PICC does not respond to ATTRIB command

[itishnik82]

We've been using the chip PN512 for some time in our hardware with the driver based on the library nfcrdlib-SW297940 (NXPNFCRDLIB SW PACKAGE : v4.040.05.011646_20161115) and it has been working great. Yet recently we came across an PICC that fails to get activated.  We found that the card, although perfectly visible to the reader chip, does not respond to the ATTRIB command.

The PICC sends ATQB bytes : 50 D6 FD E5 FC 00 00 00 00 77 83 B3 .The protocol compliance bits are equal to 3. It seems that the card supports two versions of communication protocol: one compliant to the standard ISO/IEC 14443-4 and another not compliant to the standard. Is it necessary to choose explicitly a protocol in ATTRIB command? NfcRdLib just copies the protocol information from ATQB into ATTRIB command without choosing. As a result the PICC does not repond.

We've tried to choose explicitly the ISO-compatible procotol and the PICC did respond, but later APDU-communication stalls at some point.

Any suggestions are appreciated. It looks like an update is need to NfcRdLib but we can't find it.

[itishnik82]

Daniel, thank you for response. We have tried to run the application TagInfo both on an IPhone and on an Android device but it failed to detect the card. Actually this card is a chinese biometric passport. Its ATR is as follows: 3B 88 80 01 00 00 00 00 77 83 B3 00 4E .

[Daniel_Gutierrez]

Hello @itishnik82, Good Day!

Thank you very much for your interest in our products.

I would like to ask a few more details in order to get a better understanding of the situation, do you know what is the device or part number of the PICC you are trying to communicate with? It would be helpful if you could scan the device by using the The NFC TagInfo App by NXP, which should provide details of the tag.

Please consider that the PN512 is no longer recommended for new designs, which is why support for the corresponding library may no longer be available, since the last version 4.04.5 was updated in 2016. I would recommend checking other reader options available in our NFC Readers Portfolio.

My best regards,
Daniel.

[vincentthivent]

Hello @itishnik82,

we've seen pn512s read ISOBs perfectly.
However, ISOBs need a little more power than ISOA. What hardware do you use?

Thanks