ST25R3916B NFC card Emulation for both Android and iOS

[MuthaiahMahadevan]

Hi all !

I need to know is it possible to communicate (data transfer) between ST25R3916B and Mobile application for both Android and iOS is possible or not.

If yes I need to know by which type of NFC communcation I can able to acheive and If there is any source to do that it will be very useful 

As of my research with ST25R3916B it is not possible to communicate with iOS so I need help to do it so.

Thanks in Advance

[Brian TIDAL]

Hi,

as soon as the ST25R3916B is running in Card Emulation mode, any NFC reader supporting type A or type F can read the data from the ST25R3916B Card Emulation memory (and also write data to the Card Emulation memory). This applies to NFC Android phones and to iOS phones.

Can you elaborate on "As of my research with ST25R3916B it is not possible to communicate with iOS"? Do you mean when the ST25R3916B acts as a reader and the phone runs in Card Emulation?

Rgds

BT

[MuthaiahMahadevan]

First of all thanks for your reply Brian.

Let me explain my requirement I have created a mobile application for both Android and iOS and now I need to flash a code(Over the air Firmware Update) using NFC ST25R3916B. So now which device should be reader and which should be Card Emulator.

Like ST25R3916B - Card Emulator and App - Reader ??

And if there is any source code available please share it with me.

[Brian TIDAL]

Hi,

If I have well understood, on one side you have an embedded system (MCU + ST25R3916B) and on the other side you have a phone (Android or iOS) and you would like to update the firmware on the embedded system through NFC, correct? If the NFC is only used for FW update, I would suggest to use a dynamic tag such as ST25DV04KC rather than a ST25R3916B. In addition to the RF interface, the ST25DV04KC provides an I2C interface and a mailbox (called FTM). A phone app typically writes into the tag mailbox through RF and the MCU of the embedded system reads the content through the I2C interface. ST25DV64KC-DISCO can be used to prototype such a use case and its FW includes a demonstration of the mailbox capabilities for a FW upgrade (see 

UM2949 STSW-ST25DV002 firmware for the ST25DV64KC-DISCO board for more information).

Rgds

BT

[MuthaiahMahadevan]

Hi,

Actually we are already sticked into ST25R3916B this IC so we cant go to some other and we have planned for polling and FW update to microcontoller using NFC . I have attaced my flow diagram below for polling and FW update please analyse it and tell me whether it will work or not. If not please explain me why and If yes tell me what are all the difficulties I will face during this process

[Brian TIDAL]

Hi,

if both the ST25R3916B and the phone can act as a reader and a Card Emulation, you may face some issue. You may need to move the ST25R3916B into Card Emulation only through a user action and otherwise run the ST253916B in reader mode only. Can you elaborate on your ST25R3916B reader mode use cases ?

The ST25 Embedded NFC library provides different demos for the ST25R3916B:

• polling demo (poll for different technologies and then enter in Card Emulation mode for the remaining time of the period)
• pairing demo (runs Card Emulation only and provides a Bluetooth paring record)

I would suggest to have a look to those demos. The Card Emulation is based on the NFC NDEF; if you plan to have your own private AID, some modification in the handling of the APDU will ne needed.

Rgds

BT