In the post-epidemic era, NFC is on the rise again

Nowadays, with the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, contactless payment has become more and more popular. In addition, NFC plays a vital role in many fields including wearables, anti-counterfeiting verification, logistics, etc. ABI Research predicts that more than 15 billion NFC-enabled devices and items/products will be shipped between 2022 and 2026.

Recently, three NFC suppliers including Infineon, ST and NXP have successively taken a series of measures to strengthen their layout in the NFC market.

Supplemental patent acquisition

Infineon Technologies has completed the acquisition of the NFC patent portfolio of France Brevets and Verimatrix. Infineon is now the sole owner of the patent portfolio, which includes nearly 300 patents from different countries. All patents are related to NFC technology: either technologies embedded in integrated circuits (ICs), such as active load modulation (ALM), or technologies that enhance NFC usability at the user level. The patent portfolio was previously held by France Brevets. It is now fully integrated into Infineon's patent management.

“With this acquisition, Infineon further strengthens its IP and technology portfolio, especially in the IoT security and connectivity markets where we are leading,” said Thomas Rosteck, President of Infineon’s Connected Security Systems division. “The expansion of our own patent portfolio underscores the company’s excellent positioning and its continued investment in technologies across multiple verticals. The acquired patents will not only increase our visibility in connectivity and IoT, but are another step towards IP leadership in device authentication.”

The recently granted patent portfolio enables easy and rapid development in some of the most challenging environments, enabling innovative customer solutions. Potential applications include secure authentication and transactions in the Internet of Things and wearable devices such as wristbands, rings, watches and glasses.

Manufacturers of NFC devices are often faced with specific geometries and materials. In addition, limiting form factors and security implementations are lengthening design cycles. For example, NFC integration in wearable devices often requires small loop antennas and specific structures. This results in physical boundaries for antenna size that are consistent with the standards for traditional passive load modulation. ALM, one of the technical aspects covered by the NFC patent portfolio, can help overcome space limitations.

New products emerge in endlessly

NXP

NXP recently announced the launch of the NTAG 22x DNA series, combining authenticated security with innovative tamper status detection mechanisms and battery-free sensing to measure changes in environmental conditions such as humidity, liquid fill level or pressure. This enables product developers to quickly, easily and sustainably combine secure authentication with product open status detection or status monitoring to help maintain a secure supply chain and product integrity.

Why it matters: With the new NTAG 22x DNA family, physical products can be easily authenticated using the IC’s Secure Unique NFC (SUN) authentication messaging feature, enabling manufacturers to cost-effectively combat counterfeiting and supply chain fraud. The multifunctional NTAG 22x DNA Status Detect IC device’s electronic tamper status detection capability enables manufacturers or product users to verify that a product has not been opened without authorization. Additionally, by measuring capacitance changes in an item’s environmental conditions, such as humidity, pressure, or liquid level, a simple tag readout can also be used to ensure product shelf life or capture digital sensor data for healthcare, retail, or industrial applications.

“This new range of secure, certified NFC sensing solutions supports a range of consumer, retail and industrial IoT applications and furthers digitalization,” said Philippe Dubois, vice president and general manager of Secure Edge Identification at NXP. “The NTAG 22x DNA IC introduces a new level of presence awareness, turning the tag into a simple battery-free sensing device to detect when a physical product is opened for the first time, or when certain environmental conditions change. This helps manufacturers protect product integrity while adding a level of intelligence to ensure product quality or correct handling.”

"We are proud to introduce our innovation of embedded NFC security solution for smart closures, combining NXP's capacitive Status Detect technology with our patented irreversible mechanical tamper evidence. As a result, we can provide strong anti-counterfeiting protection to our global alcohol customers without losing sight of the design," said Piero Cavigliasso, Group Innovation and Technology Director of Guala Closures Group. "Ensuring product safety is a top priority for our customers, especially since it is estimated that 25% of alcohol consumed worldwide is counterfeit or illegal. This solution enables our customers to fight counterfeiting in a reliable and effective way."

