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Would You Be Interested in RoadTesting an MCU with Integrated NFC

rscasny

Near Field Communication is growing in popularity. It's being used for more than payment processing; and it's even popping up in some of our design challengers' builds (e.g., The Cooker Connector by ). For the most part on the element14 community, projects that have included NFC have used an add-on expansion board or shield. But today I was sent some information on an MCU that integrates NFC.

 

It's produced by NXP, and called the LPC8N04 microcontroller.They consider it an entry-level connectivity solution for embedded applications with integrated NFC connectivity. It contains multiple features, including several power-down modes and a selectable CPU frequency of up to 8 MHz for ultra-low power consumption. The peripheral complement includes 32 kB of flash memory, 8 kB of SRAM, 4 kB of EEPROM, one I2C, one SPI/SSP, and up to 12 general purpose I/O pins. Your can read more about it by clicking here.image

 

NXP also says that it enables developers to quickly implement broad-based solutions that leverage system diagnostics or environmental conditions for a smarter tagging experience. With the added benefit of flexible communication modes, you'd have the ability to push data to an LPC8N04 MCU-based edge-node, for example, in device provisioning, configuration or customization. 

 

I think it has interesting possibilities for Board Games, Healthcare Wearables, Robotics, Industrial Uses and, of course, Secure Payments.

 

What do you think?

 

Would you be interested in roadtesting this product? What would you like to test or build?

 

 

  • NFC and Smart Tags could be used in many applications.  I'm seeing an increase use of these for inventory tracking, SmartCAT comes to mind, and I believe Grocery and Department stores are looking at these for item identification on the shelf where a customer will only have to scan (or rather tag) an item they place in their cart so at check out only the scanner is needed to pay for the items; no unloading them on to the nasty conveyor belt at the check out.  In Robotics, these can be used as GoToTags for localization in an area so the bot knows where it is based on contact with a particular NFC tag. Also, this can be used in Motion Control to ensure something like a Robotic Arm stops at a particular location based on the placement of a tag.  I have seen papers where a Swarm implementation was looked at using NFC tags to keep the swam members together.  The advantage is that it is low power, but does require close proximity to initiate identification.

  • in reply to mcb1

    I worked with fish tags on a fish survey package.  The tags were passive and even with a pretty powerful antenna (RF and Power) the tags would only read reliably at a distance of a few inches.  Notable in this case, the fish tags were very tiny (approximately the size of a DO-214AC diode), which likely limited the ability to receive power (also the return packet was several digits, requiring longer active times).

    Gene