Chatter about whether an near field communication (NFC) chip will be...

Chatter about whether an near field communication (NFC) chip will be included in the next iPhone continued to challenge industry observers Tuesday, several weeks before the sixth iPhone is rumored to hit stores. Some analysts attributed a selloff in shares of NFC chip maker NXP Semiconductors Tuesday to a report on the AnandTech blog late Monday speculating that the next iPhone won’t have an NFC chip. AnandTech’s post was in response to conjecture by Chinese blog Apple.pro and others Sunday that a squarish module not seen on previous iPhones, which appears at the top on leaked photos of the purported front assembly of the latest model, was most likely an NFC chip that would be used for mobile wallet applications. AnandTech countered that theory, maintaining that the primarily metal backside of the new iPhone, and the limited space available for glass RF windows at the top and bottom of the assembly, would present alignment and positioning problems for an NFC antenna and smooth NFC communication with other devices. “Most NFC implementations at present place the inductive coils as near to the center of the device as possible,” AnandTech said, “partly because this is the most optimal way to maximize the area which can be dedicated to it, partly because it makes alignment natural.” An NFC antenna located at the extreme top or bottom of the phone would make alignment with non-iPhones -- including payment tokens or reader tags -- a “much more confusing task” that would fall short of the “Apple-like level of polish everyone is waiting for to drive NFC adoption,” it said.