Difference Between RFID and NFC

Product technical background

NFC is the abbreviation of Near Field Communication, which is short-range wireless communication technology. Originally developed by Philips and Sony, NFC is a contactless identification and interconnect technology for close-range wireless communication between mobile devices, consumer electronics, PCs and smart control tools. NFC provides a simple, touch-enabled solution that allows consumers to easily and intuitively exchange information and access content and services. At home and abroad, the Swedish hotel has actually applied the corresponding NFC door locks by Assa Abloy, mainly using different identification codes of NFC mobile phones as the Mac ID and the encryption mechanism of the corresponding program to open the door lock. In terms of RFID electronic locks for NFC technology, the domestic market is still in a technical gap. At last year’s Cedia EXPO, Yale Lock & Hardware exhibited an NFC-enabled home door lock system and hoped to enter the NFC international market smoothly. Through this system, you will be able to easily open the electric door lock designed by Yale by simply bringing your smartphone closer to the door lock. Of course, you must have the right to unlock the lock. The novel door lock system demonstrated at this year’s CEDIA exhibition also supports Zigbee and Z-Wave specifications for home automation communication technology, as well as Assa Abloy (APP software) mobile key software, allowing users to easily load digital keys in action On the device. Based on the technical team’s experience in research and development of RFID digital and low-level application design, the company has always adopted NFC as the technology-oriented, and it is convenient to carry out in-depth research and development in hardware and software. The following is a brief introduction of our self-developed NFC-based RFID access control read head.

The RFID access control read head based on NFC technology adopts a modular design to realize communication between the NFC mobile phone and the access control read head. The read head is equipped with a standard Wiegand26 interface and is compatible with traditional contactless read-read head functions. Compared with traditional access control readers, which can only be used as a card reader to read contactless cards, NFC-based RFID access control readers can communicate directly with NFC-compliant devices such as mobile phones, contactless cards, card readers, etc. Greatly expand the scalability of the system. After the board is upgraded and optimized, it can have data storage, forwarding function, and record the signature of different NFC devices, store and authorize. When the NFC device enters the effective field, the door lock is opened.

1. Product Features

Based on NFC technology, it is compatible with ISO14443A standard and can communicate with fast-developing NFC-compliant devices such as smartphones, tablets, etc.

Adopt near-field communication to avoid security problems such as far-field communication technologies such as WIFI, Bluetooth, Zigbee, and other communication technology signals may be intercepted and cracked, which is very suitable for various applications with strict privacy requirements.

Standard Wiegand26 interface, compatible with various access control panels

Standard modular design, small size, low cost, low power consumption

2. Technical parameters

NFC Introduction

NFC near-field communication technology is evolved from the integration of contactless radio frequency identification (RFID) and interoperability technologies. It combines inductive readers, inductive cards and point-to-point functions on a single chip to be compatible over short distances. The device performs identification and data exchange. The working frequency is 13.56MHz, but users who use this mobile payment solution must replace the special mobile phone. This technology is currently widely used in Japan and South Korea. Mobile phone users can travel all over the country with their mobile phones equipped with payment functions: their mobile phones can be used as airport check-in verification, building access keys, traffic card, credit card, payment card, etc.\

NFC Technology

The technology evolved from contactless radio frequency identification (RFID), developed by Philips Semiconductors (now NXP Semiconductors), Nokia and Sony, based on RFID and interconnect technology. Near field communication is a short-range, high-frequency radio technology that operates at a distance of 20 cm at a frequency of 13.56 MHz. The transmission speed is 106 Kbit/s, 212 Kbit/s or 424 Kbit/s. Near field communication has passed the ISO/IEC IS 18092 international standard, the EMCA-340 standard and the ETSI TS 102 190 standard. NFC uses both active and passive read modes.

The NFC chip has mutual communication functions and computing power. It also contains encryption logic in the Felica standard. The MIFARE later standard also adds an encryption/decryption module (SAM).

The NFC standard is compatible with Sony’s FeliCaTM standard, as well as ISO 14443 A, B, which uses Philips’ MIFARE standard. It is abbreviated as TypeA, TypeB, and TypeF in the industry, where A and B are Mifare standards and F is Felica standard.

In order to promote the development and popularization of NFC, the industry has created a non-profit standard organization, the NFC Forum, to promote the implementation and standardization of NFC technology and ensure the cooperation between equipment and services. The NFC Forum has hundreds of members around the world, including: NOKIA, SONY, Philips, LG, Motorola, NXP, NEC, Samsung, Atoam, Intel, among which Chinese members have Meizu, BBK vivo, OPPO, Xiaomi, China Mobile, Huawei, ZTE, Shanghai Tongyao, and Taiwan Zhenglong and other companies.

NFC Operating mode

Card emulation: This mode is actually equivalent to an IC card using RFID technology. Can replace a large number of IC cards (including credit cards) occasions shopping malls card, bus card, access control, tickets, tickets and so on. In this way, there is a great advantage that the card is powered by the RF field of the contactless reader, even if the host device (such as a mobile phone) is dead.

