Near Field Communication (NFC)

Near Field Communication (NFC) is a wireless technology that enables a variety of contactless and proximity-based applications, such as payments, information retrieval, mobile marketing and device pairing. It has an operating range of 10 cm or less using the 13.56MHz frequency band. There are currently three user modes defined for NFC operation: 1) Card emulation, 2) Tag reading, and 3) Peer-to-peer (P2P). These modes are based on several ISO/IEC standards, including ISO14443 A/B, ISO15693 and ISO18092. The NFC Forum is the industry group that specifies the use of these standards. It has launched a logo certification program to ensure interoperability between devices from different chipset vendors and equipment manufacturers.