NFC testing disruptor Cilab joins the NFC World Partner Program

Cilab's ci230 high-speed NFC tester
NFC TESTING: New NFC World partner Cilab’s ci230 high-speed NFC tester enables engineers working on NFC products to iterate fast, reduce trips to the certification lab and shrink time to market.

PARTNER NEWS: Cilab’s ci230 high speed tester takes a whole new approach to NFC testing that makes it faster and easier to conduct pre-certification testing, makes the certification process quicker and cheaper, lets customers get a fast return on investment — and a competitive advantage from speeding up time to market.

Cilab logo“At Cilab, our motto is ‘Test smart. Certify easy’,” CEO Alfred Binder told NFC World. “Our ci230 high speed NFC tester has been designed from the ground up to give NFC engineers a whole new, much more efficient and enjoyable way of working.

“We initially designed the ci230 to meet our own needs as a specialist NFC development and testing laboratory, working with R&D engineers to help them with POS terminal and card design, RF and wireless hardware design and embedded software development.

“We quickly discovered just how frustrating it can be for engineers to use existing NFC testing equipment. Design engineers face unique challenges when it comes to NFC and there weren’t any products on the market that could give the absolute measurements you need for accurate debugging.

“Typically, all you get from NFC testing equipment is a ‘pass’ or ‘fail’ reading. What you actually need is precise readouts that you can use to swiftly make adjustments in the lab — before you send a product for certification — so that you know, before you incur certification costs, that it will be sure to pass, and by what sort of margin.

“You also want really fast testing equipment, so you can iterate quickly and get the job done.

Cilab CEO Alfred Binder
CEO: Cilab’s Alfred Binder

“That’s what we have designed our ci230 to do. It supports EMVCo 3.0, ISO 14443 A/B, ISO 15693, NFC Forum, ISO 18092, FeliCa and Mifare, produces super fast results and comes in a single, compact unit that can be carried in a briefcase and used in any work space.

“We are NFC engineers ourselves, based in Austria’s ‘NFC Valley’ where contactless card technology was first developed back in the 1980s, so we understand how complex the NFC development, testing and certification process is. That’s why we’ve created the ci230 — so now you too can test smart and certify easy.”

A 27-page slide deck providing full details of the ci230 as well as background information on the Cilab team and a comparison chart showing how the test system can reduce product development costs by a factor of up to 2.5 is available to download from the NFC World Knowledge Centre.

Alfred and the Cilab team are also happy to provide support to NFC World readers experiencing NFC engineering and testing issues, by phone or email or in person at their lab in Graz, Austria. Email [email protected] and the team will get back to you to offer assistance without delay.