STMicro, Stollmann to deliver complete NFC solution

GENEVA, SWITZERLAND & HAMBURG, GERMANY: STMicroelectronics and Stollmann, a leading supplier of communication protocol software, announced a joint agreement to offer turnkey NFC interface solutions, complete with all the necessary hardware and software components, to leading manufacturers of handsets and mobile consumer devices.

Near Field Communication (NFC), is a fast-growing wireless connectivity technology that can be used with various consumer devices, including mobile phones, enabling fast and secure short-range data-transfer wireless services, such as payment and transport ticketing applications.

ST's NFC chips and Stollmann's NFC software stack are now available for sampling to lead customers, and provide all the API (Application Programming Interface) and implementation technology required to meet NFC standards, including compliance with NFC Forum specifications.

"Stollmann is very well known for its expertise in the development of connectivity software," said Laurent Degauque, Telecom and NFC marketing manager, Digital Secure Access (DSA) Division, STMicroelectronics. "This is an important cooperation that will allow ST's customers to benefit from a complete and ready-to-use NFC solution that complies with all relevant standards."

"This co-operation with STMicroelectronics is a major milestone for Stollmann and its software solutions for NFC," said Christian Luhrs, Managing Director of Stollmann. "The combined strength of ST, with its leadership in contactless chips, and Stollmann, a leading protocol stack supplier, should mean that we see NFC handsets and other mobile devices in the hands of providers and consumers very quickly."

Within the framework of this cooperative effort, Stollmann is adapting its portable NFC software with the Java JSR-257 API to ST's NFC chips, including the extended functions that will be supported by ST.

ST's ST21NFCA chip supports all popular formats for contactless smart cards and RFID tags as well as an extended set of wired interfaces and protocols. These include I2C and SPI interfaces with ETSI HCI and a Single-Wire Protocol (SWP) interface for Secure Elements (SE). This chip supports all NFC modes (Peer-to-peer, Reader/Writer and CardEmulation).

The Stollmann protocol stack facilitates NFC communications with NDEF and RTD formats and supports direct legacy access to contactless smart cards and RFID tags. The NFaCe+ API allows simple access to any type of smart card. It is also possible to adapt the system to existing interfaces such as PCSC. The stack itself has been developed with porting to different platforms in mind.

Stollmann offers a JSR-257 implementation for Java platforms suitable especially for mobile phones and similar devices and supporting extended functions for legacy transfers.