NEAR FIELD COMMUNICATION EQUIPPED DEVICE
The present application relates to a near field communication (NFC) equipped device (40) such as a mobile telephone. The device (40) includes an NFC controller (42) for controlling NFC operations of the device and a secure element (48) for NFC applications and sensitive data. The secure element (48) includes non-volatile memory which is used by the device (40) to store non-volatile NFC data. The non-volatile NFC data is transferred between the secure element (48) and the NFC controller (42) by means of a single wire protocol interface and dedicated proprietary gates of a host controller interface, which dedicated gates are used for transferring the non-volatile NFC data to the secure element memory and retrieving the non-volatile NFC data from the secure element memory. Using the secure element memory in this way obviates the need for non-volatile memory associated with the NFC controller.
1 . A secure element for use in an NFC equipped device, wherein the secure element is configured to defer booting up its main operating system for a period sufficient to permit retrieval of non-volatile data from the secure element within a predetermined time period.
2 . A secure element according to claim 1 wherein the predetermined time period is 5 milliseconds.
3 . A secure element according to claim 1 wherein the secure element is configured to defer booting up its main operating system until it receives a message indicating that the non-volatile data has been retrieved from the secure element.
4 . A secure element according to claim 3 wherein the message is a ANY_GET_PARAMETER message.
5 . A near field communications (NFC) equipped device comprising:
an NFC controller for controlling NFC communication between the device and a compatible NFC reader;
a secure element for storing NFC applications and data; and
a single wire protocol interface for communication between the NFC controller and the secure element, wherein the NFC controller is configured to use the single wire protocol to write non-volatile NFC data to memory of the secure element and to read the non-volatile NFC data from the memory of the secure element, wherein the secure element is configured to defer booting up its main operating system for a period sufficient to permit retrieval of non-volatile data from the secure element within a predetermined time period.
6 . A NFC equipped device according to claim 5 wherein the secure element implements a dedicated gate for transferring the non-volatile NFC data to and from the memory of the secure element.
7 . A NFC equipped device according to claim 5 wherein the NFC controller implements a dedicated gate for transferring the non-volatile NFC data to and from the memory of the secure element.
8 . A NFC equipped device according to claim 5 wherein the NFC equipped device comprises a mobile telephone.
9 . A NFC equipped device according to claim 5 wherein the secure element is provided on a universal integrated circuit card (UICC).
10 . A NFC equipped device according to claim 5 wherein the predetermined time period is 5 milliseconds.
11 . A NFC equipped device according to claim 5 wherein the secure element is configured to defer booting up its main operating system until it receives a message indicating that the non-volatile data has been retrieved from the secure element.
12 . A near field communications (NFC) equipped device according to claim 11 wherein the message is an ANY_GET_PARAMETER message.
13 . A method of retrieving non-volatile NFC data from memory of a secure element of a NFC equipped device according to claim 1 , the method comprising:
sending a modified version of a standard message from the NFC controller to the secure element to indicate that the NFC controller supports retrieval of the non-volatile NFC data from the memory of the secure element; and
at the secure element, receiving the modified version of the standard message and responding by transmitting the non-volatile NFC data to the NFC controller, wherein the secure element is configured to defer booting up its main operating system for a period sufficient to permit retrieval of non-volatile data from the secure element within a predetermined time period.
14 . A method according to claim 13 wherein the modified version of the standard message is an “ACT_POWER_MODE” message whose FR bit is set to 1.
15 . A method according to claim 13 wherein the non-volatile NFC data is transmitted to the NFC controller as a plurality of data packets followed by an “ACT_READY” message.
16 . A method according to claim 13 wherein the predetermined time period is 5 milliseconds.
17 . A method according to claim 13 wherein the secure element is configured to defer booting up its main operating system until it receives a message indicating that the non-volatile data has been retrieved from the secure element.
18 . A method according to claim 17 wherein the message is an ANY_GET_PARAMETER message.