SIM cards are still too big. Infineon annonces a 1.5mm SIM card.

[GoodBytes]

Infineon sees that SIM cards are too big for phones today. At MWC, the company showcased a new SIM product for embedded systems, that is significantly smaller than current SIM cards. In fact it is 1.5mm big only. To be exact, the dimensions are: 1.5mm x 1.1mm x 0.37mm.

 

 

 

The company says that it uses GlobalFoundries 14LPP process technology to make it.

 

Anandtech reports:

Quote

Infineon showcased a lineup of its current and embedded SIM products. The company demonstrates not only the industry-standard MFF2 eSIM chip, but also considerably smaller ICs designed for future miniature devices (many of which may not even exist yet as a category) as well as M2M (machine to machine) applications. It is noteworthy that to manufacture an eSIM the size of a match head, Infineon uses GlobalFoundries 14LPP process technology, taking advantage of leading-edge lithography to bring the size of a simple device down.

[...]

The IC is made using 14LPP process technology by GlobalFoundries and the foundry charges the chip developer accordingly. Using a leading-edge process technology to make eSIM cards is not something common, but the approach enables developers of various devices to take advantage of the smallest cards possible (another advantage of such cards are low voltages and power consumption).

 

Source: http://www.anandtech.com/show/11175/infineon-shows-off-future-of-esim-cards-1-65-mm2-14nm-ff

 

Don't lose yours!

Do you think we need ridiculous small SIM cards?

[tsk]

This is long overdue, I know Apple wants to implement this so hoping to see it in next year's iPhone so the rest of the industry will follow. 

[HarryNyquist]

Oh good, another way to kill off carrier-unlocked phones. 

Hard pass on that one. I don't want to be stuck with buying a new device every time I switch carriers.

[SilicateWielder]

I'd say we don't need these, phones keep getting bigger so why do we need to extra room provided by a smaller sim card?

 

The ONLY practical use I see for one of these is in a curved phone.

[tsk]

6 minutes ago, HarryNyquist said:

Oh good, another way to kill off carrier-unlocked phones. 

Hard pass on that one. I don't want to be stuck with buying a new device every time I switch carriers.

This has nothing to do with locked devices, the data a SIM carries justifies it to be the size of a grain of salt. This will enable you to switch carriers without having to wait for your new SIM to arrive. One should not frown upon great technology just because US customers get royaly f**ked by their carriers. 

[Sauron]

For phones this is completely pointless. For iot maybe not, but I'm still on the fence on whether iot makes any sense in the first place.

[themctipers]

Fucking useless. 

 

[thenastyjbenny]

3 minutes ago, Sauron said:

For phones this is completely pointless. For iot maybe not, but I'm still on the fence on whether iot makes any sense in the first place.

Wasn't apple's main excuse for kicking the 3.5mm jack on the iPhone a lack of space? With some implementation, this could be a valuable asset for all smartphone developers.

[Sauron]

This has nothing to do with locked devices, the data a SIM carries justifies it to be the size a grain of salt. This will enable you to switch carriers without having to wait for your new SIM to arrive. One should not frown upon great technology just because US customers get royaly f**key by their carriers. 

Even if it could technically be the size of a few atoms it doesn't change the fact that further reducing its size will make it impractical. This doesn't make a difference in what hardware you can put in the phone, it's miniaturizing for its own sake. The sim card has always been designed to be user serviceable, making it smaller will make changing it unnecessarily harder. I'd much rather see advancements in battery technology and a halt to the thinness craze.

[tsk]

1 minute ago, Sauron said:

Even if it could technically be the size of a few atoms it doesn't change the fact that further reducing its size will make it impractical. This doesn't make a difference in what hardware you can put in the phone, it's miniaturizing for its own sake. The sim card has always been designed to be user serviceable, making it smaller will make changing it unnecessarily harder. I'd much rather see advancements in battery technology and a halt to the thinness craze.

This new SIM will not be user changeable, it will be a small chip soldered in the device. You can now change carriers with a phone call or activation through a carrier web service. 

