Ten years ago, if someone told you that you could charge your phone in less than 10 minutes or take a detailed photo of the moon, would you have believed it? Despite our devotion to technology, we would certainly be suspicious. However, these things are possible today. Our smartphones have seen tremendous growth in almost every area. But if there is one thing that has undergone minimal evolution, it is the SIM card.
The SIM card is witnessing the next wave of transformation with the iSIM or integrated SIM, which are much smaller and offer greater security than physical SIM cards or embedded SIMs (eSIM). Vodafone and Qualcomm recently demonstrated an iSIM proof-of-concept and showed how iSIM could be a valuable commodity in upcoming smartphones. In this article, we will discuss how iSIM adoption could affect the future of smartphones and other smart devices.
Qualcomm Snapdragon X55 5G modem, the world’s first 7Gbps 5G modem. Qualcomm
But despite being one of the core elements of a smartphone, the SIM card has seen less innovation than any other phone component. However, the integrated SIM brings significant progress as it is more reliable, secure and efficient.
What is a SIM card?
The “Subscriber Identity Module” or SIM stores information about the subscriber’s account or telephone subscription. The SIM card contains a primitive chip that allows the phone to communicate with the cell tower. It also contains an International Mobile Subscriber Identifier (IMSI) that can identify your smartphone.
In addition, the SIM card has a small amount of storage space that is used to store SMS messages along with your mobile subscription details. Furthermore, the SIM can encrypt the connection between the cell tower and your smartphone — and therefore be protected from crosstalk.
The long-standing physical SIM card became smaller over the years and was eventually supplemented by an “embedded SIM” or “eSIM”. The latest evolution of SIM cards is the integrated SIM or iSIM, which is built into the mobile processor.
What is iSIM? How is it different from eSIM?
iSIM or Integrated SIM, also known as Integrated Universal Integrated Circuit Card (iUICC), is the next step in the evolution of the SIM card. It is by far the most advanced, efficient and flexible device-side networking equipment.
A physical SIM card requires a dedicated slot on a smartphone, tablet or any other smart device, while an eSIM requires a dedicated chip soldered to the device’s circuit board. In contrast, the iSIM is embedded in a tamper-resistant element (TRE) on the device’s system-on-chip (SoC). It removes the need to depend on discrete SIM hardware and can be activated wirelessly using an industry-wide secure protocol.
Thales Group
Just like the eSIM, the iSIM is a secure vault that stores the details of the user’s mobile subscription. Just like eSIM, iSIM allows operators to preload network profiles or send them remotely directly to a user’s handset — or any other smart device — without having to physically visit a store.
iSIM is small in size, less than one millimeter squared. Since the iSIM does not take up as much space inside the smartphone case as a physical SIM or eSIM, this space is freed up for other components or to make the device more compact.
In addition to smartphones, the iSIM can be useful in providing cellular connectivity to devices with size limitations, such as smartwatches. In addition, the freedom from a physical SIM means that the iSIM can be used in a myriad of battery-powered IoT devices, rather than limiting them to Wi-Fi, easing any major constraints on the shape or form of a smart device. This is especially useful in the 5G era as more and more device manufacturers want to use Low Power Wide Area Networks (LPWA) to connect more devices into larger and larger interconnect networks.
Advantages of iSIM
iSIM is the most advanced version of the SIM card. It offers the following advantages over the prevailing forms of SIM technologies.
Size
As we saw above, the small footprint of the iSIM allows freeing up space inside the device. This can allow better optimization of internal space — either by adding more useful components or reducing the overall size of the device. Companies building IoT devices can reduce internal complexity, eliminate logistical issues associated with pieces of isolated mobile connectivity equipment, and can optimize manufacturing by using smaller network controllers, such as iSIM.
Qualcomm
This smaller size will be particularly useful for consumer devices such as smartwatches or standalone augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) headsets, which could augment or even completely replace smartphones in the future.
