Sony Ericsson Picks NXP's NFC Solution For Future Android Handsets

Sony Ericsson and NFC in the same sentence? It's true! Only one major SE phone to date (the Xperia Arco in Japan) has been released with NFC, but that single handset will soon be joined by a number of others. The handset maker has just chosen NXP's NFC solution for future Android-based smartphones, paving the way for yet another handset maker to push Google Wallet and all sorts of other contactless payment solutions. Using simple touch gestures, consumers will be able to make purchases or connect to a point of sale (POS) terminal, ticketing terminal or location-based promotional tag simply and securely with their NFC-enabled smartphones, and it makes us wonder what exactly Sony Ercisson has up their sleeve.


The company was slammed in recent years for pushing out lackluster phones with older operating systems, but the NXP PN65 NFC solution would certainly bring things up to par. Is the next Xperia Play going to be NFC-enabled? Hard to say, but hopefully we'll be seeing some final products really soon.

NXP provides complete embedded, secure NFC solutions and recently announced that its NFC software is open source on the Android platform and enables the Google Wallet application. Sony Ericsson intends to use the NXP PN65 NFC solution in their Android-based smartphones, which includes the NFC radio controller, the embedded secure element and NFC software. The embedded secure element enables NFC to be used for mobile transactions. Building on NXP’s extensive background in secure identification, the PN65 uses advanced cryptography to offer the highest level of security for transactions, with the technology already being extensively used in contactless banking cards, e-passports, e-ID cards and secure access systems.

“Building on Sony Ericsson’s leadership in Android and mobile gaming, the integration of near field communication into our Android-based Xperia™ portfolio is another step in delivering the most entertaining smartphones,” said Jan Uddenfeldt, Chief Technology Officer at Sony Ericsson. “NFC offers our consumers the ability to broaden their communication experience beyond the phone, and we are poised to drive the development of new, exciting and creative entertainment experiences.”

“This latest move from Sony Ericsson is another proof point of the strong momentum and potential of NFC,” said Rick Clemmer, president and CEO, NXP Semiconductors. “Based on continued strong customer endorsements we have the opportunity to increase the sales of our NFC products 2-4 times as a percentage of total NXP revenue in the second half of 2011 from the approximately one percent it represents today. NFC offers a game-changing opportunity for mobile phone manufacturers to provide creative and innovative smartphones to their customers.”

NFC is a market proven technology co-invented by NXP in 2002. In 2004 NXP co-founded the NFC Forum to lead the collaboration with all industry stakeholders and help standardize the technology. NFC technology evolved from a combination of contactless identification (RFID) and interconnection technologies. Ranked as the number one contactless IC vendor by ABI Research for three years in a row, NXP is the global leader in NFC solutions, field proven in over 150 NFC trials and landmark commercial deployments worldwide.