A&D Medical UA-767NFC Digital Blood Pressure MonitorA&D Medical UA-767NFC Digital Blood Pressure Monitor

NFC TechnologyThe use of NFC technology to make electronic payments was introduced in 1997 in Hong Kong with the Octopus card, the first contactless smart card. Japanese manufacturers later embraced the technology and have been implementing applications for over 10 years. According to NTT DoCoMo, the country’s largest wireless carrier, there are currently over 100 applications for NFC-enabled mobile phones. Adoption of NFC technology in North America, on the other hand, has been slow. Recently, though, Google sparked the attention of the financial community with its plan to convert cell phones into mobile wallets. Shown here is the Samsung Galaxy S3: a prominent example of a NFC-enabled smartphoneNFC technology essentially consists of three components: an antenna, a secure element integrated circuit (IC), and an NFC RF controller IC. The secure element and the NFC controller are separate ICs, though in some cases integrated into the same package. To take advantage of the NFC technology, a device, such as a mobile phone, must be held close to a sensor, no farther away than 10 cm typically. Although the technology is being widely touted for financial applications using smart phones, NFC is beginning to appear in some medical devices. NFC-capable applications in the field of medicine and healthcare are expanding to activities such as equipment tracking, inventory tracking, counterfeiting protection, entry/access, patient identification and monitoring, and diagnostics. We’ll take a look at several of these devices and see what is inside.