Multiple NFC antennae with nRF52

[Matteo]

Hello,

we are evaluating the nRF52 as SoC for a customer project that requires multiple NFC antennae (likely 3) to be able to quasi-simultaneously read 3 NFC tags in 3 physically different locations.

Can that be directly achieved with an nRF52? Would we be able to use, for example, a mux to connect the NFC pins on the nRF52 to one of the 3 antennae in a round-robin fashion?

I searched on DevZone and on the Documentation Library but couldn't find a definitive answer.

Thanks in advance!

[Andreas]

Hi,

 

This should not be a a problem, but it is nothing that we have support for in our current NFC implementation or any examples of. You will have to add the mux functionality yourself in your application.

 

Best regards,

Andreas

[Matteo]

Thank you, that makes sense. I was just worried that a mux might interfere with antenna performance.

[awneil]

Matteo said:

a mux might interfere with antenna performance

Yes - it might.

The design task is to select a suitable mux, and design it such that performance is adequate.