First Industry Independent Certification Program Launched for NFC Contactless Standards

The NFC Forum unveiled CR12 recently the first industry independent certification program for contactless standards that enables manufacturers of contactless devices to proof conformance to newly harmonized contactless specifications.  The journey to get to the launch of the certification program was challenging but, ultimately, its success is very rewarding as the resulting improved user experience will positively impact the over two billion smartphone owners in the world.

The architect behind this leap forward in contactless technology certification is the NFC Forum’s community, especially the Technical and the Compliance Committee.  We asked the chair of the Compliance Committee Henk Dannenberg about CR12 and here’s what he had to say.

Q. Why do we need an industry independent certification program for contactless standards?

In the history of contactless technologies several core standards were developed and applied in various use cases. Over time the applications in the various use case resulted in different varieties of the core standards being implemented. This was hampering the user experience for the users of an NFC-enabled smartphone. Therefore, in the last few years the Technical Committee of the NFC Forum has lead harmonization efforts with other standards-bodies to eliminate differences in the standards and to improve the end user experience.  Several of the technology core standards were involved in this process including ISO/IEC 14443, ISO/IEC 18092, JIS X 6319-4 and ISO/IEC 15693. These efforts lead to an update of the technical specifications. The Compliance Committee has implemented the changes in the certification program and offered it to the market with the release of CR12.

Q. What benefits will CR12 bring to the industry?

The release of CR12 enables smartphone manufacturers and suppliers of other devices using contactless technologies to proof conformance to the new NFC Forum technical standards that are now harmonized with other contactless standards in the industry. NFC-enabled smartphones that conform to the new technical standard can work with all NFC consumer applications.  For the first time technology suppliers and manufacturers can certify their products with contactless services with the certification program of an industry independent standardization-body. This will lead to improved interoperability and a better user experience.

Learn more about first industry independent contactless standards certification program

 Q. How did you harmonize the specifications and develop CR12?

The NFC Forum did the following:

• The Technical Committee inventoried the variations of several standards and proposed solutions to eliminate the differences, improving interoperability and the user experience and implemented the required changes with an update of the technical specifications.
• The Compliance Committee updated our certification program to match the updated technical specifications

It was a very involved, painstaking process but now we offer an industry independent certification program that can be used to certify contactless standards compliance.

Q. How do you certify a device that supports NFC?

You can offer the device to an authorized test lab for certification test. The lab executes the tests using test tools and procedures that are defined by the NFC Forum.

Q. How much does the NFC Forum Certificate cost?

The Certification is free from the NFC Forum with a test report from an authorized test lab.

For more on CR12 and certification click here