P2P mode: This mode is similar to infrared. It can be used for data exchange, but the transmission distance is short, the transmission creation speed is faster, the transmission speed is faster, and the power consumption is lower (Bluetooth is similar). Linking two NFC-enabled devices enables point-to-point data transfer, such as downloading music, exchanging pictures, or synchronizing device address books. Therefore, through NFC, data or services can be exchanged between multiple devices such as digital cameras, PDAs, computers, and mobile phones.

NFC Technical characteristics

Like RFID, NFC information is also transmitted by electromagnetic induction coupling of the radio frequency portion of the spectrum, but there is still a big difference between the two. First, NFC is a wireless connection technology that provides easy, secure, and fast communication with a smaller transmission range than RFID. Second, NFC is compatible with existing contactless smart card technologies and has become the official standard supported by more and more major vendors. Once again, NFC is a close-range connection protocol that provides easy, secure, fast, and automatic communication between devices. Compared to other connections in the wireless world, NFC is a close-range, private communication method.

NFC, infrared, and Bluetooth are both non-contact transmission methods. They have different technical characteristics and can be used for various purposes. The technology itself has no advantages and disadvantages.

The NFC mobile phone has a built-in NFC chip, which increases the bidirectional transmission of data than the RFID used only as a tag. This advancement makes it more suitable for electronic money payment; especially RFID can not achieve, mutual authentication and dynamic encryption and A one-time key (OTP) can be implemented on NFC. NFC technology supports a variety of applications, including mobile payments and transactions, peer-to-peer communications, and mobile information access. With NFC phones, people can connect to the entertainment services and transactions they want, from any location, at any time, through any device, to complete payments, get poster information, and more. The NFC device can be used as a contactless smart card, a smart card reader/writer terminal, and a device-to-device data transmission link. The application can be mainly divided into the following four basic types: for payment and ticket purchase, for electronic ticket, Used for smart media and for exchanging and transmitting data.

NFC active communication mode

 In passive mode, a device that initiates NFC communication, also known as an NFC originating device (master device), provides an RF-field throughout the communication process. It can select one of 106kbps, 212kbps or 424kbps to send data to another device. The other device, called the NFC target device (slave device), does not have to generate a radio frequency field, but uses load modulation technology to transmit data back to the initiating device at the same speed. This communication mechanism is compatible with non-contact smart cards based on ISO14443A, MIFARE and FeliCa. Therefore, in passive mode, NFC-initiated devices can detect and connect contactless smart cards or NFC target devices with the same connection and initialization process.

3.NFC and RFID difference

First, NFC integrates contactless readers, contactless cards, and peer-to-peer functions into a single chip, and RFID must consist of readers and tags. RFID can only read and judge information, while NFC technology emphasizes information interaction. Popularly speaking, NFC is an evolved version of RFID, and both parties can exchange information at close range. The NFC mobile phone has a built-in NFC chip, which is part of the RFID module and can be used as an RFID passive tag for payment. It can also be used as an RFID reader for data exchange and collection, and also for data communication between NFC phones. Second, the NFC transmission range is smaller than that of RFID. The transmission range of RFID can reach several meters or even tens of meters. However, because NFC adopts a unique signal attenuation technology, NFC has a close distance, high bandwidth and low energy consumption compared with RFID. Features. Third, the application direction is different. NFC is more about communicating with consumer electronic devices, and active RFID is better at long-distance identification. With the popularity of the Internet, mobile phones as the most direct intelligent terminal of the Internet will inevitably lead to a technological revolution. As with the previous Bluetooth, USB, GPS and other standard, NFC will become the most important standard for mobile phones in the future, through NFC. Technology, mobile payment, movie watching, and subway rides will play a bigger role in our daily lives.

Traditional comparison

Both NFC and Bluetooth are short-range communication technologies and are integrated into mobile phones. But NFC does not require complicated setup procedures. NFC also simplifies Bluetooth connectivity.

The reason that NFC is slightly better than Bluetooth is that the setup procedure is shorter, but it cannot achieve the speed of Bluetooth Low Energy. In the process of device identification where two NFC devices are connected to each other, the use of NFC instead of manual settings can greatly speed up the creation of connections: less than one tenth of a second. The maximum data transfer capacity of NFC is 424 kbit/s, which is much smaller than Bluetooth V2.1 (2.1 Mbit/s). Although NFC does not match Bluetooth (less than 20 cm) in transmission speed and distance, it can reduce unnecessary interference. This makes NFC especially useful when equipment is dense and transmission becomes difficult. Compared to Bluetooth, NFC is compatible with existing passive RFID (13.56 MHz ISO/IEC 18000-3) facilities. NFC has lower energy requirements and is similar to the Bluetooth V4.0 low power protocol. When NFC works on an unpowered device (such as a shutdown phone, contactless smart credit card, or smart poster), NFC’s energy consumption is less than low-power Bluetooth V4.0. For mobile phones or mobile consumer electronics, NFC is more convenient to use. NFC’s short-range communication characteristics are its advantages. Because of low power consumption and only one machine link at a time, it has high confidentiality and security. NFC is good for avoiding misappropriation when credit card transactions. The goal of NFC is not to replace other wireless technologies such as Bluetooth, but to complement each other in different occasions and in different fields.