NFC Tag Type Technical Specification

Publish Time: 11/13 2020 Author: Site Editor Visit: 1583

The NFC Forum has mandated four tag types to be operable with NFC devices. This is the backbone of interoperability between different NFC tag providers and NFC device manufacturers to ensure a consistent user experience.

The operation specifications for the NFC Forum Type 1/2/3/4 Tags provide the technical information needed to implement the reader/writer and associated control functionality of the NFC device to interact with the tags. Type 1/2/3/4 Tags are all based on existing contactless products and are commercially available.

Type 1 Tag Operation Specification

Type 1 Tag is based on ISO/IEC 14443A. Tags are read and re-write capable; users can configure the tag to become read-only. Memory availability is 96 bytes and expandable to 2 kbyte.

NFC Forum Type 1 Tag Candidate Specification

Defines how an NFC-enabled device in Reader/Writer Mode detects, reads and writes a NDEF Message on a NFC Forum Type 1 Tag. The communication with this NFC Forum Tag type is based on NFC-A Technology.

Type 2 Tag Operation Specification

Type 2 Tag is based on ISO/IEC 14443A. Tags are read and re-write capable; users can configure the tag to become read-only. Memory availability is 48 bytes and expandable to 2 kbyte.

NFC Forum Type 2 Tag Candidate Specification

Defines how an NFC-enabled device in Reader/Writer Mode detects, reads and writes a NDEF Message on a NFC Forum Type 2 Tag. The communication with this NFC Forum Tag type is based on NFC-A Technology.

Type 3 Tag Operation Specification

Type 3 Tag is based on the Japanese Industrial Standard (JIS) X 6319-4, also known as FeliCa. Tags are pre-configured at manufacture to be either read and re-writable, or read-only. Memory availability is variable, theoretical memory limit is 1MByte per service.

NFC Forum Device Type 3 Tag Candidate Specification

Defines how an NFC-enabled device in Reader/Writer Mode detects, reads and writes a NDEF Message on a NFC Forum Type 3 Tag. The communication with this NFC Forum Tag type is based on NFC-F Technology, which is compatible to the Japanese Industrial Standard (JIS) X 6319-4.

Type 4 Tag Operation Specification

Type 4 Tag is fully compatible with the ISO/IEC 14443 standard series. Tags are pre-configured at manufacture to be either read and re-writable, or read-only. The memory availability is variable, up to 32 KBytes per service; the communication interface is either Type A or Type B compliant.

NFC Forum Device Type 4 Tag Candidate Specification

Defines how an NFC-enabled device in Reader/Writer Mode detects, reads and writes a NDEF Message on a NFC Forum Type 4 Tag. The communication with this NFC Forum Tag type is based on the ISO Data Exchange Protocol (ISO-DEP) which is fully compatible with the ISO/IEC 14443 standard series. This protocol is either based on NFC-A or NFC-B Technology

Type 5 Tag Operation Specification

Type 5 Tag defines how an NFC device can interact with an NFC Forum Type 5 Tag, that is, an ISO/IEC 15693 tag that is configured to be able to store an NDEF message. As with other NFC Forum Tag operation specifications, the specification defines how to interact with, not build, a tag. The Type 5 Tag operation specification is focused on supporting poll-side, short-range communication with ISO/IEC 15693 tags containing an NDEF message.