The NTAG216 chip was launched in 2013 alongside the NTAG213, NTAG212, NTAG210 and NTAG215. It's a full featured chip with a large memory capacity of 888 usable bytes. The standard NTAG21x series chips included a number of enhancements over the NTAG203, including a 32-bit password and ASCII UID mirror. There were also a number of technical changes including a thinner 75µm chip format and an increase in expected data retention to 10 years. Importantly, NXP also added an originality signature feature which helped detect counterfeit NTAG series chips.
The NTAG216 has the largest memory capacity of the NTAG21x range. It's typically used in business cards and similar vCard storage applications. With a better availability than the smaller memory NTAG215 chip, it's essentially the only option if you need more memory than the NTAG213. It's not a cheap chip and prices for NTAG216 tags carry a premium.
As regular NFC.Today readers will know, NFC tags shouldn't typically be used to store data but contain only the link to data. In which case, using a large memory chip isn't always a good idea in the first place. However, if your application absolutely requires it, this is reliable and well featured chip. As an additional note, there were some early reported issues with reading and encoding large data quantities on the NTAG216 from certain mobile phones.
Key Features
Key Specifications
| Brand | NXP |
| Chip Series | NTAG |
| NFC Forum | Type 2 |
| Availability | Medium |
| ScanStrength | High |
Phone compatibility
Typical Use Cases
- Data storage
- vCards
- Object Identification
User Features
| Total memory (bytes) | 924 |
| User memory (bytes) | 888 |
| Max URL (chars) | 872 |
| UID (bytes) | 7 |
| ECC signature | |
| 32-bit password | |
| UID ASCII mirror | |
| Scan Counter | |
| Counter ASCII mirror | |
| Lockable |
Technical Specifications
| Chip thickness | 75 µm / 120 µm |
| NFC Forum | Type 2 |
| Operating Freq. | 13.56 Mhz |
| Data Trans. Rate | 106 kbit/s |
| Input Capacitance | 50pf |
| Fast read | |
| Data retention (years) | 10 |
| Write endurance (cycles) | 100,000 |
| Anticollision | |
| Standard | ISO/IEC 14443 A |
| Release date | 2013 |
