BARCELONA, Spain, Feb. 27, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- At Mobile World Congress 2017, NXP Semiconductors N.V. (NASDAQ:NXPI), the co-inventor of Near Field Communications (NFC) and the global leader in automotive semiconductor solutions, announced that five leading car OEMs will equip their future cars with NFC devices from NXP. This technology will enable secure interactions between smartphones and smart cars such as complementary car access, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi pairing, personalization and payment.

NFC continues to gain momentum with consumers fueled by the popularity of NFC-enabled mobile phones and wearables. NFC devices can interact within smart city infrastructures to provide secure access to hotel rooms, health clubs, public transport, parking entry, stadiums and other smart cars.

In Automotive, NFC enables a broad range of smart services.

Automotive NFC can:

• Grant and revoke access to a vehicle on a secure, restricted basis for multiple users such as family and friends.
• Provide flexible fleet management and car sharing solutions.
• Secure Bluetooth and Wi-Fi pairing.
• Conduct Point-of-Interest transfer from a smartphone to the car’s navigation system.
• Enable in-car purchases.
• Alert the driver of maintenance status via over-the-air updates.
• Adjust the car’s personalized settings such as seats and mirrors.

The new NXP NCx3320

The NXP NCx3320 is an automotive-grade NFC frontend IC optimized for secure car access that enables the next level of capabilities for secure convenience. The NCx3320 complements the previously launched NCx3340 NFC controller family that is popular and well established in the automotive market.

The NCx3320 capabilities

• Sets new benchmarks for low-power operation and phone/card detection distance, making it an ideal choice for exterior car applications like smart car access.
  
• Comes with a generic software library, which is easily portable across different MCUs, reducing significantly application development times.
  
• Qualified -40°C up to 125°C.
  
• Accompanied by a door handle reference design to lower entry barriers for successful integration of NFC.               
  

The NCx3320-based door handle reference design

• Combines NXP’s NCx3320 with the company’s automotive qualified MCU S12ZVL on a single PCB.
  
• Offered in a small form factor to meet the strict constraints imposed by space limits inside car door handles. The IC can be easily installed inside real automotive applications.
  
• Comes with a dedicated software tool that demonstrates key use cases such as secure car access, and driver authentication for engine start, using a smartphone, or smart card.
  
• Enables the evaluation of NCx3320’s low-power mode operation feature in an automotive hardware and software environment.
  
• Accelerates development time for Tier 1s.
  

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“Our deep expertise in NFC, security and automotive has made us the trusted advisor to automotive OEMs on applications that securely connect smart cars and smartphones,” said Rainer Lutz, Director New Business, Secure Car Access, NXP. “The NXP NCx3320 further extends our portfolio and the corresponding reference design makes us the competent sparring partner for Tier 1s to build robust solutions even in the most challenging environments.”

Quick NFC Facts

• NFC is a proximity RFID technology, co-invented by NXP and the result of contactless smartcard technology.
• NXP NFC technologies are already trusted in many of the world’s most sensitive security applications.
• NFC-based smart access doesn’t need cellular service or Wi-Fi to operate, and can still open and start a car even if the battery is dead. Whatever the situation — an underground parking garage, a remote rural area, or some kind of emergency — the smartkey remains an essential device, providing manual backup for opening and starting the car.

Resources

• NCx3320 is released for volume production.
• Connected Smartkeys (Blog)
• Product Page
• NFC Payments White Paper

About NXP Semiconductors

NXP Semiconductors N.V. (NASDAQ:NXPI) enables secure connections and infrastructure for a smarter world, advancing solutions that make lives easier, better and safer. As the world leader in secure connectivity solutions for embedded applications, NXP is driving innovation in the secure connected vehicle, end-to-end security & privacy and smart connected solutions markets. Built on more than 60 years of combined experience and expertise, the company has 31,000 employees in more than 33 countries and posted revenue of $9.5 billion in 2016. Find out more at www.nxp.com.

For more information, please contact:      

Europe / U.S. 
Birgit Ahlborn
Tel: +49 170 57 46 124
Email: birgit.ahlborn@nxp.com 

Greater China / Asia 
Esther Chang
Tel: +886 2 8170 9990
Email: esther.chang@nxp.com