ST's NFC technology chosen for Alcatel 3V smartphone

Near-field communication (NFC) technology from STMicroelectronics has been selected to power the contactless features of TCL Communication’s Alcatel 3V smartphone, newly launched for the European market.

Prioritising enhanced user experience and convenience through Alcatel 3V’s NFC features, TCL Communication selected ST’s NFC-controller chip for its ability to boost RF performance without draining battery life.

ST’s technology ensures robust connectivity for fast and reliable contactless payments, e-ticket transactions, peer-to-peer data transfer and emerging use cases including interacting with ‘physical-web’ objects like smart posters or store shelves. Impressive RF performance also helped TCL Communication to streamline certification to mandatory stringent EMVCo, GSMA and NFC Forum standards for handsets.

“With the all-new direction of our Alcatel 2018 smartphone portfolio, we are committed to continuing to deliver high-quality and affordably priced smartphones that appear more premium than their price.

“We are pleased to partner with ST to equip Alcatel 3V with reliable and secure contactless connections for our customers around the globe and to provide even richer experiences and superior interoperability throughout the numerous contactless terminals in their everyday lives,” said Stefan Streit, General Manager, Global Marketing, TCL Communication. “The support provided by ST and the highly effective collaboration between our technical teams helped us quickly achieve the applicable certifications for the Alcatel 3V.”

“The high RF performance of ST’s NFC solution maximises freedom and flexibility to optimise new product designs,” added Laurent Degauque, Marketing Director, Secure Microcontroller Division, STMicroelectronics. “Leveraging that flexibility effectively streamlined NFC integration on the Alcatel 3V smartphone, ultimately ensuring shorter time to revenue for our customer, TCL Communication.”

ST and TCL Communication aim to extend their collaboration to integrate ST’s hardware digital-security solutions into future TCL Communication products. ST has a portfolio of highly miniaturised, low-power chips, including an embedded secure element (eSE) for cryptography and key storage and combined NFC/eSE devices, which are certified to common criteria EAL5+ and EMVCo security standards for financial applications. ST also offers a wide range of solutions and form factors for eSIM.