NXP NTAG 22x DNA key features:

Certified security: The NTAG 22x DNA series is Common Criteria EAL3+ certified and features a strong cryptographically secure authentication message that changes dynamically with each NFC phone touch, making the touch unclonable, without the need for a user application.

Dual-mode tamper detection: NTAG 22x DNA Status Detect also includes configurable conductive or capacitive tamper detection, where the once-opened state is irreversibly stored and protected in the IC memory, without the need for a dedicated application. While resistive mode is well suited for tamper-evident labels and seals affixed to a product or its packaging, capacitive mode is better suited for integrating labels into physical products and is also more difficult to recreate.

Condition Monitoring: The Status Detect IC can also be used as a passive sensing device to detect environmental changes that affect capacitance values ​​and communicate this through a mobile or cloud-based application. This allows new applications for trusted IoT devices such as plasters that can detect moisture levels for smart wound care, fill level sensing for smart injection dosing devices, and refill reminders for consumer products based on package fill level and leak detection.

Additional details:

NFC Forum Type 2 Tag is ISO/IEC 14443-A compliant and Common Criteria EAL3+ certified

7-byte unique identifier

Secure Unique NFC (SUN) message authentication using AES-128 keys

I2C user memory capacity 144 bytes or 208 bytes

Protect user memory with a 32-bit password or mutual authentication using AES-128 keys

The StatusDetect appliance also includes:

Conductive or capacitive tamper status detection mechanism

Capacitive sensing interface for measuring specific environmental conditions

Capacitive measurement with up to 64 granularity steps

The UID, NFC counter and status values ​​are automatically mirrored into the IC's user memory as part of the NFC-NDEF message and protected with the SUN message code

The ICs are available in sawn and bumped wafer form (120 µm and 75 µm) with an internal tuning capacitor of 50 pF.

Infineon Technologies

Infineon Technologies recently launched its new SECORA™ Pay payment solution portfolio.

This plug-and-play solution is based on Infineon's extensive expertise in contactless payment technology and Infineon's SOLID FLASH chip platform, which can meet the needs of new payment card and device solutions while meeting the latest requirements. The new products include new applications and customized value-added products for standard payment cards (SECORA Pay S) and multi-purpose cards (SECORA Pay X), as well as components for existing solutions that can transform any device into a payment device (SECORA Pay W). In addition, this product portfolio supports global (Visa, MasterCard, Discover and American Express) and local applications. It has excellent performance in contactless and personalization, and can perform MasterCard contactless transactions in 200 ms.

The SECORA Pay solution in 40 nm technology is backward compatible with existing SECORA Pay products in terms of card production, such as antenna design, personalization and product authentication. The series uses a security controller including authentication software integrated in the coil-on-module (CoM) chip module and the inlay is tuned to achieve seamless card production. Infineon combines inductive coupling technology with inlaid card antennas, so that the CoM system provides the highest flexibility in card design. Therefore, this product is very consistent with future market trends, such as environmentally friendly cards made of recycled ocean plastics or wood or high-performance dual-interface metal, LED cards.

The SECORA Pay solution has extremely low consumables and can effectively support the mass production of dual-interface cards, making contactless payment itself a resource-saving technology. In addition, the solution also provides new value-added services based on the SECORA Pay NFC tag function to realize more use cases such as card activation.

SECORA Pay W, which has completed SPA2.1 pre-certification, is an extremely small antenna on a 35 mm film tape that meets the growing demand for payment accessories and new payment form factors. The turnkey solution combines payment and tokenization services provided by partners to easily integrate payment functions into end-user applications, providing convenient contactless payment capabilities for wristbands, key rings or other forms of wearable devices.

STMicroelectronics

STMicroelectronics’ ST25TN512 and ST25TN01K NFC Forum Type 2 tag ICs bring higher cost-performance to applications such as merchant-consumer interaction, product information sharing, and brand protection.

The ST25TN512/01K NFC tag IC is also suitable for smart cities and access control management, supporting multiple user protection and privacy mechanisms, including a 7-bit unique chip identification code, TruST25™ digital signature, NFC Forum T2T block-level permanent write protection, and a configurable kill mode to permanently shut down the tag.