STMicroelectronics, a Switzerland secure IC provider, and Stollmann, a communication protocol software based in Hamburg, Germany, have announced a joint agreement to offer turnkey NFC interface solutions, complete with all the necessary hardware and software components, to manufacturers of handsets and other mobile devices.

ST’s NFC chips and Stollmann’s NFC software stack are now available for sampling to customers, and provide the application programming interface and implementation technology required to meet NFC standards, including compliance with NFC Forum specifications.

“This is an important cooperation that will allow ST’s customers to benefit from a complete and ready-to-use NFC solution that complies with all relevant standards,” said Laurent Degauque, telecom and NFC marketing manager for STMicroelectronics.

Stollmann is adapting its portable NFC software with the Java JSR-257 API to ST’s NFC chips, including the extended functions that will be supported by ST. ST’s ST21NFCA chip supports all popular formats for contactless smart cards and RFID tags as well as an extended set of wired interfaces and protocols. These include I2C and SPI interfaces with ETSI HCI and a single wire protocol interface for secure elements.

The Stollmann protocol stack facilitates NFC communications with NDEF and RTD formats and supports direct legacy access to contactless smart cards and RFID tags. The NFaCe+ API allows simple access to any type of smart card.