Date: 16/08/2011

Low power NFC device with 8 selectable power modes

Texas Instruments Incorporated (TI) has announced the low power contactless short-range communication transceiver, the TRF7970A. Additionally, developers are able to directly access all control registers, allowing for easy fine-tuning of various parameters for the highest performance in every application.

Peer-to-peer communication continues to increase in popularity in applications including medical equipment, secure pairing and payments. For example, NFC devices can configure Wi-Fi and Bluetooth technology sessions between devices without consumer interaction, share and interact with feature- and content- rich data such as coupons at point of sale, and allow consumer devices to easily exchange files and contacts.

Features and benefits of the TRF7970A NFC platform as per TI include:
Industry's lowest power NFC device supporting up to 2 times longer battery life with eight selectable power modes (Power modes range from <1 uA to 120 mA)
Supports a wide range of communication options with peer-to-peer communication, reader/writer capability card emulation and maintains pin-for-pin compatibility with the TRF7960
Supports two crystal oscillator frequencies: 13.56MHz or 27.12MHz frequencies give engineers more flexibility in speed and cost options for their designs
Large 128 byte FIFO buffer for NFC communications allows developers using microcontrollers with low MHz to create products capable of handling large data transfers
Compliance with ISO/IEC 18092 and ISO/IEC 21481 standards gives developers the ability to create globally interoperable products
NFC software stack libraries and an innovative RF field detector allow for easy development efforts and robust, cost effective designs
NFC Peer-to-Peer Initiator as well as Active and Passive Target Operation are available for MSP430 microcontrollers
Supports multiple reader/writer protocols and includes demo software stacks for reader/writer mode ISO/IEC 15693, ISO/IEC 18000-3, ISO/IEC 14443A/B and FeliCa

Pricing and availability: TI's new TRF7970A NFC development kit is immediately available and priced at USD $99.

For more information visit: www.ti.com