NXP launches portfolio of NFC products for automotive

1 November 2014

NXP Semiconductors N.V., co-inventor (with Sony) and leading supplier of near field communication (NFC), is launching a complete portfolio of automotive-qualified NFC products, enabling drivers and passengers to connect securely to the quickly growing NFC ecosystem. The new product line-up ranges from NFC tags and transceivers to the high-end NFC controller, the NCF3340.

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NCF3340 is the first automotive-qualified NFC Controller Interface (NCI)-based NFC controller. Applying NCI, a specification created by the NFC Forum, the NCF3340 provides interoperability with other NFC components to save development time and ultimately allow car OEMs to bring their NFC-enabled applications to market faster. NCF3340 is optimized for high sensitivity and low power consumption. It supports all three operation modes: Read/Write, Peer-to-Peer, and Card Emulation.

The automotive NFC market is rapidly emerging, driven by services such as car sharing, corporate fleet management, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi pairing, and the demand for personalization inside the car. Further use cases, such as car access and engine start via NFC-enabled smartphones in addition to traditional car keys, are also in development.

Automotive NFC can connect vehicles and car keys to portable devices and infrastructure, opening up the possibility for a broad range of connectivity innovations—e.g., payment services or connected displays.

ABI research recently predicted that there will be 418 million NFC smartphones shipped into the market this year, which is expected to increase to 1.5 billion by 2019. As a result, auto OEMs are strongly pushing to integrate the car into connected ecosystems. Our suite of market leading NFC products is an enabler of that vision and confirms NXP’s technology leadership for the securely connected car.

The NFC product family—which also includes tags and register programmable transceivers— means auto manufacturers can not only provide immediate benefits to end users, but can also support future innovations. The NCF3340 Flagship NFC Controller is easy to integrate by configuration and control through high level NFC Software (NCI), enabling faster time to market. Application specific software support provided by external partners completes the comprehensive automotive NFC offering.