TAIPEI — STMicroelectronics has said that it will integrate its contactless NFC technology with MediaTek’s silicon, allowing smartphone makers to design handsets supporting mobile services, including payments and other online transactions.
By integrating ST’s NFC chipset with MediaTek’s SoCs, the partners aim to help mobile OEMs overcome technical challenges such as antenna design, integration, and miniaturization while cutting bill-of-material costs and enabling interoperability with payment terminals at retailers and transportation hubs.
The NFC partnership with MediaTek, the second-ranked supplier of mobile-phone silicon after Qualcomm, may give ST an advantage in its competition with NXP in a market that the Dutch chip supplier has dominated for years. The ST-MediaTek partnership draws the battle lines more clearly with Qualcomm, which aims to acquire NXP.
Mobile payments and other contactless applications are enabled by NFC technology used in payment cards and terminals. ST says that its latest NFC chipsets provide robust wireless connections over extended distances to make mobile payments easy, dependable, and private while protecting against cybersecurity threats including eavesdropping and hacking.
“ST will provide its NFC technology to MediaTek to deliver high-contactless-performance solutions to OEMs with a focus on cost and integration optimization,” said Marie-France Florentin, Group Vice President at STMicroelectronics, in a press statement.
ST has been quietly amassing — through acquisitions and licensing — key technologies that it says are boosting its NFC chips’ performance, both in reliability and distance.
ST’s latest NFC Systems-in-Package ST54F and ST54H comprise the ST21NFCD NFC controller with active load modulation for extended range with the ST33G1M2 and ST33J2M0 embedded secure elements (eSE) and operating system.
ST believes that the NFC market is poised to expand because of Apple’s recent decision to let developers code for iOS 11 to create apps that can read NFC tags. Android phones have been doing this for several years with little success. But as Apple throws its weight into this field, ST and other industry observers are hopeful that Apple will spur the growth of NFC applications beyond payment.
Mobile payments are likely to see triple-digit growth in coming years, with contactless transport ticketing also rising fast in Asia, notably in China’s largest cities, according to a Business Insider report.
The obstacles slowing widespread adoption of in-store mobile payments include consumer disinterest as well as delays in implementing the necessary infrastructure.
Consumers are showing interest in wallets with integrated loyalty programs. Other potential add-ons, like in-app, in-browser, and P2P payments, will start fueling adoption, according to the Business Insider report. The strategy has proven successful in China with platforms like WeChat and Alipay. With mobile payments, enhanced security, faster checkout, and loyalty integration are advantages for customers and merchants that will eventually convince both parties to embrace the technology, said the report.
— Alan Patterson covers the semiconductor industry for EE Times. He is based in Taiwan.