NAA5.A

## JBOQd cS A (DO + (© C) 

|1.|Introduction|3|
|---|---|---|
|2.|Specifications|4|
|3.|Antenna Package & Dimensions (Unit: mm)|6|
|4.|Application Circuit Diagram|7|
|5.|System Block Diagram|8|
|6.|Reflow Solder Mechanical Integration|9|
|7.|Mechanical Drawing|10|
|8.|Application Note|12|
|9.|Ground Plane Clearance Considerations|13|
|10.|EVB Test Setup|14|
|11.|Ground Plane Clearance Analysis|15|
|12.|NAA5.A with Various Ground Plane Sizes|18|
|13.|Summary of Integration Considerations|21|
||Changelog|22|



Taoglas makes no warranties based on the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this document and reserves the right to make changes to specifications and product descriptions at any time without notice. Taoglas reserves all rights to this document and the information contained herein. Reproduction, use or disclosure to third parties without express permission is strictly prohibited. 

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## 1. Introduction 

The Taoglas NAA5.A is an active NFC chip antenna, ideal for NFC Tag services that require active boost transmission technology. With a tiny form factor 5*5*1mm the NAA5.A is the ideal antenna for NFC applications where size can be a limitation. The product integrates all components including an NFC front end, embedded antenna and it’s matching components. The NAA5.A has a max read distance of 50mm and consumes battery power due to being an active antenna. 

It significantly eases the design effort and reduces the PCB footprint of system, thus allowing NFC functionality in an ultra-small size. The footprint size can be as low as 7*7mm as at least 2mm of clearance from other elements to the chip is required. The NAA5.A is a revoloutionary product created to match the performance of the current Taoglas FXR series but in an almost 3 times smaller form factor. 

Typical Use-Case Applications include: ::    Smartphones ::   Access control or other closed loop application on smart devices ::   Wearable Devices ::   Automotive keyless entry ::  Payment Terminals 

The integrated NFC front end and its antenna provide the active transmission and boosts the response signal to the NFC reader/initiator while improving the receiving sensitivity, in order to realize the excellent contactless performance on this device. Performance can be further enhanced by use of Taoglas's FXR series discrete NFC antennas. 

This innovative solution provides an All-in-One application system together with NFC functions and solves proximity communication problems typical of an ultra-compact NFC device. Compared to conventional passive NFC tags, the Taoglas NAA5.A solution has a much less system BOM cost, stand-by power consumption and smaller PCB footrint. Taoglas NAA5.A offers reliable NFC tag performance even when the mechanical construction of the host device partially shields the radio signals. 

For more information or help on how to integrate the antenna into your device, please contact you regional Taoglas Customer Support team. 

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## **2.** Specifications 

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|**Electrical Specifications – Operating Conditions**|**Electrical Specifications – Operating Conditions**|**Electrical Specifications – Operating Conditions**|**Electrical Specifications – Operating Conditions**||
|---|---|---|---|---|
|Symbol|Parameter|Min|Max|Unit|
|VCC|Positive Supply Voltage|2.7|3.6|V|
|GPVCC|GPIO Supply Voltage|2.7|3.6|V|
|SCVCC|ISO7816 Supply Voltage|2.7|3.6|V|
|VSS|Negative Supply Voltage|0|0|V|
|TAMB|Junction Temperature|-25|85|°C|
|TSTRG|Storage Temperature|-40|125|°C|



||**System Specifications – VCC = 3C, Temperature @ 25°C**|**System Specifications – VCC = 3C, Temperature @ 25°C**|**System Specifications – VCC = 3C, Temperature @ 25°C**||
|---|---|---|---|---|
|Symbol|Parameter|Typ.|Max|Unit|
|ICCL|Contactless Operating Mode|30|50|mA|
|ICPD|Contactless off Mode (Standby Mode)|15||uA|



