PN512
Full NFC Forum-compliant frontend
Rev. 5.2 — 16 June 2016
111352
Product data sheet
COMPANY PUBLIC
1. General description
PN512 is the most broadly adopted NFC frontend - powering more than 10 billion NFC
transactions per year.
It is a highly integrated NFC frontend for contactless communication at 13.56 MHz. This
NFC frontend utilizes an outstanding modulation and demodulation concept completely
integrated for different kinds of contactless communication methods and protocols at
13.56 MHz.
The PN512 NFC frontend supports 4 different operating modes
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Reader/Writer mode supporting ISO/IEC 14443A/MIFARE and FeliCa scheme
Reader/Writer mode supporting ISO/IEC 14443B
Card Operation mode supporting ISO/IEC 14443A/MIFARE and FeliCa scheme
NFCIP-1 mode
Enabled in Reader/Writer mode for ISO/IEC 14443A/MIFARE, the PN512’s internal
transmitter part is able to drive a reader/writer antenna designed to communicate with
ISO/IEC 14443A/ MIFARE cards and transponders without additional active circuitry. The
receiver part provides a robust and efficient implementation of a demodulation and
decoding circuitry for signals from ISO/IEC 14443A/MIFARE compatible cards and
transponders. The digital part handles the complete ISO/IEC 14443A framing and error
detection (Parity and CRC).
Enabled in Reader/Writer mode for FeliCa, the PN512 NFC frontend supports the FeliCa
communication scheme. The receiver part provides a robust and efficient implementation
of the demodulation and decoding circuitry for FeliCa coded signals. The digital part
handles the FeliCa framing and error detection like CRC. The PN512 supports contactless
communication using FeliCa Higher transfer speeds up to 424 kbit/s in both directions.
The PN512 supports all layers of the ISO/IEC 14443B reader/writer communication
scheme, given correct implementation of additional components, like oscillator, power
supply, coil etc. and provided that standardized protocols, e.g. like ISO/IEC 14443-4
and/or ISO/IEC 14443B anticollision are correctly implemented.
In Card Operation mode, the PN512 NFC frontend is able to answer to a reader/writer
command either according to the FeliCa or ISO/IEC 14443A/MIFARE card interface
scheme. The PN512 generates the digital load modulated signals and in addition with an
external circuit the answer can be sent back to the reader/writer. A complete card
functionality is only possible in combination with a secure IC using the S2C interface.
