February 8, 2011
Open NFC
ReadWriteWeb has a post about Open NFC from a semiconductor solutions provider named Inside Secure. Previously to utilize the NFC components of Gingerbread developers had use chips from NXP Semiconducters.
Philippe Martineau Executive Vice President NFC Business Line
From the press release: “Open NFC relies on a separate, very thin and easily adaptable hardware abstraction software layer, which accounts for a very small percentage of the total stack code, meaning that the Open NFC software stack can be easily leveraged for different NFC chip hardware,” said Philippe Martineau, executive vice president of the NFC business line for INSIDE Secure. “This has tremendous cost, time-to-market and flexibility advantages for NFC chip vendors, smartphone manufacturers and software developers who would otherwise have to contend with rewriting the hardware-specific elements of the Gingerbread NFC protocol stack.”
RRW breaks it down: “What he means is that, without something like Open NFC, any smartphone manufacturer that wanted to build phones using chips from another company besides NXP would have had to rewrite a substantial portion of the code found in the Android OS to allow the stack to work with a different NFC controller or combo connectivity chip.”
NXP responds via Dutch site WebWERELD (Google translate): “NXP comes with the following statement: “NXP is committed to the open source development of protocol stacks and APIs NFC. We work with partners across the ecosystem including Google, mobile manufacturers, operators, the development of NFC devices and applications support.
The NFClib NXP has a classic layered structure, with a Hardware Abstraction Layer (HAL). The NXP NFClib Has A classic layered structure, with a Hardware Abstraction Layer (HAL). This is only a fraction of the entire software stack, as is usual in such implementations. This is only a fraction of the Entire software stack, as is usual in Such implementations. NXP is the only one that the entire stack of open source has delivered, including the HAL. NXP is the only one thats the Entire HAS delivered stack of open source, include the HAL. “
Open NFC overview
From the Inside Secure Open NFC product page:
“Open NFC supports several levels of functionality:
- Low-level RF control
- NFC Forum-specified tag handling
- Peer-to-peer communications
- Bluetooth and Wi-Fi pairing
- Interactions with single-wire protocol SIMs and other secure elements
- Compatibility with smart cards and RFID tags based on Felica, Mifare, and ISO 14443 standards
Open NFC offers a consistent API across all NFC hardware, which simplifies and accelerates development. It is available for WinCE 6.0 (compatible with Windows™ Mobile 7), Linux 2.6, MeeGo, and Android platforms.”
More information is available at the Open NGC project site.
Open NFC architecture
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