SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
ARM wants mobile or IoT devices to include a tiny integrated SIM card:
Every millimeter of space matters when you're trying to build increasingly complex electronics into increasingly tiny packages, and the relatively spacious SIM card has long been an area of frustration for hardware manufacturers. Now, the chip design company ARM may have an answer: an integrated component called an iSIM that's built into the same chip as the processor.
ARM says the iSIM will take up a "fraction of a millimeter squared," whereas the current SIM standard — Nano SIMs — are about 12.3 x 8.8mm in size, not including the hardware usually needed to house them. Not only will that save space, but ARM says it'll more importantly save on costs, too: instead of paying "tens of cents" per card, manufacturers will be paying single-digital cents.
Also at CNET, Tom's Hardware, and Wccftech.
Related: Infineon Demos a 1.65 mm^2 eSIM Chip
(Score: 2) by AndyTheAbsurd on Thursday February 22 2018, @04:48PM (4 children)
You missed the point pretty badly there. The case that The Mighty Buzzard is talking about is not failure of the SIM, but failure of something in the rest of the device. Having a hard-wired SIM means that the account that the device reports to changes every time the device is changed. With the existing, removable SIM system, you can slap a new device in place transferring the existing SIM (and OS/data log/whatever else on an SD card) and not have to worry about "oh, client X used have device 728 and now they've got device 989 so let's update their account"...and the associated potential errors that go with it, like the service guy having sloppy handwriting, so what he originally wrote as "989" he reads as "967" when he gets around to doing the updates two days later.
Please note my username before responding. You may have been trolled.
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Thursday February 22 2018, @04:52PM (3 children)
sudo mod me up
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 22 2018, @05:25PM
"Simple", the magic word here. From previous experience in life it will be insanely difficult for the first few years atleast, then it'll be a bit better, but the old HW is dropped of support and you can't do it anymore. Then there'll be another software version and it'll drop more support and copying stuff between different vendors will be shit from day 1 to day infinity.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 22 2018, @08:34PM (1 child)
You are assuming a programmable SIM is a good thing.
No sir. Noone in my family would want to spend the day over the phone with customer support to activate a new phone with the same nr because they accidentally broke what they had. Pulling out of the drawer that old Nokia 3310 and inserting the simcard of the damaged phone will do perfectly.
I could agree to this tech uses in the industry or many other fields. But please keep it out of my phone.
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Monday February 26 2018, @09:14AM
Much easier than trying to cut a SIM down to the newer smaller size that this generation of phones uses, or waiting for a replacement if you lose it.
sudo mod me up