PN532 NFC/RFID Controller Shield for Arduino

NFC/RFID Sheild was designed as a perfect tool for any 13.56MHz RFID or NFC application. This  NFC shield uses the PN532 chip set. PN532 NFC Module was designed as a highly integrated radio transmission module for Near Field Communication at 13.56MHz. NFC protocol designed for smartphones and similar devices, can read and write cards and tags, interact with NFC phones, and enable communication from device to device. While the controller provides many capabilities.  Our Arduino library currently only supports reading/writing tags and does not support phone-to-shield communication, tag emulation (which requires an external ‘secure element’ only available from NXP) or other more advanced features at this time.

This shield comes with a tuned 13.56MHz stripline antenna, 36-pin 0.1″ header for attaching the shield to an Arduino. In order to stack another shield on top or below, stacking headers allow pass-through stacking. This shield was designed by RF engineers using the best test equipment to create a layout. And antenna within a range of  10cm (4 inches), the maximum range possible using the 13.56MHz technology. It is quite easy to attach the shield behind a plastic plate with standoffs and still read cards through a (non-metal) barrier.

This shield supports I2C or SPI communication protocols. I2C is the default, as it uses fewer pins. Analog pins  4 and 5 are used for I2C ( you can still connect other I2C devices to the bus). And Digital #2 is used for “interrupt” notification. This means we don’t have to sit there and ‘poll’ the chip to ask a target tag has been found. The pin will pull low when a card, phone, etc is within range. The shield changes over to SPI easily where you can use any 4 digital pins by shorting two solder jumpers on the top of the PCB. These NFC/RFID Compatible with any “classic” Arduino – NG, Diecimilla, Duemilanove, UNO – as well as Mega R3 or later.