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Near Field Communication (NFC)

Authors:
Geoffrey Hunter
Geoffrey Hunter
Published On:
Apr 3, 2025
Last Updated:
Jun 16, 2025

Near Field Communication (NFC) is a short-range wireless communication technology that allows devices to exchange data over a distance of a few centimetres.

All NFC communication is based on the ISO/IEC 18092 standard.

The nRF52 series MCUs have a near field communication tag peripheral called NFCT. This peripheral can be used to implement an NFC tag. It supports NFC-A listen mode operation at 13.56MHz and a bitrate of 106kbps.1

NDEF

NDEF (NFC Data Exchange Format) is a standard for exchanging data between NFC devices. It is a binary format structured in messages. Each message can contain one or more records. Each record contains metadata (e.g. record type, length) and the payload.2

Footnotes

  1. Nordic Semiconductor (2024, Oct 1). nRF52840 - Product Specification - v1.11 [datasheet]. Retrieved 2025-03-03, from https://docs.nordicsemi.com/bundle/ps_nrf52840/page/keyfeatures_html5.html. ↩

  2. Tom Igoe, Don Coleman, Brian Jepson. Beginning NFC [book]. O’Reilly. Retrieved 2025-06-16, from https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/beginning-nfc/9781449324094/ch04.html. ↩