What’s new in the NFC Forum Test Release 13.2?

Q&A with Compliance Committee leaders on the motivation and benefits of the new certification advances

Making sure millions of NFC products work flawlessly with one another is the goal of the NFC Forum Certification Program. As NFC Forum launches its latest evolution – Test Release 13.2 – we speak with the Certification Committee Chair, Arnaud Schreiner of NXP Semiconductors, and Vice Chair, Jose Mangione of STMicroelectronics, to understand what the additions are and the benefits that they’ll bring to product designers globally.

As a quick introduction, why does NFC Forum have a testing program and how does it operate?

Arnaud Schreiner (AS): The NFC Forum Certification Program confirms that devices are ‘Certified Compliant’ with NFC Forum Specifications. Conformance to the specifications provides consistency of behavior across the NFC ecosystem and sets the foundation for interoperability across the growing diversity of markets and use cases.

To achieve this, we create ‘Test Releases’ (TR) included in ‘Certification Release’ (CR) that sets the test definition to enable test tools to be developed and be used by NFC Forum authorized Test laboratories (ATL) to undertake the required tests. These verify that a product functions in accordance with NFC Forum Specification requirements. Today we are on our 13^th release.

What does the NFC Forum TR certify?

Jose Mangione (JM): The latest update – Test Release 13.2 – is focused on communication protocol at the level of NFC Data Exchange Format (NDEF) message exchange to transport use cases specific information between NFC devices. Establishing a reliable connection is key to ensuring NFC is interoperable and works seamlessly.

What is new in release TR 13.2?

AS: The most important addition is the ease of testing ‘end-products’. The new approach allows for release candidate software to be evaluated rather than engineering software designed exclusively for testing. This has the potential to significantly shorten NFC Forum enabled product time to market.

JM: To achieve this, the Compliance Committee has worked to streamline its testing requirements so that the test program can adapt what it tests depending on how the product is to be used and in which use case. This additional approach has reduced the number of tests needed without impacting the testing coverage or changing the functionality being evaluated.

What are the business benefits of this approach?

JM: The latest updates are focused on making the certification process simpler and more affordable for businesses by minimizing the number of software or product alterations required. This also makes our testing more reliable. Why? Because what we are testing is the true reality of how the product will function.

What use cases / markets will benefit?

JM: It’s important to highlight that businesses have the option to either test the release candidate software or continue to test the engineering software depending on their requirements. For those wanting to access the new capabilities, they are applicable to all use cases and markets using NDEF.

Why were the latest testing advances important to NFC Forum?

AS: The Compliance Committee is motivated to constantly review and evolve the TRs to meet future business and technical requirements. As more and more industries incorporate contactless as a core part of their product design, interoperability is key to maintain integrity and trust in the technology. We must therefore ensure that testing is affordable, efficient and simple, to allow our community to deliver the optimal balance of cost versus quality for ensuring a good, reliable contactless user experience.

Crucially, testing must also be accessible. This is why our testing program is open to all and we continually work to remove barriers.

If there are other advances our members would like to see, we ask that they get in touch with the committee.

The NFC Certification Program is incorporated into the certification activity of other bodies. What does this new update mean for other industry partners?

JM: As the use of NFC becomes increasingly mainstream in a range of industries and use cases, we are witnessing growing interest in our testing program from other standards bodies looking to build or incorporate NFC Forum testing elements. It is widely recognized that this is crucial to deliver product reliability.

To support this our testing program is adaptive and we ensure that any advances made don’t affect our partners testing programs. For TR 13.2, the updates are exclusive to NDEF application test cases.

If there are other parties keen to learn more about our test program and how it can support different markets, please get in touch.

How can you access the latest test release?

JM: All relevant documents are live on the website. Many NFC Forum laboratories and test tool providers are ready to support the new offering. Visit our certification pages for more details.

And, finally, what’s next for the Compliance Committee?

AS: The group is quite busy. In addition to looking at how we support NFC Forum’s roadmap ambitions, including increasing operating volumes, we are continually working with other bodies to integrate our CR into their certification programs. This is across a number of markets, including work with the Car Connectivity Consortium, Universal Stylus Initiative, Wireless Power Consortium (WPC) and others with announcements forthcoming.

Expect more updates in the coming months.

To learn more visit our certification webpages.