The NFC tag has evolved as NXP announces improved sensitivity NFC tags

Posted by Seth Planck

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NFC tags just evolved as NXP Semiconductors announces improved sensitivity NFC tags that can be smaller with the same read distances

The humble NFC tag just got a shot in the arm with NXP’s announcement that they have evolved the humble tag and have managed to make it more sensitive. When it comes to NFC tags we like the sensitive types. The more sensitive an NFC tag, the better read distances can be achieved and the smaller the tag can be. NXP Semiconductors has today revealed its new NTAG203, which is an NFC Forum-compliant Type 2 tag. This new NFC tag structure will be used by OEMs, inlay customers and end users, according to NXP. Until now smaller NFC tags has meant smaller read distances, but that is set to change with the NXP NTAG203. Up until today, it has been very common to find and use a 45mm NFC tag to ensure the read distance was sufficient on an NFC smartposter to read through other materials, or so that an NFC tag could be read through glass. The enhancement leverages existing MIFARE-based NFC tags which are the top selling NFC tag type worldwide.

“Together with our customers, we analyzed market demand as well as new use cases, to enhance our portfolio of NFC tag ICs. The result is the NTAG203, an NFC tag IC that can enhance the performance of existing tags, or enable the design of smaller tags without compromising performance,” said Chris Feige, General Manager of Tags and Labels Product Line,  Identification Business, NXP Semiconductors.

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NFC lovin Ice Cream Sandwich hitting the primetime in October or November

Posted by Seth Planck

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Eric Schmidt says the NFC lovin Ice Cream Sandwich hitting the primetime in October or November, just in time for the Verizon Droid Prime / Nexus Prime launch

We knew the next iteration of NFC pumped Android (Ice Cream Sandwich) OS was coming late this year, but now we have some meat on the bones of that rumor that comes from Mr. Google himself, Eric Schmidt. El Goog has been tighter lipped than Apple the night before an iPhone launch with regards to anything to do with Ice Cream Sandwich since Google IO back in May. We now have a date range to go on which ranges from October through to November for the official launch of the sweet, sweet new Android OS that we are all jonesing to get a look at. The NFC components are and new NFC API’s are of particular interest to NFC Rumors. The big question we have is – will the new Android Ice Cream Sandwich support Card Emulation mode for NFC?

Ice Cream Sandwich and the Nexus Prime / Droid Prime NFC rumor

Eric Schmidt casually revealed the arrival time of Android Ice Cream Sandwich while in an interview with Marc Benioff of Salesforce.com as you can see from the video below. Much of the hype around Ice Cream Sandwich Android OS is because Google said that the new OS would merge both Honeycomb and Gingerbread OS’s that came before it, unifying the tablet and smartphone platform for the first time.

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