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NFCLINK NCI ISO15693 Interface

Tai Sim Yeoh
Prodigy 80 points


Hello Eddie,
My project requires an architecture that uses NCI. However it also requires access to the ISO15693 interfaces (which is not part of version 1 of NCI).

As I am not using the Stollman implementation on my platform (i.e. Windows OS), is there a way to obtain the required documentation for ISO15693 support on the NFCLink library (the non open source version)?

Basically I need to be able to do raw ISO15693 block level access (i.e. non NDEF formatted tags) and without the documentation available for the ISO15693 portion, I would not be able to access the NFCLink support via NCI.

Or is the support for ISO15693 in NFClink identical between the open source and non open source version?

Thank you for your help in advance.

Regards,
Tai
  • 0
    TI__Guru*** 135355 points
    Hello Tai,

    I am not sure I fully understand your question in terms of documentation, but the NFCLink solution we offer for NCI implementations is provided as in. In other words, there is no additional documentation we can release and we will not release the source code either. If that is not suitable for your application, and if you require NCI for your application, then we do not have a code example available for you that meets this use case.

    If you do not require NCI or are willing to implement on your own, you can look at our TI developed Reader/Writer software solution which is documented in this app note: www.ti.com/.../sloa227.pdf - the Application Report also includes our latest Reader/Writer software.
  • 0 in reply to Ralph Jacobi
    Prodigy 80 points

    Hello Ralph,
    Thank you for the quick response. Let me clarify a little on what I am trying to do (feel free to correct me if I am wrong. I'm still very new to RFID/NFC).

    What I would like to do is to have my implementation support both NFC (NFC Forum spec compliance) and also "legacy" ISO15693 tags. By legacy I mean those ISO15693 tags that are not formatted (or intended to be formatted to be compliant to NDEF due to application requirements). NCI is one of the requirements I have for my implementation, so I will definitely need to use the NFCLink with MSP430.

    As I read whatever specs and documentation that I have available to me, it is my current understanding that it may be possible for my implementation to read the raw data blocks from a ISO15693 tag (non NDEF formatted) to allow backward compatibility with my existing ISO15693 tags out there (NXP iCode based). Discarding the legacy tags and going to NDEF formatted ISO 15693 tags is not an option I have.

    I guess between proprietary fields, Reserved for Future Use (RUP), and Frame RF interface I may have got confused on how exactly to send the required commands via NCI to the NFCLink library to achieve the support required for the ISO15693 tags. Hence my question on whether there is any additional documentation available.

    To explain my predicament, I tried to visualize the flow of how the messaging works between the Device Host(DH), NFC Controller (NFCC) and Remote NFC endpoint as below:

    DH                                           NFCC                                         Remote NFC Endpoint
    ---------------                            -----------------                               --------------------------------------
         --------------------------> RF_DISCOVER_CMD
        <--------------------------- RF_DISCOVER_RSP
                                                                              ----------------------> INVENTORY CMD
                                                                               <--------------------- INVENTORY RESPONSE
       <--------------------------- RF_DISCOVER_NTF
       ---------------------------> RF_DISCOVER_SELECT_CMD
       <--------------------------- RF_DISCOVER_SELECT_RSP
    (After this portion I am at loss on how to achieve single block read/multiple block read from NCI command perspective)

    I currently do not have a NFCLink support devkit available (in the process of acquiring it), hence experimentation on what is possible is a little tricky.

    My apologies for my long winded-ness.

    Thank you.

    Regards,
    Tai

  • 0 in reply to Tai Sim Yeoh
    TI__Guru*** 135355 points
    Hello Tai,

    Okay thank you for clarifying, that explains a lot.

    Before going into any further details, one more important thing I need to know: Will you need to use some of the custom commands provided for the iCode tags, or do you plan to only use officially defined commands per the ISO15693 specifications?

    I ask because those iCode custom commands are not implemented within NFCLink.
  • 0 in reply to Ralph Jacobi
    Prodigy 80 points

    Hello Ralph,

                  Thanks again for the quick response.

                  Re:"do you plan to only use officially defined commands per the ISO15693 specifications?"

                 Yes, our intention is to use only the commands defined in ISO15693 specs. There is currently no requirement to support the custom iCode commands.

                Thank you.

    Regards,

    Tai

  • 0 in reply to Tai Sim Yeoh
    TI__Guru*** 135355 points
    Hello Tai,

    Okay, thank you for that clarity. I did further digging yesterday and today to see what guidance I can provide to you on this...

    I actually had anticipated that some of the ISO15693 API's would be exposed to handle the NDEF operations which use your standard Read/Write block commands such. However it unfortunately does not appear to me that they are made available in the project we are allowed to provide.

    Without those API's readily available on the NFC Stack side, it may not be possible to do what you want. The only thing I don't know is if within the NCI protocol used between the Stollman GUI and the NFC Stack there are commands which would allow for you to do this, and that is outside of my scope to investigate.

    As you are not using the Stollman implementation, I don't believe there is anything else I can suggest as we do not have any documentation relevant to this use case.
  • 0 in reply to Ralph Jacobi
    Prodigy 80 points
    Hello Ralph,
    Thank you for helping me with this question and appreciate the time you have spent digging into the particular problem I have.

    It is unfortunate the current design limits the functionality provided by the library/implementation. I guess that leaves me with two possible avenues,
    a) use the implementation from Stollman on the Windows OS side (but lose the OS side framework integration)
    b) look at the standalone NFCLink implementation (open sourced) & investigate the possibility of modifying it for my needs (at the same time see if I can wiggle out of the NCI requirements and OS framework integration)

    Just a final question, is there a possibility(or channel available) for TI customers to make feature requests for something like what I am trying to do?

    Thank you again for your help.

    Regards,
    Tai
  • 0 in reply to Tai Sim Yeoh
    TI__Guru*** 135355 points
    Hello Tai,

    For this firmware package there is no means to do that. It was developed by two third parties, Kroneggar and Stollman, and they are the only ones who would be able to make any such modifications - which would cost $$ to buy their time and resources to do so.