STMicro, NXP, Trusted Logic and Stollmann join forces to add NFC to Android devices

NFC chipset manufacturer STMicroelectronics and Stollmann, which launched a chipset independent NFC API for Android last month, have joined NXP and Trusted Logic, who launched a joint NFC API for Android in April, to promote a common hardware-independent API for NFC applications on mobile phones and other devices running Android.

The companies are now to update their NFC APIs and put them forward to the Android community as a proposed standard for adding NFC to Android devices.

“Technical collaboration between leading NFC protocol stack vendors and NFC chip manufacturers is both a major and necessary step towards massive adoption of NFC in the Android environment,” explained Laurent Degauque, telecom and NFC marketing manager at STMicroelectronics. “This joint and open approach, shared by four key players, will pave the way for the successful deployment of NFC technology and create increased confidence for customers.”

The API specification will be made available under an Apache License 2.0 model on request by email to [email protected] or [email protected].

Leading NFC chipset supplier Inside Contactless is not part of the group, however. It has developed its own Open NFC solution, available in Windows Mobile, Linux and Java editions as well as Android, which can be downloaded free of charge from open source development site Sourceforge.net.

Both NXP and Inside Contactless recently told NFC World that they expect multiple Android handsets equipped with NFC functionality to arrive on the market from the end of this year.

UPDATE Stollmann has released a video which demonstrates both NXP’s PN544 and STMicroelectronics’ ST21NFCA chipsets running interchangeably on a standard Beagle Board using Stollmann’s NFaCe+A API for Android devices:

Stollmann’s API specification is available free of charge and is designed to be implemented in a portable Android Dalvik layer as part of an integration package which the company is to make freely available in source code for integration in different Android platforms and for different NFC chips and protocol stacks, including the firm’s own NFCStack+.

The API specification is available free of charge by emailing [email protected] and a complete software development kit supporting the NFaCe+A API will be available by the end of this quarter.