Data Sheet

MFRC522 All information provided in this document is subject to legal disclaimers. © NXP Semiconductors N.V. 2016. All rights reserved.
Product data sheet
COMPANY PUBLIC
Rev. 3.9 — 27 April 2016
112139 8 of 95
NXP Semiconductors
MFRC522
Standard performance MIFARE and NTAG frontend
8. Functional description
The MFRC522 transmission module supports the Read/Write mode for
ISO/IEC 14443 A/MIFARE using various transfer speeds and modulation protocols.
The physical level communication is shown in Figure 5.
The physical parameters are described in Table 4.
The MFRC522’s contactless UART and dedicated external host must manage the
complete ISO/IEC 14443 A/MIFARE protocol. Figure 6
shows the data coding and
framing according to ISO/IEC 14443 A/MIFARE.
Fig 4. MFRC522 Read/Write mode
(1) Reader to card 100 % ASK, Miller encoded, transfer speed 106 kBd to 848 kBd.
(2) Card to reader subcarrier load modulation, Manchester encoded or BPSK, transfer speed 106 kBd
to 848 kBd.
Fig 5. ISO/IEC 14443 A/MIFARE Read/Write mode communication diagram
001aak583
BATTERY
reader/writer
contactless card
MICROCONTROLLER
MFRC522 ISO/IEC 14443 A CARD
(1)
(2)
001aak584
MFRC522
ISO/IEC 14443 A CARD
ISO/IEC 14443 A
READER
Table 4. Communication overview for ISO/IEC 14443 A/MIFARE reader/writer
Communication
direction
Signal type Transfer speed
106 kBd 212 kBd 424 kBd 848 kBd
Reader to card (send
data from the
MFRC522 to a card)
reader side
modulation
100 % ASK 100 % ASK 100 % ASK 100 % ASK
bit encoding modified Miller
encoding
modified Miller
encoding
modified Miller
encoding
modified Miller
encoding
bit length 128 (13.56 s) 64 (13.56 s) 32 (13.56 s) 16 (13.56 s)
Card to reader
(MFRC522 receives
data from a card)
card side
modulation
subcarrier load
modulation
subcarrier load
modulation
subcarrier load
modulation
subcarrier load
modulation
subcarrier
frequency
13.56 MHz / 16 13.56 MHz / 16 13.56 MHz / 16 13.56 MHz / 16
bit encoding Manchester
encoding
BPSK BPSK BPSK