Embedded World 2023: Infineon Show Us Even More Innovative NFC Projects

The Infineon booth at Embedded World displayed a wide range of demos, all under the tagline "driving decarbonization and digitalization. Together." Alongside examples of sensors and connected systems, including a demo showing the Matter protocol working over Thread, and various talks, we stopped by to chat with Stathis Zafiriadis, NFC Technologies Specialist at Infineon, to talk about the NFC tech they'd brought to the conference.

Infineon's collection of NFC hardware is impressive, covering most use cases and providing the groundwork for new ways to use the technology. The Smart Thermostat demo from the above video is just one use case, bridging the gap between fully connected smart home devices (with all associated power and material costs, alongside potential security issues) and traditional thermostats. 

The same technology is also well suited to low-cost asset management. By bundling a tiny NFC MCU with a built-in temperature sensor alongside a small battery, data collection throughout a product's shipping journey can be gathered and verified via smartphone. Again, the costs of deployment are much lower than other connectivity methods. It's an innovative way to approach NFC technology.

The booth also featured a battery-free blood pressure monitor, a CO2 monitor, and an updated version of the same incredible batteryless locks we saw at the previous Embedded World conference in 2022. If you haven't seen those in action, it's definitely worth seeing!

To learn more about the lock in the above video, head to our previous blog post about Infinieon's stand in 2022. That demo was based on the NAC1080, which was recently updated to the NAC1081 (though there's currently no link for it). The three other NFC chips demoed on the stand this year was the NLM0010/NLM0011 for NFC configuration, the NCT8080/NCR1080 for NFC charging, and the NGC1081 for NFC sensing. The Infineon site doesn't have much info (or any) about some of the newest hardware, though you can read more in the Infineon Embedded World Press Kit [PDF LINK].

Stathis also gave a TechTalk about NFC at the conference, though at the time of writing this article, they aren't available to view after the fact, I would imagine if they do publish them, it'll be on the Infineon Embedded World 2023 page.