Top NFC Transceiver Manufacturers & Reader Chips List

Introduction : The global demand for NFC transceivers and reader chips is growing rapidly as contactless technology becomes essential in smartphones, smart cards, IoT devices, payment terminals and industrial automation. Choosing the right NFC transceiver manufacturer and reader IC is critical for ensuring reliable performance, security compliance and system compatibility.

What is NFC transceiver?

It is an analog-digital interface chip that handles the wireless radio frequency (RF) communication in an NFC system. It acts as the bridge between a host microcontroller (MCU) and the antenna.

Unlike a full “NFC Controller” which has the protocol stack built-in, a transceiver relies on the external MCU to run the software stack (drivers and libraries) to interpret the data. It is the “muscle” that drives the antenna, while the MCU is the “brain.” The figure depicts the same.

The core functions of NFC transceiver are as follows.

• It generates 13.56 MHz carrier frequency required to power passive tags and transmit data.
• Transmit (Tx): It takes digital data from the MCU and modulates the amplitude of the carrier wave (using ASK or OOK) to send commands to a tag.
• Receive (Rx): It detects minute voltage changes (Load Modulation) on the antenna caused by the tag’s response, decodes them and sends the digital bits back to the MCU.
• Framing & Error Checking: It handles the physical layer (ISO 14443/15693) requirements, such as adding Start of Frame (SOF) and End of Frame (EOF) markers, parity bits, and calculating the Cyclic Redundancy Check (CRC).
• Antenna Driving: It contains the driver circuits (Single-ended or Differential) to push current through the antenna coil.

Key Specifications for selection

1. Output power or transmit current : The amount of current the chip can drive into the antenna.
2. Receiver sensitivity : The ability of the chip to detect weak signals from a tag.
3. Protocol Support : Which ISO standards the hardware supports.
4. Power Consumption (Low Power Modes) : How much energy the chip uses when it is not actively reading a tag.
5. Interface Voltage (VDD_IO) : The logic voltage level used to communicate with the MCU.
6. MCU interface : How will it connect to processor ? Need to check SPI, I2C or UART compatibility between transceiver and MCU.

List of NFC Transceiver chips

Summary

Selecting the right NFC reader chip and transceiver manufacturer depends on your application needs, including range, power efficiency, security standards and integration capabilities.

References for further study

1. Texas Instruments. TRF7970A Multiprotocol Fully Integrated 13.56 MHz RFID/NFC Transceiver IC Datasheet.
2. STMicroelectronics. ST25R3916 - High performance NFC universal device Datasheet.
3. NXP Semiconductors. CLRC663 plus Family: High performance NFC Frontend Datasheet.
4. NFC Forum. NFC Analog Technical Specification.