Holtek’s BC45B4523 single-chip reader ASIC for 13.56 MHz NFC/contactless standard protocols is compatible with all major global secured baseband ISO standards, including ISO14443 Type A, Type B, Crypto_M cards, and Smart label ISO15693. The BC45B4523 is offered in a 24-pin QFN package with excellent heat dissipation when self-mounted on PCB (operating temperature -40°C to 85°C).
Despite a low operating voltage of 2.7 V to 3.6 V, the BC45B4523 is fully equipped with on-chip peripherals to support operation of the companion microcontroller, such as an RF-trig timer, a host interrupt generator, a clock divider, and a 3.3 V regulator. Energy-efficient operation is ensured with four integrated power saving modes: Hard Power Down (0.5 μA), Soft Power Down (4.7 μA), Standby (1.0 mA), and low-power Card Detection (10.4 μA @ wakeup period = 500 ms); if an external card is detected, an interrupt signal will be sent to the MCU to wake up the system.
The BC45B4523 provides a 10 Mbps SPI controller/host interface with an integrated 64-byte FIFO for smooth data transfer and an embedded codec capable of handling all bit-level coding/decoding, encrypting/decrypting as well as frame-level manipulation for transmission and reception.
The BC45B4523 receiver circuit has integrated a full AGC loop allowing a wide dynamic range of RF input signal levels. The excellent sensitivity performance of the device enables detection of input signals with amplitudes as low as 1 mVpp without distorting the data integrity. Selectable receiver bands provide flexibility for a variety of antenna configurations.
The transmitter is capable of accepting a wide range of operating supply voltages to serve various applications. A high drive current up to 250 mA is guaranteed for demanding item-level mid-range reader designs, and the dual high-powered transmitters offer flexible configuration options.
To evaluate this technology, Holtek created the BCE-45B4523-001 development board, which is compatible with ISO14443A and ISO14443B protocols for secure data transmission at short distances, eg. mobile payments and access cards, and ISO15693 protocols for secure data transmission over longer distances, commonly applied in warehouse management. Holtek also provides the Crypto_M encryption and decryption function, which is compatible with Mifare Tag, as well as software, NFCReader_TK, for the development board, and five NFC tags to make development faster and easier. The board comes in a nominal integrated format that is 137 x 64 x 12 mm, but the antenna, reader IC, and MCU sections can be separated for exploring different layouts.
Keep designing!
(Image sourced from Holtek)