NFC Forum Adds NFC Tag Certification to Certification Program

Manufacturers and Test Labs Signal Support for Certification Program

WAKEFIELD, Mass., USA – September 20, 2017 – The NFC Forum announced today the addition of Near Field Communication (NFC) tag and reader certification to its global certification program.  This means that tag/inlay, NFC reader and handset manufacturers for the first time will be able to test and verify the performance and interoperability of all the key components in the NFC eco-system.  NFC Forum Certification Program testing and certifications are available today.  Certification will help ensure that NFC tags, readers and handsets provide consistent, compelling and connected user experiences.

The NFC Forum Certification Program delivers product differentiation by shortening the adoption process, lowering adoption costs and making product implementations easier to integrate.  It will help usher in another wave of product innovation among vendors and ensure consumers that their NFC-enabled devices will function the way they want, when they want.  Watch a two-minute video about NFC and the NFC Forum.

“NFC Forum Certification demonstrates to customers, consumers and partners that a company values product quality and improving the customer experience,” said Paula Hunter, executive director, NFC Forum. “Certification also helps ensure a product embedded with NFC can work with the 36 billion IoT devices predicted to be in use by 2020 by creating a simple, easy way for businesses and consumers to be connected.  With all major smartphone manufacturers now supporting NFC technology the market for tag manufacturers and application providers is expected to explode over the next 24 months.”

Manufacturers and Test Labs Signal Support For NFC Forum Certification Program

A number of manufacturers and test labs have already signaled their support for the program by providing statements including: Active & Intelligent Packaging Industry Association, Comprion, FIME, Infineon, NXP, Smartrac and STMicroelectronics.

• Learn more about the NFC Forum Certification Program
• Read NFC Forum tag trend blog
• Find certified products
• See list of authorized labs and test tools
• Review NFC Forum Technical Specifications

 About the NFC Forum

The NFC Forum’s (https://nfc-forum.org) mission is to advance the use of Near Field Communication technology by developing specifications, ensuring interoperability among devices and services, and educating the market about NFC technology. The Forum’s global member companies are currently developing specifications for a modular NFC device architecture, and protocols for interoperable data exchange and device-independent service delivery, device discovery, and device capability. The NFC Forum’s Sponsor members include Apple Inc., Dai Nippon Printing Co. Ltd., Google, Inc., Intel, MasterCard Worldwide, NXP Semiconductors, Qualcomm, Samsung, Sony Corporation, STMicroelectronics, and Visa Inc.

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 Supporting Statements:

 AIPIA

AIPIA has been working to increase and accelerate the implementation of Active & Intelligent Packaging technologies for over 5 years. Great progress has been made, and one of the key drivers in this respect has been the rapid expansion of NFC tag capabilities, leading to more and more product applications and better consumer acceptance. The increasing number of smartphones in circulation, in addition to other NFC-enabled devices, can only mean this trend will continue. A tag certification program is a step in the right direction to bring more standardization to NFC tags and readers and will bring certainty and clarity for the stakeholders.

Eef de Ferrante
Managing Director
Active & Intelligent Packaging Industry Association

 Comprion

Worldwide, a growing number of touchpoints based on NFC tags enrich the daily life of consumers. Compliance of NFC tags is essential to ensure the highest level of interoperability of tags, smartphones, and readers, and to offer a satisfying user experience. The NFC Forum Tag Certification Program establishes tag compliance and helps tag vendors and solution providers to deliver consistent, global connectivity across all applications and environments.

Dr. Michael Jahnich
Director Contactless Test Solutions

 FIME

FIME is a trusted implementation partner ensuring the compliance of mobile devices and chip-based applications to industry standards for manufacturers, banks and authorities across the financial services, telecom, transport and identity sectors.

NFC Forum’s Certification Program is one of our major services for devices manufacturers to achieve NFC compliance and ensure the user experience, and we look forward to having this standard widely implemented by our global clients.

Stéphanie PIETRI
Head of Marketing Communications
FIME

Infineon

The NFC Forum Certification Program will help organizations to innovate and create products that offer consistent, compelling and connected user experiences across the entire NFC ecosystem of handsets, readers and tags.  The certification program will drive industry-wide interoperability with other devices ensuring that products do what customers want, when they want it.

Dr. Joerg Schmidt
Business Development Manager for NFC, Transportation and Standardization
Infineon

 NXP

As inventor of NFC and world leader in NFC reader and tagging ICs, NXP has been a key driver of the tag certification program of the NFC Forum. It establishes true global interoperability between NFC tags and all mobile OS platforms while offering co-habitation in the massive existing ISO standardized contactless infrastructure. The availability of NFC Forum certified tags from NXP will contribute to making NFC a ubiquitous connectivity technology for the IoT of everyday and luxury smart products, smart homes, smart cities and secure connected vehicles. We are highly excited to see the NFC Forum fully supporting the certification of our industry broadest portfolio of ISO 14443A and ISO 15693 NFC tagging ICs.

Alexander Rensink
Business Segment Manager Smart Products
NXP

 Smartrac

NFC technology is a key element to embed intelligence into products and make them “IoT-Ready”.  Hence, SMARTRAC fully supports the NFC Forum Certification Program to foster NFC as a simple, reliable and user-friendly way for consumers and businesses to enable and enhance the Internet of Things.

Karin Fabri
SVP Marketing & Communications
Smartrac

STMicroelectronics

This comprehensive certification program is a key milestone to NFC technology adoption that brings big benefits to users, by ensuring a consistent user experience, and suppliers like ST, by enabling product differentiation, carefree product introduction in the NFC ecosystem, and interoperability. As a sponsor member of the NFC Forum and an early supporter of the certification program, ST has moved aggressively, with several ST25 products in the certification process in the test labs.

Sylvain Fidelis
Technical Marketing Manager
STMicroelectronics