Rating:Its open NFC stack should help speed up NFC app development
In a concerted effort to build the NFC ecosystem, INSIDE Secure has announced that it is making its open NFC protocol stack available for the latest Android release – v 4.0 which is better known as Ice Cream Sandwich. This stack is aimed at connectivity chip vendors, smartphone and tablet manufacturers as well as software developers. The objective is to make developing for open NFC as hardware independent as possible, although obviously it works with INSIDE Secure’s own silicon products. The stack can be downloaded for free from the open Near Field Communication (NFC) website here.The company claims there is only one tiny part of this stack the Hardware Abstraction Layer (HAL) which is chip product specific but that this portion can be easily tailored for other specific hardware.
Plus, INSIDE Secure’s own HAL for its MicroRead and SecuRead NFC chip platforms is also free and available for download.
The stack supports all the latest Android NFC features, including Android Beam and Wi-fi direct pairing connection.
In addition to these new Android services, open NFC provides access to unique features such as card emulation and access to multiple secure elements.
The open NFC stack supports several levels of functionality, from low-level RF control to high-level NFC forum tag handling.
In addition it handles peer-to-peer communications as well as Bluetooth and Wi-fi pairing along with interactions with single-wire protocol SIMs.
It is compatibility with smartcards and RFID tags based on the established Felica, Mifare and ISO 14443 standards.
Charles Walton, COO with INSIDE Secure, commented, “INSIDE is offering the Android community a complete, open-source NFC stack solution that can be used to greatly speed development and time to market, requiring only that the small HAL portion be tailored for specific hardware.”
The company claims open NFC has already been deployed in millions of smartphones, and anticipates this latest version of open NFC will be incorporated into multiple Android-based smartphones and tablets that will ship in 2012.
