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Mifare Ultralight's Products

Overview

NXP® Semiconductors developed the MIFARE Ultralight EV1 MF0ULx1 for use in a contactless smart ticket, smart card, or token in combination with a Proximity Coupling Device (PCD). The MF0ULx1 is designed to work in an ISO/IEC 14443 Type-A compliant environment. The target applications include single trip or limited use tickets in public transport networks, loyalty cards or day passes for events. The MF0ULx1 serves as a replacement for conventional ticketing solutions such as paper tickets, magnetic stripe tickets or coins. It serves as a ticketing counterpart to contactless card families such as MIFARE DESFire® or MIFARE Plus®.

The MIFARE Ultralight EV1 is succeeding the MIFARE Ultralight ticketing IC and is fully functional backward compatible. Its enhanced feature and command set enables more efficient implementations and offers more flexibility in system designs.

The mechanical and electrical specifications of MIFARE Ultralight EV1 are tailored to meet the requirements of inlay and paper ticket manufacturers.

Contactless energy and data transfer

In a MIFARE® system, the MF0ULx1 is connected to a coil with a few turns. The MF0ULx1 fits the TFC.0 (Edmondson) and TFC.1 (ISO) ticket formats. The MF0ULx1 chip, which features a 17 pF on-chip resonance capacitor, supports both TFC.1 and TFC.0 ticket formats.

Anti-collision

An intelligent anti-collision function allows more than one card to operate in the field simultaneously. The anti-collision algorithm selects each card individually. It ensures that the execution of a transaction with a selected card is performed correctly without interference from another card in the field.

Simple integration and user convenience

The MF0ULx1 is designed for simple integration and user convenience, which allows complete ticketing transactions to be handled in less than 35 ms.

Security

  • Manufacturer programmed 7-byte UID for each device
  • 32-bit user definable One-Time Programmable (OTP) area
  • 3 independent 24-bit one-way counters
  • Field programmable read-only locking function per page (per 2 pages for the extended memory section)
  • ECC-based originality signature
  • 32-bit password protection to prevent unintended memory operations

Features

General Features

  • Contactless transmission of data and supply energy
  • Operating frequency of 13.56 MHz
  • Data integrity of 16-bit CRC, parity, bit coding, bit counting
  • 7 bytes serial number (cascade level 2 according to ISO/IEC 14443-3)
  • Fast counter transaction: < 10 ms
  • Operating distance up to 100 mm depending on antenna geometry and reader configuration
  • Data transfer of 106 kbit/s
  • True anti-collision
  • Typical ticketing transaction: < 35 ms

EEPROM

  • 640-bit or 1312-bit, organized in 20 or 41 pages with 4 bytes per page
  • First 512 bits compatible to MF0ICU1
  • Field programmable read-only locking function per page for the first 512 bits
  • Field programmable read-only locking function per 2 pages above page 15
  • 32-bit user definable One-Time Programmable (OTP) area
  • 384-bit or 1024-bit freely available user Read/Write area (12 or 32 pages)
  • 3 independent, true one-way 24-bit counters on top of the user area
  • Anti-tearing support for counters, OTP area, and lock bits
  • Configurable password protection with an optional limit of unsuccessful attempts
  • ECC-based originality signature
  • Data retention time of 10 years
  • Write endurance 100.000 cycles
  • Write endurance for one-way counters 1.000.000 cycles

Target Applications

  • Public transportation
  • Event ticketing
  • Loyalty
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