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|||**NAA5.A (78CAFX Boosted Antenna)**|**NAA5.A (78CAFX Boosted Antenna)**|
|---|---|---|---|
|Pin|Pin Name|Pin Type|Description|
|1|(RES)|N.A.|Reserved for internal purpose only|
|2|(RES)|N.A.|Reserved for internal purpose only|
|3|(RES)|N.A.|Reserved for internal purpose only|
|4|(RES)|N.A.|Reserved for internal purpose only|
|5|(RES)|N.A.|Reserved for internal purpose only|
|6|(RES)|N.A.|Reserved for internal purpose only|
|7|(RES)|N.A.|Reserved for internal purpose only|
|8|(RES)|N.A.|Reserved for internal purpose only|
|9|(RES)|N.A.|Reserved for internal purpose only|
|10|(RES)|N.A.|Reserved for internal purpose only|
|11|(RES)|N.A.|Reserved for internal purpose only|
|12|(RES)|N.A.|Reserved for internal purpose only|
|13|GND|Ground|Ground|
|14|GND|Ground|Ground|
|15|SCVCC|Internal Supply Pad|SE _VCC|
|16|(RES)|N.A.|Reserved for internal purpose only|
|17|(RES)|N.A.|Reserved for internal purpose only|
|18|(RES)|N.A.|Reserved for internal purpose only|
|19|VDDSE|Analog output|Internal positive supply for SE 3V|
|20|VCC|Supply Pad|External positive supply 3V|
|21|GPVCC|Internal Supply Pad|SE VCC|
|22|SCSLP|Digital Input|SE enable|
|23|(RES)|N.A.|Reserved for internal purpose only|
|24|(RES)|N.A.|Reserved for internal purpose only|



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## **3.** Antenna Package & Dimensions (Unit: mm) 

## Top View 

## Bottom View 

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## **4.** Application Circuit Diagram 

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**5.** System Block Diagram 

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## **6.** Reflow Solder Mechanical Integration 

## **6.1** Manual Reflow Soldering 

Manually, Reflow Soldering 250-260 degrees Celsius using a hot air gun. Ensure pin 1 is facing the correct pad on the PCB layout. The surface tension of the solder should pull the chip into place and align the chip during the reflow process and PCB solder mask will ensure that there are no shorts to adjacent pin leads. 30 seconds on each side is recommended so that the lead-free solder paste melts the Active NFC Chip into 

l 

## **6.2** Industrial Reflow Soldering 

The Taoglas NAA5.A can be assembled following either Sn-Pb or Pb-Free assembly processes. The recommended soldering temperatures are as follows according to industry standard JEDEC (J-STD-001F) solder profile for ICs which will work well as usual once the component is placed correctly on pad layout using pickand place robot. Temperature profile is provided below. 

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## **7.** Mechanical Drawing 

## **7.1** Antenna Drawing & Pin Definitions 

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**----- Start of picture text -----**<br>
7.2 Evaluation Board<br>**----- End of picture text -----**<br>


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**8.** Application Note 

Typical NFC antennas are usually FPCB polymide on plastic housing or directly etched inductor coils on PCB, and whilst those work quite well they do occupy a lot of space increasing overall product volume. The traditional NFC antenna would almost always need clearance from metal objects to preserve the electromagnetic flux needed for operation and even if ferrite backed on metal to redirect flux they are still not always suitable for integration environments that demand very small form factor due to spatial constraints given the demand for cheaper lower form factor devices with additional wireless technology applications in same volume. 

This Application Note describes functionality of the active Taoglas NAA5.A NFC antenna with spatial integration , ground plane size concerns, evaluation board LGA pin layout, reflow solder considerations and circuit schematics for completeness. 

The NAA5.A offers a high level of design/ customer integration flexibility and thermal performance due to smaller form factor and very little thickness overall. The Taoglas NAA5.A NFC active chip antenna is an SMT antenna that comes with a total volume of 5x5x1mm[3] consisting of a LGA (Land grid array Package) evaluation board with 24 pins for interconnecting to PCB power, digital and RF planes. This design flexibility allows for a smaller, lighter and more reliable product for RF, power supply and digital interface on same PCB for multi-wireless protocol devices with cellular MIMO, Wi-Fi/BT or GNSS combined. 

**Figure 1** NAA5D.A NFC Evaluation Board 

One major advantage of the Taoglas NAA5.A NFC chip is that it can be placed anywhere on the main PCB whilst only occupying 5x5x1mm volume and without requiring coaxial cable to connect to an IPEX/ Hirose receptacle on the PCB radio module as is the case with an FPCB NFC antenna. Also in contrast, the typical highest performing etched PCB requires at least 60x60mm PCB space for a comparable read range. Taoglas has completed a performance study of the 13.56 MHz NAA5.A Taoglas NFC chip antenna EVB (Evaluation Board) for various ground plane sizes and ground plane aperture clearances surrounding the NFC chip evaluation board. 

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## **9.** Ground Plane Clearance Considerations 

The antenna presented in the black block below is tested in the following scenarios for a 2 layer PCB, however 

the clearance distances in all 4 planar directions are also translated to a multi-layer PCB. 