Safety
The iSIM is encapsulated within a secure and trusted area within the device’s SoC. iSIM security can be customized according to the requirements of each device. The specifications for the Tamper-resistant element (TRE) are recognized by the Trust Connectivity Alliance and will be crucial in setting a consistent standard for iSIM security.
The TRE is a single and independent hardware part of the SoC. It runs low-level software to defend the iSIM against physical or virtual attacks.
Qualcomm’s first iSIM-enabled chipset is the Snapdragon 888, launched in 2020. The Snapdragon 888 has a secure processing unit (SPU) that in turn comes with an integrated security element (iSE) to protect information stored on the iSIM.
Low power requirements
The iSIM draws power directly from the SoC and does not require a separate microprocessor to operate. Since the functionality of the iSIM is still relatively limited, it has negligible power consumption and does not affect the operation of the SoC. In contrast, a more powerful SoC will be able to deliver power to the iSIM more quickly, improving mobile response.
The latter aspect will be crucial in future generations of mobile and IoT devices where gigabit speeds will be common and our dependence on data connectivity will also grow. LPWA technologies such as LTE-M (LTE machine-type communication) and NB-IoT (Narrowband IoT), companies can deliver high performance using 5G or more advanced mobile protocols.
Similar to game streaming services where all processing takes place on a cloud-based server, it’s also possible that future processing capabilities of smaller devices like smartphones will be offloaded to the cloud, while barebones hardware is used to display that information. An iSIM with minimal power requirements will be incredibly useful in such a case.
Compatibility with 2G, 3G, 4G and 5G
Unlike proprietary solutions such as nuSIM, iSIM is recognized throughout the industry and will be available with standard security protocols to be used with any carrier. iSIM specifications are standardized by the GSM Association and other organizations, including 3GPP, the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI), Eurosmart and the Trust Connectivity Alliance. iSIM is also compliant with ETSI SIM specifications as well as GSMA M2M (machine-to-machine) specifications.
iSIM supports 2G, 3G, 4G and 5G networks and can be connected to any operator’s service. It can also be used with multiple mobile plans. If you travel from one country to another, you can automatically switch between two different operators without physically searching for a new SIM card.
Applications in IoT
With its small size and compatibility with a wide range of industry communication standards, iSIM is a key stepping stone in the popularization of stand-alone and battery-powered IoT devices. While our current idea of the IoT involves large devices with large sensors, technologies like iSIM can enable much smaller form factors, such as electricity or gas meters, medical equipment, and even vehicle telematics—a field that deals with monitoring a wide spectrum of information related to the car, especially in autonomous vehicles. In addition to autonomous vehicles, telematics can also be applied to drones.
Vodafone showcases one of the outstanding examples of the application of iSIM in IoT using a promotional video. The telecoms giant envisages smart labels, powered by iSIM, that can be affixed to packages to be tracked throughout delivery to track the condition in which it is being shipped. In this way, iSIM can replace traditional solutions such as RFID tags.
Scope for iSIM usage
Counterpoint Research predicts that the number of iSIM-enabled consumer electronic devices will reach approximately 75 million by 2022. This number is projected to further multiply to 500 million by 2025 (via Thales Group). Although the main recipients of the new technology are smartphones, we can witness it on a wide range of consumer products such as tablets, laptops, augmented reality devices and a wider range of IoT devices. Speaking specifically of smartphones, rumors suggest that Apple may soon do away with the physical SIM slot — and while the iPhone 14 series won’t bring about this transformation, it’s easy to expect Apple to lead the smartphone industry in the direction of markets where phones are sold without physical SIM slots.
The use of an integrated SIM in various forms of smart devices will allow various service providers and industries to exploit a large number of data points that can then be used to optimize not only physical assets such as devices, but also operations and services.
More than 370 mobile operators in 100 countries currently provide remote configuration capabilities for various eSIM-capable smartphones. With the widespread adoption of iSIM, we can also see many operators effortlessly improving their systems to support iSIM as well.
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Source: newstars.edu.vn