabled devices can be used as electronic keys.
  
  
• Transfer of Content.
  
  Imagine you went somewhere on a trip and you took lots of pictures with your PDA with a built-in camera and you want to show them to your friends on a big screen TV. So NFC enabled device can do it easily by putting it near the TV.
  
  
• Identification.
  
  NFC makes it possible to use mobile phones instead of identity. No need to carry ID card.
  
  
• Mobile Business.
  
  It can implement new terms like mTickets, mShopping etc.
  
  
• Virtual Wallet.
  
  It can be a persons Virtual Wallet in a mobile phone.
  

Technical Aspects.


NFC is based on Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology, which is compatible with most of the contactless technology. NFC is an open platform technology and was approved as an ISO/IEC global standard in December 2003.

NFC operates in the standard, globally available 13.56MHz frequency band. This means that no restrictions are applied and no licenses are required for the use of NFC devices in this RF band.

It is generally operated in 10 cm/ 4 inch range although it is designed for 20cm range.

As it is using a single RF band, the communication is half-duplex. The devices implement the “listen before talk” policy.

It has two mode of transmission. Which are Active and Passive. In the Active mode of communication both devices generate their own RF field to carry the data. But in the Passive mode of communication only one device generates the RF field while the other device uses load modulation to transfer the data. Passive mode is generally used in battery powered devices.

It uses ASK as the modulation technique.

It is described by NFCIP-1 (Near Field Communication Interface and Protocol 1)

Possible supported data transfer rates are 106, 212 and 424 kbps and there is potential for higher data rates.


Comparison with Bluetooth and Infrared.

NFC provides faster connection than these. The problem with infrared is the fact that a direct line of sight is required, which reacts sensitively to external influences such as light and reflecting objects. The significant advantage over Bluetooth is the shorter set-up time. NFC requires 0.1s to establish a connection while Bluetooth requires 6s to establish a connection. With less than 10 cm, NFC has the shortest range. This provides a degree of security and makes NFC suitable for crowded areas. The data transfer rate of NFC (424 kbps) is slower than Bluetooth (721 kbps), but faster than infrared (115 kbps).


Advantages

• Ease of use.
  
  Because NFC only requires that two devices touch in order to communicate, NFC can simplify many tasks.
  
  
• Security.
  
  NFC requires a user to actively wave or hold their mobile device against another device or NFC station to activate a service or to share information. In so doing, the technology requires the user to make a positive action to confirm the transaction or exchange. In addition it is possible to build multiple levels of security into an NFC enabled device.
  
  
• Infrastructure.
  
  NFC is compatible with the current contactless infrastructure. There is no need to build 'special zone' to work with NFC.
  
  
• Compatibility.
  
  It serves high compatibility with the existing electronic system.
  
  
• Variety of use.
  
  NFC can be used for a number of tasks, from payment for goods to ticketing and from pairing devices to sharing information or discovering new services.