Two New Specifications for Near Field, Peer-to-Peer Device Communication

The NFC Forum, which promotes the use of Near Field Communication (NFC) technology, released two candidate specifications that further the integration, implementation and standards interpretation of NFC technology.


The NFC Digital Protocol specification addresses the digital protocol for NFC-enabled device communication, providing an implementation specification on top of the ISO/IEC 18092 and ISO/IEC 14443 standards. It harmonizes the integrated technologies, specifies implementation options and limits the interpretation of the standards; in essence, showing developers how to use NFC, ISO/IEC 14443 and JIS X6319-4 standards together to ensure global interoperability between different NFC devices, and between NFC devices and existing contactless infrastructure.


The NFC Logical Link Control Protocol (LLCP) specification defines an OSI layer-2 protocol to support peer-to-peer communication between two NFC-enabled devices. This is essential for any NFC applications that involve bi-directional communications. The specification defines two service types, connectionless and connection-oriented, organized into three link service classes: connectionless service only; connection-oriented service only; and both connectionless and connection-oriented service. The connectionless service offers minimal setup with no reliability or flow-control guarantees (deferring these issues to applications and to the reliability guarantees offered by ISO/IEC 18092 and ISO/IEC 14443 MAC layers). The connection-oriented service adds in-order, reliable delivery, flow-control, and session-based service layer multiplexing.


LLCP is a compact protocol, based on the industry standard IEEE 802.2, designed to support either small applications with limited data transport requirements, such as minor file transfers, or network protocols, such as OBEX and TCP/IP, which in turn provide a more robust service environment for applications. http://www.nfc-forum.org/specs