On January 19, Qualcomm announced that it has partnered with Vodafone and Thales to demonstrate the world's first smartphone with new iSIM technology.
The biggest feature of this technology is that it allows the functions of the SIM card to be incorporated into the device's main processor.
Qualcomm demonstrated the technology using a Samsung Galaxy Z Flip3 5G, powered by the Snapdragon 888 5G chip. Qualcomm said the commercialization of the technology could be rolled out among many new devices that use iSIM to connect to mobile services.
Alex Froment-Curtil, Vodafone's Chief Commercial Officer, said: "The combination of iSIM with our remote management platform is an important step in this direction, allowing devices to be connected without a physical SIM or dedicated chip, enabling connectivity to many objects. ”
iSIM complies with GSMA specifications and allows for increased memory capacity, enhanced performance, and greater system integration. According to Arm, iSIM can save 98% of board footprint compared to eSIM, simplify PCB design, and reduce power consumption by 70%. With its advantages, iSIM is not only the future of smartphones, but also the future of the Internet of Things and communications industry.
In simple terms, iSIM card technology offers the following advantages:
Previous eSIM cards required a separate chip, and with the introduction of iSIM, a separate chip is no longer required.
Integrating SIM functionality with other key features such as GPUs, CPUs, and modems into the device's main chipset will free up space occupied by previous SIM sections to simplify and enhance device design and performance, saving the phone's internal footprint.
Since the mobile phone no longer needs the SIM card slot, the mobile phone body has also been enhanced in the design integration, and it is also convenient to directly enhance the dustproof and waterproof effect of the mobile phone.
Allowing operators to use the existing eSIM infrastructure for remote SIM configuration, the current familiar eSIM technology can be directly inherited into the iSIM, and operators do not need to carry out additional technology iterations.
Moreover, iSIM technology is integrated into the mobile phone processor due to completion, which also makes the devices that could not have built-in SIM function before also have wireless communication functions, which is conducive to bringing the mobile experience to laptops, tablets, virtual reality platforms, Internet of Things devices, wearable devices, etc., and promoting the integration and development of the future Internet of Things and IoT fields.
In fact, as early as two or three years ago at the MWC19 Shanghai exhibition, Qualcomm brought an "iSIM card" technology demonstration. At that time, the exhibition demonstrated that Qualcomm Snapdragon mobile platforms (such as Snapdragon 855) can directly "simulate" the unique encryption, authentication and storage functions of SIM cards with integrated security modules. It is equivalent to virtualizing the SIM card into the processor, without additional hardware costs and space occupation, and is a pure software solution.
This time, Qualcomm directly completed the entire demonstration process of the software and hardware solution on the mobile phone of the Snapdragon 888 mobile platform, which means that the technology has a higher maturity and availability.
At present, Qualcomm has not announced a formal commercial timeline for iSIM card technology. Even so, the future application prospects of this technology are still worth looking forward to.
Looking back, though, this technology will evolve in the future. In addition to the maturity of the software and hardware solutions itself, a more important issue may be the support of operators.
As we all know, there is currently eSIM technology similar to the iSIM solution. For example, Apple adopted a dual-card solution composed of a single physical card slot + eSIM on the iPhone in 2018. At present, more than 100 operators around the world have provided eSIM services, and on October 19, 2020, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology agreed to China Telecom and China Mobile to carry out eSIM technology application services in the field of Internet of Things.
However, in China, the enthusiasm of several major operators in promoting eSIM technology is not high at present. At present, there is no commercial use of eSIM technology for smart phones in the mainland, and only some smart watches and other devices can open eSIM services.
This is mainly related to the interests of operators themselves. After the popularization of eSIM, users will be able to switch between multiple operators on the device at will, which will lead to a very negative attitude towards eSIM by major operators, after all, eSIM will greatly weaken the operator's control over users.
iSIM technology also faces these problems, and without operator-level promotion and support, this technology may be difficult to get a wide range of applications.
With the changes in the market environment and national policies, iSIM technology still has great application potential. In the future, this card slot and opening of your mobile phone will be "wiped out" sooner or later.