NXP, the company that makes the Near Field Communication (NFC) chips for the new Samsung Nexus S, has told Pocket-lint that the Nexus S is the first of many NFC phones on the way. NXP is working with a number of phone manufacturers to bring the technology and the new Android feature to market, Pocket-lint was told.

“We are aware of a number of projects that are underway and we believe the recent announcement has the potential to accelerate those plans and to spark new projects”, NXP told Pocket-lint.

Android 2.3, announced on Monday, and confirmed by Google to be coming to the Nexus S and the first Nexus handset, the Nexus One, brings with it a number of new features including NFC support.

NFC is a technology that allows contactless payment, as well as other information, to be shared without physically touching anything.

It is currently found in a handful of devices including some Nokia phones and a digital photo frame from Parrot, but so far failed to take off because you need devices and a reason to want it.

“Implementation is also now easier for OEM’s, due to the support for NFC in the latest release of Android”, NXP tells us.

However, before you get too excited about the new feature, you should bare in mind that it is currently only supported on the new Nexus S.

“This is the only public phone that has been launched on Android. The phone has to have an NFC chip in order to use NFC. A software update will not enable NFC”, NXP warns Pocket-lint and its readers.

“Google/Samsung Nexus S just recently announced is the world’s first Android v2.3 phone and it is integrating NFC. The solution is based on NXP’s PN544 NFC solution”.

Apple is also rumoured to be toying with the idea of adding NFC to the iPhone 5, whenever that happens.