[thenastyjbenny]

1 minute ago, Sauron said:

Even if it could technically be the size of a few atoms it doesn't change the fact that further reducing its size will make it impractical. This doesn't make a difference in what hardware you can put in the phone, it's miniaturizing for its own sake. The sim card has always been designed to be user serviceable, making it smaller will make changing it unnecessarily harder. I'd much rather see advancements in battery technology and a halt to the thinness craze.

While I tend to agree with the latter part of your statement, It happened. The technology is here, and if Apple implements it as rumored here, then it's implemented. Big deal. Somebody'll figure out a way to do the usual stuff like jailbreaking, switch the SIM to a different phone, etc. It's why iFixit still does those "take apart this device" videos.

[Sauron]

1 minute ago, JR8 said:

Wasn't apple's main excuse for kicking the 3.5mm jack on the iPhone a lack of space? With some implementation, this could be a valuable asset for all smartphone developers.

First of all removing the jack implies removing the DAC as well, which does make a difference (although I still think it was completely pointless to remove it for the sake of shaving 2mm) - making the sim smaller doesn't remove the antenna block. Besides it's not like apple has used the "saved space" to add anything useful.

[pagani123]

seems pretty ridiculous 

[manikyath]

am i really the only person left in the world that wants two mini SIM and an SD card slot in his phone? seriously.. we dont need phones thinner than 10mm, you're killing off so much internal space for a metric that you dont even notice in your pocket.

 

EDIT: and a big removable battery...

[Guest]

3 hours ago, themctipers said:

Fucking useless. 

 

I can maybe see a few cases where Apple might find this attractive, but I don't think I would personally find a major use for this. 

 

I think companies should be focusing more on the speed of the drives rather than the size. 

[tsk]

1 minute ago, manikyath said:

am i really the only person left in the world that wants two mini SIM and an SD card slot in his phone? seriously.. we dont need phones thinner than 10mm, you're killing off so much internal space for a metric that you dont even notice in your pocket.

This eSIM would allow you to quickly sign up for a carrier in any country and would render dual SIM useless. As someone who travels a lot around the world this would be a godsend for me. 

[Guest]

3 hours ago, manikyath said:

am i really the only person left in the world that wants two mini SIM and an SD card slot in his phone? seriously.. we dont need phones thinner than 10mm, you're killing off so much internal space for a metric that you dont even notice in your pocket.

 

EDIT: and a big removable battery...

What on Earth are you talking about?!?!

 

We CLEARLY need paper thin phones! How else am I going to use my 2 seconds of battery life?!

 

/sarcasam

[manikyath]

Just now, tsk said:

This eSIM would allow you to quickly sign up for a carrier in any country and would render dual SIM useless. As someone who travels a lot around the world this would be a godsend for me. 

we dont need a smaller sim for your sim to be carrier independant, in fact i believe the dutch are already pushing for carrier independant sim's. and i dont think this would allow you to register for two carriers at the same time either

[manikyath]

1 minute ago, IAmLamp said:

my 2 seconds of battery life

i'm having flashbacks to my ipod touch 4th gen after a year...

[grimreeper132]

is it only me that finds it ironic how everyone now wants to get a bigger phone but also wants it to have a smaller sim card???

[manikyath]

1 minute ago, wrathoftheturkey said:

In that case, I'm all for it.

if it means that we finally have carrier independant SIMs, at least then that is something good.

 

although, comes to the question of the extremely limited amount of write cycles SIMs currently have, would that be better on these?

[themctipers]

15 minutes ago, IAmLamp said:

I can maybe see a few cases where Apple might find this attractive, but I don't think I would personally find a major use for this. 

 

I think companies should be focusing more on the speed of the drives rather than the size. 

Sims have like 1MB of storage on them..

[Guest]

3 hours ago, themctipers said:

Sims have like 1MB of storage on them..

oh my bad, I thought that's where things like the OS was stored and what not >.> 

[themctipers]

Just now, IAmLamp said:

oh my bad, I thought that's where things like the OS was stored and what not >.> 

The SIM card. 

 

._.

[eroc1990]

I can see this being useful for super small integrated/iot devices. If this makes its way into phones, we're just going nuts with our desire to make components as small as possible.