Mass Market Adoption of NFC Tag Applications enabled by NXP

For the first time, these features address customer demand for multi-application support, fast serialization, smaller footprints and simple product authentication capabilities, thus enabling mass deployment in publishing, retail, advertising, consumer electronics, gaming and smartphone applications.

NTAG21x builds on the success of NXP’s industry-leading NFC expertise and its NTAG203 family, NXP’s first generation of NFC tag IC specifically designed for optimized performance and easy integration. As the NFC market develops rapidly, driven by nine out of ten major mobile device manufacturers and most network operators, application providers recognize the significant added value of NFC services and content to enable smarter mobile living. Examples include the Lexus advertisement in Wired magazine, Casino Group’s NFC enabled supermarkets and HP’s Touch to Pair Mouse.

The NTAG product family is an important base for SMARTRAC’s NFC tag offering. The innovative features of the new NTAG21x, such as UID mirroring, specific NFC counter, and basic security with password based authentication, will generate additional momentum in major non-payment NFC applications, said Ivan Plajh, head of business line mobile and smart media at SMARTRAC.

As mobile usage continues to escalate exponentially, and NFC phones are deployed at a rapid pace across the globe, big-brand marketers are developing programs with enhanced NFC user experiences across product, retail, and media channels. Whether deploying campaigns regionally or globally, brands are counting on NFC-enabled media out in the field to accurately measure and track these cutting-edge solutions. The integration of NXP’s new NTAG21x products into the thinaire NFC Enterprise platform, will enable us to further diversify our services and accelerate deployment,” commented Mark Goodstadt, CEO of thinaire.

“2012 has been characterized by important NTAG-based NFC application roll-outs, which resonated beyond the traditional NFC ecosystem and allowed new customers to benefit from and use the technology,” said Rutger Vrijen, VP and general manager, tags and labels product line, business unit identification, NXP Semiconductors. “Each industry has its own requirements, and customers have realized that a successful service deployment, full interoperability and best-in-class user experience can only be achieved by working with NFC specialists such as NXP and our partners to optimize the solution. Thanks to the NTAG21x products, we can provide the right choice for any kind of NFC tag application.”

The NTAG21x family is comprised of four different products, defined around specific application categories. NTAG210, NTAG213, NTAG215 and NTAG216 will offer respectively 48, 144, 504 and 888 bytes of user memory, corresponding to the maximum message size that can be stored.

New features include:

-32-bit password authentication, which offers a simple protection mechanism for data stored into the tag
-UID ASCII mirror, which automatically maps the IC unique serial number to a stored NDEF message, thus greatly simplifying tag serialization e.g. in smart poster applications
-24-bit NFC counter and NFC counter ASCII mirror, which measures the number of interactions occurred between NFC devices and the tag, and appends it to a stored NDEF message, e.g. to improve usage analytics in smart advertisement or location based services
-Integrated originality signature, which enables the detection of unauthorized NTAG copies, thus providing a simple but powerful product authentication method
-A new Fast Read command, which speeds up tag registration in inline processes such as print media or product label manufacturing
-A special variant of the NTAG216, called NTAG216F, which additionally offers a configurable Field Detection pin and a Sleep mode, features particularly required in electronics pairing applications.

All products are fully NFC Forum Type 2 Tag compliant, and share the same optimized RF sensitivity, making them the performance benchmark in their category. The NTAG21x family is available now in sample quantities through selected NXP partners including SMARTRAC, Identive, and LSIS. There are multiple standard-sized tags, as well as the ability to have custom versions created. On request, NXP’s partners can also facilitate the printing and programming of the tags for customers and end users.