NFC Type F/FeliCa Contactless IC Card Technology

An English alpha-version of the SDK for FeliCa & Adobe® AIR®/Adobe® Flash® is now available . The software currently only covers NFC-F technology, but will be extended to NFC-A and NFC-B technology in near future. 

To use the SDK, you’ll need a Sony NFC reader ( e.g. a Pasori RC-S330 or RC-S360) with the FeliCaPort software installed.

Download the SDK by clicking on the button below.

This alpha version was tested with on Windows XP, Windows 7, and Mac OS X with the following environments

- Flex Builder 3 (EN)
- Flash Builder 4 (EN) (compiler version 3.6)
- Flash Builder 4.5 (EN) (compiler version 3.6)

Please note that only compiler verison 3.6 is supported at this point.

Our friends at the FeliCa Deveopers’ Blog have some example applications on their site:

 

 

Arduino is an open-source electronics prototyping platform based on flexible, easy-to-use, inexpensive hardware and software. It’s intended for artists, designers, hobbyists, and anyone interested in creating interactive objects or environments. Learn more about Arduino at http://www.arduino.cc

By adding the NFC Dynamic Tag to it, you can make your Arduino NFC-capable. The Dynamic Tag acts as an NFC tag and can be read out (and written to) by other NFC devices, like phones or USB readers.

This is what you need:

• An Arduino Pro 3.3V (you can also use another Arduino, but may need to do some level conversion from 5V to 3.3V)
• An NFC Dynamic Tag (Sony RC-S801 or Sony RC-S802)
• A pitch converter to connect to the RC-S801/802

How to connect the module and the Arduino

If you want to use the attached library without modifications, connect your Arduino with the Dynamic Tag (or pitch converter) according to the table below.

NFC Dynamic Tag	Arduino
IRQ	Digital 2
RFDET	Digital 3
SW	Digital 9
SEL	Digital 10
DATA	Digital 11
SPICLK	Digital 12

The final setup looks like this:

Technical Information

User manual and product specifications with in-depth technical  information about the NFC Dynamic Tag can be found at http://www.sony.net/Products/felica/business/tech-support/index.html#Plug

Software

You can get the  library code here: NFCDynamicTagArduinoLibrary_v1

In addition you just need the Arduino IDE available at http://www.arduino.cc

How to get the modules

The Dynamic Tag modules as well as the pitch converter can be purchased from Switch-Science Japan via

http://trac.switch-science.com/wiki/FeliCa-international-order

How can I distinguish the FeliCa Lite card from the standard FeliC Card?

Each card has engraved markings on the backside that shows the product name and serial number.

RC-S886: This is a FeliCa Lite card. The serial numbers of this card type start with ‘000Q’.

Product specs can be found at http://www.sony.net/Products/felica/business/products/RC-S965.html#Specifications

“FeliCa Lite User’s Manual” is available at http://www.sony.net/Products/felica/business/tech-support/

RC-S888: This is a standard FeliCa card. The serial numbers of this card type start with ‘000N’.

 

 

Product specs can be found at http://www.sony.net/Products/felica/business/data/RC-S888_E.pdf

“FeliCa Card User’s Manual” is available at: http://www.sony.net/Products/felica/business/tech-support/

An overview on chip types and card types can be found here: http://www.sony.net/Products/felica/business/tech-support/list.html

What are the differences between these cards?

The main differences are :

• Memory size: FeliCa Lite provides 14 blocks of user memory (224 bytes), while the standard FeliCa provides 154 blocks (2464 bytes).  The table below compares the chips that are embedded in the cards.
• Speed: FeliCa Lite only supports 212kbps, while standard FeliCa supports both, 212kbps and 424kbps
• Memory organization: FeliCa Lite does not support multiple partitions, standard FeliCa does . Please note that if the cards are used as NDEF cards, there is no difference from user point of view.
• Command set: FeliCa Lite implements a limited command set with lightweight authentication functions, while standard FeliCa provides full-featured authentication and encryption functions for secure applications. Please note that if the cards are used as NDEF cards, there is no difference from user point of view.

