ISO14443

ISO14443 is a series of international, vendor-independent standards for proximity RFID.

It operates on 13.56MHz and uses magnetic coupling between the reader (PCD) and transponder (PICC).

The ISO Standard
You can purchase the standard documents from ISO. The final committee drafts are available from Working Group 8.

ISO 14443-1: Physical characteristics
This part describes the physical layer.

ISO 14443-2: Radio frequency power and signal interface
This part describes the link layer, i.e. bit timings, signal waveforms and encodings used for actual communication.


 * Type A uses 100% ASK with modified miller encoding in the PCD->PICC direction and OOK on a 847.5kHz subcarrier in PICC->PCD direction.
 * Type B uses 10% ASK with NRZ encoding in the PCD->PICC direction and BPSK on a 847.5kHz subcarrier in PICC->PCD direction.

ISO 14443-3: Initialization and anticollision
This part describes the data frames and the anti collision layer used to discover all PICCs in the field.

ISO 14443-4: Transmission protocol
This part describes an optional transport layer protocol. This protocol is often also referred-to as "T=CL". This is a name derived from the commonly-used contact based smart card protocols T=0 and T=1. "CL" means "contact less".

Mifare Classic
This is a proprietary Philips protocol which runs on top of 14443-1,2,3 (Type A). It does not implement 14443-4. Since Mifare Classic includes some proprietary CRYPTO1 algorithm, you can only do Mifare if you have a Philips reader ASIC (such as the RC632).

Mifare Ultralight
This is a variation of Mifare Classic without crypto. It uses 14443-1,2,3 (Type A), but not 14443-4.

LEGIC RF
LEGIC RF standard predates ISO 14443, and is also operating on 13.56MHz frequecy. It is different to the ISO 14443 standard, however there are some similarities.

There was an attempt to specify Legic as "ISO 14443 Type F", but this did not end up in the final standard.

Todays LEGIC products support standard ISO 14443 (up to layer 4) and ISO 15693 protocols.

Cubic
There was an attempt to specify Cubic as "ISO 14443 Type E", but this did not end up in the final standard.

FeliCa
This is a proprietary protocol developed by Sony.

Communication speed is 212kbps.

PCD->PICC communication uses manchester-coded 10% ASK on the 13.56MHz carrier. It doesn't use a subcarrier for the PICC->PCD direction. Anti-collision is based on a time slot algorithm.

There was an attempt to specify FeliCa as "ISO 14443 Type C", but this did not end up in the final standard. However it has now been standardised under the NFC umbrella specification ISO 18092.

More Information:
 * http://www.sony.net/Products/felica/index.html
 * http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FeliCa
 * http://www.commoncriteriaportal.org/public/files/CPList/CRP165.pdf

OTI
There was an attempt to specify OTI as "ISO 14443 Type D", but this did not end up in the final standard.