What do you need to program a NXP SmartMX contactless MCU?

Question

I'm developing an authentication system with NFC technology with strong cryptographic functions.

There are two solutions from NXP: Mifare DESFire EV1, which is a chip with memory areas and 3DES and AES128 crypt functions, and SmartMX2,which is a complete MCU that needs an OS and software to run.

To choose between the two, I have to know how to program those tags. For what I've understood, the DESFire needs a USB reader/writer and the interface software, like this --> http://www.mpsys.de/chipmanrfid_en.html

What equipment is needed to install the OS on a SmartMX card, and then debug? Is it possible to do it only via NFC interface?

Thanks for your attention, gfunky

Answer 1

SmartMX cards always come with the Card OS installed. The Card OS is actually fixed in the ROM mask of the chip. An example of such a Card OS is NXP JCOP; an implementation of JavaCard.

Developing JavaCard applets for JCOP is usually done in Eclipse. NXP offers JCOP development tools to customers that consist of a plug-in for Eclipse. Debugging is not possible on the card itself (also for security reasons), but is done in a simulator that runs on the PC.

DESFire is a chip with fixed functionality. It has its own command set to do things like creating files, reading and writing data and performing authentication. In principle, this can be done using any software that allows sending commands through a contactless card reader. But specialized software that has built-in support for DESFire will be very convenient and likely speed up your development a lot.