NFC Antenna Basics | What is NFC Antenna | RFID Antenna

This page covers NFC Antenna basics. It describes loop antenna design used as RFID or NFC Antenna. It mentions NFC antenna testing and vendors/manufacturers.

The antenna used in NFC devices such as tags and readers will have loop structure. It operates at 13.56 MHz frequency. NFC antenna is widely used in NFC compliant mobiles, NFC payment readers, wallets, ID scanners, data loggers, ticketing systems and more applications.

As we know when electric current passes through the conductor it produces magnetic field. Moreover change is magnetic field produces electric field. Conductor loops are used to generate electromagnetic field in NFC devices such as reader and tags. The strength of magnetic field decreases with respect to the distance from loop wire.

Loop Antenna Design used as NFC Antenna

NFC Antenna

The figure-1 depicts NFC antenna, antenna matching network, EMC filter and NFC tag/reader electronics. Here EMC functions as Low Pass Filter which eliminates second and higher order of harmonics. It also does impedance transformation.

NFC Antenna Equivalent Circuit

The figure-2 depicts loop coil antenna used in NFC reader and tag design. It mentions equivalent circuit of NFC antenna. As shown it is composed of L, R and C components.
Here L is specified by number of turns of antenna coil,
R is specified by diameter and length of antenna wire,
C is specified by distance between antenna wires and number of turns.

NFC Antenna Testing

Following tests are done for checking the NFC antenna performance:
• ISO/IEC 14443 tests: Ttests carried out for PICC/PCD, type-A and type-B for bit rates 106, 212, 424, 848 kbps
• NFC Forum tests: defines test cases for NFC Forum devices such as P2P, reader and card modules, used for mobile phones, NFC compliance certificate is available, mandatory for NFC forum devices.
• EMVCo Tests: Tests carried out for PICC/PCD, type-A/B, done only for data rate of 106 kbps

RFID or NFC Antenna Vendors/Manufacturers

Following are the NFC Antenna Vendors/manufacturers:
• Pulse Electronics
• TE Connectivity
• AMS AG, Austria
• Amphenol MCP
• Abracon Corporation

NFC technology related links

How NFC Works   NFC Modulation and coding   NFC Tag vs NFC Reader   NFC Tag Types   NFC-A,NFC-B,NFC-F   difference between bluetooth,wifi,RFID and NFC   NFC Tools and Equipments   NFC basics    NFC vs RFID    What is NFC on phone   

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