Inside Secure launches low cost NFC tags with 2KB of memory

The new MicroPass 4101-2K is the first large memory tag to both fully conform with NFC Forum standards and be available at an affordable price, says the NFC chip specialist.

Inside Secure
INSIDE: Hits the price/capacity sweetspot

Inside Secure has introduced a new Type 4 NFC tag which is both fully compliant with NFC Forum tag requirements and comes with 2Kbytes of memory.

The MicroPass 4101-2K’s memory is enough to store long URLs, business cards, phone numbers, Wi-Fi or Bluetooth pairing information and other application data that can be read by any NFC-enabled device, says Inside Secure, making it “the first true NFC Forum tag to offer ample memory capacity for demanding applications at an affordable price”.

“Until now, application developers have faced the dilemma of either paying too much for a true NFC Forum tag with enough memory for their applications, or using a more cost-effective but proprietary solution based on Mifare Classic technology that presents interoperability issues,” says Bernard Vian, executive vice president of NFC and payment solutions at Inside Secure.

Because tags based on Mifare Classic technology do not comply with the NFC Forum specifications and require NFC devices to use a proprietary protocol stack to read them, Vian adds, these tags will not work with all NFC devices. Mifare Classic tags have proved popular with developers, however, because they provide a large memory capacity at low cost.

“The MicroPass 4101-2K solves this dilemma by hitting the NFC tag sweet spot, providing developers with a truly compliant NFC Forum Type 4 tag that has sufficient memory at an affordable price and that can be read by any NFC device,” says Vian. “With this introduction, we are ending the problem of NFC tag incompatibility.”

Both the new tags and a companion development and personalisation kit are available now, with pricing information available from Inside Secure on request.

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