## Test Scenario 1 

NAA5.A tested with ground plane aperture clearance of 0mm 1mm, and 2mm at top and bottom of PCB. 

**Figure 2** Test Scenario 1 

## Test Scenario 2 

NAA5.A tested with ground plane aperture clearance of 0mm, 1mm and 2mm, continuous ground plane at bottom of PCB. 

**Figure 3** Test Scenario 2 

## Test Scenario 3 

NAA5.A tested with different ground plane size based on Test Scenario 1 & 2 with ground plane extension in lateral sides indicated by blue arrows. 

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## **10.** EVB Test Setup 

**Figure 4** Reader setup for the NFC chip antenna 

The reader is connected to the computer’s USB port. When the reader is registered, the light on the reader is bright red, see Figure 4. 

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**----- Start of picture text -----**<br>
Turn on the battery to ON<br>Test embedded antenna<br>The connection is successful, the<br>light is bright green<br>**----- End of picture text -----**<br>


**Figure 5** NFC chip set testing 

Place the NFC chip evaluation board in the centre above the reader, and if a communication link is successfully setup, the light on the reader will turn bright green, see Figure 5. 

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## **11.** Ground Plane Clearance Analysis 

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**----- Start of picture text -----**<br>
11.1 EVB Clearance Analysis: Scenario 1<br>**----- End of picture text -----**<br>


In general applications the NFC chip antenna (NAA5.A) is mounted on a PCB with other discrete components and a ground plane. For correct functioning of the NAA5.A an aperture through all layers of a PCB is required in ground plane at the location of the NAA5.A, see Figure 6. 

**Figure 6** Scenario 1: NFC chip set integrated on the PCB with apertures on both side of the ground planes 

Copper has been adhered to NAA5D.A Taoglas le EVB to illustrate a general use case, Scenario 1 (shown in Figure 7). Apertures in ground plane have been made surrounding the NAA5.A chip antenna location with clearances of 0mm, 1mm and 2mm. 

**Figure 7** Ground plane on the evaluation board 

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## **11.2** Scenario 1: Aperture clearance of 0mm,1mm and 2mm 

Aperture edge clearance distances of 0mm, 1mm, and 2mm surrounding the NAA5.A are shown in figures 5, 6 and 7 respectively. Each scenario was tested to find associated interrogation distances. The test result is summarized in Table.1 below with 50mm maximum read distance. Taoglas recommends a minimum _“clearance between the NAA5.A and the ground edge”_ of 1mm to achieve 50mm read distance which is the best performance of the NAA5.A.  The peripheral components are recommended to be at least 2mm away from the chip and the closest components should be lower than 2mm in height , to not affect the performance of the chip. 

**Figure 8** Clearance between the ground plane and the NAA5.A - Duplicated: Top and bottom side of PCB 

||**NAA5.A EVB**|**NAA5.A EVB**|**NAA5.A 100x100mm GP**|**NAA5.A 100x100mm GP**|**NAA5.A 200x200mm**|**NAA5.A 200x200mm**|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
||**Interrogation Distance**||**Interrogation Distance**||**GP Interrogation Distance**||
|Clearance|Scenario 1|Scenario 2|Scenario 1|Scenario 2|Scenario 1|Scenario 2|
|0mm|25mm|25mm|-|-|-|-|
|1mm|50mm|30mm|50mm|30mm|30mm|25mm|
|2mm|50mm|30mm|-|-|-|-|



**Table 1.** Ground plane aperture clearance (mm) and associated interrogation distance (mm) as explained below. 

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## 4 **11.3** Clearance Analysis Scenario 2 

In some applications, the NAA5.A is mounted with a PCB which has an entire ground plane in at least onelayer of the PCB. In the worst case, there is a metal housing and there is only one aperture on the top side of the PCB, for instance, if the antenna is integrated inside a mobile phone with metal housing. An aperture is reserved on the back cover for the communication with the reader, while the front side of the phone is an LCD screen with a big shielded ground plane. A simplified mock up is done as below in Figure10. The aperture on the top represents the apertures on the back cover of the phone, while the back side of the chip antenna is a whole piece of ground plane representing the big ground for the LCD screens/ground plane of the PCB. 

**Figure 9** Scenario 2: NAA5.A integrated on the PCB with one aperture on the top, complete grounding at bottom of PCB 

## 4 **11.4** Scenario 2: Aperture clearance of 0mm,1mm and 2mm only on top layer. 

Similarly, to the previous section, the clearance between the chip and the ground edge is set to 2mm, 1mm and 0mm. Associated interrogation distance of the NAA5.A when the ground plane aperture clearance surrounding the NFC card module is 2mm, 1mm, and 0mm respectively, summarized in Table.1. 