The table below compares the two card chips in more detail:

	FeliCa Lite	FeliCa Standard
Standard	Supports ISO/IEC 18092 (212kbps passive mode)	Supports ISO/IEC 18092 (212kbps or 424kbps passive mode)
Operating frequency	13.56MHz	13.56MHz
Modulation method	ASK modulation	ASK modulation
Bit coding	Manchester encoding system	Manchester encoding system
Communication speed	212kbps	Supports automatic 212/424 kbps switching
User memory	14 blocks	154 blocks
Memory separation function	None	Yes
Reader/writer authentication	Streamlined authentication via triple DES data encryption algorithm	Mutual authentication via triple DES data encryption algorithm
Communication path encryption	None	Yes
Supported commands	Only non-encrypted commands	Encrypted and non-encrypted commands

1 block is equal to 16 bytes

NFC Forum Type3 Tag Sample Card Format

(FeliCa RC-S888)

System Code (Hex)	12	FC
IDi  Pmi (Hex)	00	01	02	03	04	05	06	07	08	09	0A	0B	0C	0D	0E	0F
IDm (Hex)	**	**	**	**	**	**	**	**
PMm (Hex)	01	20	22	04	27	67	4E	FF

**IDm is Unique for each card.

Service Code (Hex)		Access Attribute	User Block
00	09	Read/Write	148 blocks (User block 01 ~ 147 NDEF Data)
00	0B	Read-Only

User block00 : Attribute Information

Ver	Nbr	Nbw	Nmaxb	RFU	RFU	RFU	RFU	WriteF	Rwflag	Ln (size: 3)	Check sum
0×10	0x0C	0x0A	0×0093	00	00	00	00	00	01	Varies depending on following data	0x****

 

Ln indicates the length of NDEF data. This field allows the NFC device to determine how many blocks it should read when retrieving NDEF data.

“Italic noted field” in attribution information block is often rewritten when NDEF data is changed.

(FeliCa RC-S886)

System Code (Hex)	12	FC
IDi  Pmi (Hex)	00	01	02	03	04	05	06	07	08	09	0A	0B	0C	0D	0E	0F
IDm (Hex)	**	**	**	**	**	**	**	**
PMm (Hex)	00	F0	00	00	02	06	03	00

**IDm is Unique for each card.

Service Code (Hex)		Access Attribute	User Block
00	09	Read/Write	14 blocks (User block 01 ~ 13 NDEF Data)
00	0B	Read-Only

User block00 : Attribute Information

Ver	Nbr	Nbw	Nmaxb	RFU	RFU	RFU	RFU	WriteF	Rwflag	Ln (size: 3)	Check sum
0×10	0×04	0×01	0x000D	00	00	00	00	00	01	Varies depending on following data	0x****

Ln indicates the length of NDEF data. This field allows the NFC device to determine how many blocks it should read when retrieving NDEF data.

“Italic noted field” in attribution information block is often rewritten when NDEF data is changed.

Reference Document: NFC Type 3 Tag Operation Technical Specification 1.0 (2007-08-16)

On this blog, you will soon find detailed information, instructions and stories related to NFC-F.  NFC-F is the technology that powers the FeliCa contactless system, and is part of the NFC Forum standard. To get an impression of what this technology is capable of, please visit http://www.sony.net/Products/felica

Examples

Some products that use NFC-F technology are:
http://www.sony.net/Products/felica/business/data/RC-S360_E.pdf
http://www.acos.co.jp/e-felica-ped.html
http://www.hello-aioi.com/product/smarttag.html

NFC-F Software

• For the Pythonistas out there: ‘nfcpy’ is a project working on an open-source Python NFC stack. The NFC-F part is already quite stable. The project is hosted at launchpad  on https://launchpad.net/nfcpy
• The commercial FeliCa driver is available for Windows only, and can be downloaded at　http://www.sony.co.jp/Products/felica/consumer/download/driver/PaSoRiDriver/en/FeliCaPortWithDriver.exe