NFC USB Dongle

NOTE: Besides the Dongle form factor, Mikroe offers a Click board version also based on NXP’s PN7150 transceiver. If you are interested in finding out more about this product, please visit our NFC 2 Click product page.

NFC USB Dongle is an NFC Reader-Writer based on NXP’s PN7150 high-performance full NFC controller, supporting all NFC Forum modes. The USB NFC Dongle is powered through USB connector. 

This NFC controller supports all NFC Forum communication modes like peer to peer, reader/writer and Host Card Emulation. It allows interacting with all NFC devices on the market according to NFC Forum: from simple NFC tags to NFC-enabled smartphone.

How it works

NFC USB Dongle can be set to behave either as an NFC reader, or a tag, or to establish a two-way connection with another NFC device. 

NFC USB Dongle features an LPC11U24 MCU which works in conjunction with the PN7150. The USB interface is provided by NXP’s LPC11U24 MCU, and the NFC functionality is ensured thanks to PN7150.

NFC is designed to be intuitive for users. Communication between two devices is established in the simplest way possible — by bringing them close to each other. NFC frontends can operate in three distinct modes:

1. Card emulation mode — where USB NFC Dongle behaves like a smart card or a tag

In this mode, NFC USB Dongle emulates an NFC tag. It doesn’t initiate the communication, it only responds to an NFC reader. A typical application of the card emulation mode is how people use NFC in their smartphones to replace several cards, badges and tags at once (using the same phone for tollgate check-ins, contactless payments and so on). Card emulation mode, however, is not useful just for smartphones, but for any type of portable device.

2. Read/Write — where NFC USB Dongle behaves as an NFC Reader/Writer

 Here, NFC USB Dongle communicates with a passive tag, smart card, or an NFC device operating in card emulation mode. It can both read or write to a tag (although reading is a more common use-case because tags will often be write protected). In this mode, it is USB NFC Dongle that generates the RF field, while a tag or card only modulates it.

3. Peer-to-peer — for more complex interactions

Peer-to-peer mode establishes a two-way communication channel between a pair of NFC-enabled devices. When a user brings two devices close to each other, the two NFC chips establish a P2P connection and exchange data.

PN7150 features

Optimized for fast design-in, NXP’s PN7150 high-performance NFC controller is fully compliant with the NFC Forum.

PN7150 embeds a new generation RF contactless front-end supporting various transmission modes according to NFCIP-1 and NFCIP-2, ISO/IEC14443, ISO/IEC 15693, MIFARE and FeliCa specifications.

LPC11U24 features

The LPC11U24 is an ARM Cortex-M0 based, 32-bit microcontroller, with a USB 2.0 full-speed device controller.

NXP Support

Visit the NXP Community page and join the discussions. 

Example: Click here to download the examples (Windows, Linux, and MacOS environments) from the NXP page.

For technical support concerning the software application, contact the NXP Support team.

Key features 

• USB Full-NFC solution (R/W, P2P, HCE) to connect to the mainstream OS environments (Android, Windows, Linux, MacOS)
• Integrated RF level detector
• No Drivers required
• HW solution (PN7150+LPC11U24) with very small footprint