Taoglas recommends a minimum _“clearance between the_ NAA5.A _and the ground edge” of 1mm_ to achieve a maximum of 30mm read distance in this case. The peripheral components are recommended to be at least 2mm away from the chip and the closest components should be lower than 2mm in height , as not to affect the performance of the chip. 

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## **12.** NAA5.A with Various Ground Plane Sizes 

In its simplest integration form, the NAA5.A can function with no peripheral ground plane and only needs the various QFP connection lines to respective system assembly to work such as the case with the Taoglas EVB. Chapter 13 studies the performance of the NAA5D.A EVB with ground extensions. Generally, NFC functions are required in mobile devices or portable devices, but they do come in various shapes and sizes and they would typically consist of a large continuous RF ground plane, power and signal planes for other wireless protocols on same device. Hence, Taoglas has tested the NAA5.A on various ground planes up to 200mm*200mm. Minimum 1mm NFC to ground plane clearance was used as is recommended. 

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**----- Start of picture text -----**<br>
50mm<br>**----- End of picture text -----**<br>


**Figure 10** NFC card module testing without ground plane 

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**12.1** 100*100mm Ground plane 

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Scenario  1 & 2<br>17 ~~~ Clearance 7<br>i!'> GND LI]''><br><> cn GND<br>Aperture<br>distance<br>Scenario 1            Scenario 2<br>**----- End of picture text -----**<br>


- In **Scenario 1,** the ground plane has a clearance of 1mm clearance at both the top and bottom ground plane. 

- In **Scenario 2** , the ground plane has a clearance of 1mm clearance at the top ground plane, and the bottom ground plane is an entire piece of metal. The tested results are shown in Table 1, Section 10 

**Figure 12.** Ground planes of 100 and 200mm with 1mm clearance 

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**12.2** 200*200mm Ground plane 

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**----- Start of picture text -----**<br>
Scenario  1 & 2<br>17 ~~ ~~ Clearance<br>> GND<br>E LJ<br><—_—__> GND<br>Aperture<br>distance<br>Scenario 1            Scenario 2<br>**----- End of picture text -----**<br>


- In **Scenario 1,** the ground plane has a clearance of 1mm clearance at both the top and bottom ground plane. 

- In **Scenario 2** , the ground plane has a clearance of 1mm clearance at the top ground plane, and the bottom ground plane is an entire piece of metal. The tested results are shown in Table 1, Section 10 

## **The NAA5.A tests show that the NAA5.A has a high tolerance for the size of the ground plane.** 

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## **13.** Summary of Integration Considerations 

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Taoglas recommends the following; 

1. If there are **no ground planes** in the PCB in the case of the NAA5.A only integration, **50mm maximum readout distance** is achieved when the communication link is established and always repeatable.  The peripheral components are recommended to be at least **2mm away** from the chip and the most closely located components should be lower than **2mm** in order not affecting the performance of the chip. The next largest components are recommended to be **8mm away** from the NAA5.A. 

2. When there is ground plane with apertures on both side of the PCB, Taoglas recommends a minimum “clearance between the NAA5.A and the ground edge” of 1mm to achieve, **30mm maximum readout distance** of the NFC chip.  The peripheral components are recommended to be at **least 2mm away** from the chip and the most closet components should **be lower than 2mm** in order not affecting the performance of the chip. The next largest components are recommended to be **8mm away** from the NAA5.A. 

3. When there is an entire ground plane on the back side of the chip and an aperture on the top side of the PCB, Taoglas recommends a minimum “clearance between the NAA5.A and the ground edge” of 1mm to achieve **25mm maximum readout distance** .  The peripheral components are recommended to be at least 2mm away from the chip and the most closet components should be lower than 2mm in order not affecting the performance of the chip. The next largest components are recommended to be **8mm away** from the NAA5.A. 

4. Lastly, the NAA5.A performance is not sensitive to the size of the ground plane. It works well with different sizes of ground planes up to 200mm*200mm (tested) if 1mm clearance to ground plane edge in all directions are observed. It also works well without ground plane for a **50mm maximum readout distance** as per NAA5D.A EVB kit tests. 

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Changelog for the datasheet **SPE-19-8-010 – NAA5.A** 

**Revision: A (Original First Release)** Date: 2019-10-17 Notes: Datasheet & Application note Author: Jack Conroy 

## **Previous Revisions** 

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© Taoglas 

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