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INSIDE Secure, provider of semiconductor solutions for secure transactions and digital identity, has announced the availability of a new version of its award-winning, open-source Open NFC protocol stack geared to the latest version of Google (News - Alert) Android (otherwise known as Gingerbread).

A press release said that Open NFC is the first truly hardware-independent, open-source NFC (near-field communications) protocol stack for this popular smartphone operating system.

The idea is to make life easier for manufacturers of NFC chips, or new phones using those chips with its Open NFC software. The code has already been used in phones running other operating systems, and is already at version 4.2.

NFC version 4.2 for Google Android (News - Alert) 2.3 simplifies interoperability and provides the NFC ecosystem with a consistent NFC application programming interface (API) and functionality which offers chip vendors, smartphone manufacturers, wireless carriers and software developers a way to implement NFC independent of the underlying NFC hardware, as Gingerbread is adopted for use in a broad range of mobile products around the world.

“Open NFC relies on a separate, very thin and easily adaptable hardware abstraction software layer, which accounts for a very small percentage of the total stack code, meaning that the Open NFC software stack can be easily leveraged for different NFC chip hardware,” said Philippe Martineau, executive vice president of the NFC business line for INSIDE Secure. “This has tremendous cost, time-to-market and flexibility advantages for NFC chip vendors, smartphone manufacturers and software developers who would otherwise have to contend with rewriting the hardware-specific elements of the Gingerbread NFC protocol stack.”

Martineau said one of the key features of Open NFC is a hardware abstraction layer gathering together all the elements that need to be changed to make the code work with different chips. Martineau stated that this will make it easy for other chip manufacturers to support the code.

While Martineau said some partner announcements will be forthcoming in the second quarter, Martineau did not reveal which phone manufacturers might incorporate INSIDE Secure's NFC chips in their products.

INSIDE Secure launched the Open NFC stack in 2010. Known as Inside Contactless until its purchase of the Secure Microcontroller Solutions division of Atmel (News - Alert) in May 2010, the company aims to provide Android, Microsoft (News - Alert) and Linux-based support for contactless payments on a range of mobile devices.

The company’s press release discussed the rapid adoption of Open NFC, saying, “the Open NFC protocol stack has quickly become recognized as the cost-effective, open-standards NFC middleware solution for mobile phones, embedded products and other devices, and has received significant industry support from a broad array of participants in the NFC ecosystem. Originally developed for INSIDE’s third-generation MicroRead NFC controller and SecuRead solution with an embedded secure element, the Open NFC protocol stack brings proven, high-quality, well-documented NFC software into the open source arena.” The article mentioned that Open NFC received a prestigious Sesames Award for software, at the recent Cartes & Identification 2010. It was judged by a panel of experts to represent a genuine breakthrough that brings significant benefits to OEMs and ODMs creating NFC mobile phones, embedded products and other devices.

INSIDE Secure will make Open NFC available for download from its website by the end of February under the Version 2.0 of the Apache license, the same license Google uses to distribute Android.

In other news, TMCnet reported, “To enable manufacturers of mobile NFC devices to provide enhanced, two-factor security and greater personal privacy for a variety of mobile applications, INSIDE Secure, a semiconductor solutions provider for secure transactions and digital identity, has released  biometric on-card matching capabilities for its SecuRead system-in-package NFC solution.”