Highly populated urban areas, particularly in Asia,
require high-performance, secure, and flexible smart card systems.
FeliCa contactless smart card technology meets such mission-critical requirements.
Now let’s take a look at Sony’s FeliCa technology.
FeliCa technology has been standardized internationally under ISO/IEC 18092,
which is the basis of Near Field Communication - NFC.
The specifications of NFC technologies including FeliCa are developed by the NFC Forum.
A FeliCa card consists of an antenna and an IC chip incorporating a CPU.
The power for the IC card is supplied by the radio waves emitted from the reader/writer,
and contactless communication with the card is executed through the electromagnetic field.
Let’s now take a look at the four key features of FeliCa technology.
With conventional smart cards,
access to locked files requires multiple mutual authentications with each individual file key.
With FeliCa, however, simultaneous access to multiple files is enabled
by a single mutual authentication with the Group Key.
FeliCa provides high speed, reliable and seamless contactless communication
for the service providers' efficient operation, and convenience for the users.
FeliCa provides a tree structure of Areas and Data Blocks,
which correspond to folders and files on PCs.
The keys and access rights can be set separately for these Areas and Data Blocks,
enabling multiple applications for various service providers on a single card.
By using FeliCa’s unique Group Key mechanism
generated from each file key,
interoperability can be achieved within a single card
without passing the raw key to another company.
In the public infrastructure, adopting higher-security technologies
is important to protect users from various risks.
FeliCa Standard IC chip is the world's first contactless smart card chip
to acquire the high security level of EAL6 Plus Common Criteria Certification
for composite products based on ISO/IEC 15408.
FeliCa can be incorporated into a variety of form factors, such as key fobs, wristbands, and coin-type tokens,
while maintaining high speed and communication performance.
Since 2004, FeliCa technology has been incorporated in mobile phones in Japan.
These days, FeliCa is built in to Android smartphones and iPhones
that are used globally, and its use is expanding in Asia.
As you can see, FeliCa has unique capabilities
and meets the demands of the market.
Sony will continue to support your smart card business
to create a new lifestyle and foster a range of applications
through FeliCa.