First off, we start with some facts. Did you know who invented the SIM card? The tiny piece of chip that finds itself embedded inside almost every mobile phone on the globe was first made by a smart card maker known as Giesecke & Devrient back in 1991. The company sold the first 300 of them that were made to a network operator based in Finland.
Over the years, the SIM card has seen much advancement in terms of what went inside it as well as the size. It started off with the full size SIM which was the size of a stadard credit card (!), moved on to the mini SIM which is still the most widely used SIM card form factor. What started with basic networks soon moved to second generation and various advancements of 2G (the likes of 2.5 G and 2.75G and eventually 3G and 3.5G). The world is today on the verge of 4G mobile services and one thing that has remained constant is the SIM card.
The first major form factor change for the SIM card came in 2010 when Apple introduced the iPhone 4, and along with it, a new micro sized form factor called the micro SIM. Earlier this year, Nokia too jumped on to the micro SIM bandwagon when they introduced the MeeGo laden N9 and its new Windows Phone devices with Micro SIM capability. Another new handset that comes with micro SIM support is the Droid RAZR.
Just when we thought the micro SIM format was catching up, here comes a new form factor. Called the nano SIM, this one, as you might have guessed by now, is smaller than even the (already tiny) micro SIM.
The Nano SIM is being developed by the same company that invented the SIM card and it hopes to standardize the format by the end of this very year. In fact, you might see the first handsets based on this platform as early as next year. The good thing about the Nano SIM is that it would be backward compatible with older SIM card slots and would come with an adapter for usage on older handsets.
The Nano SIM is likely to be backed by Apple as well as most telecom operators and unlike the micro SIM which failed to take off, this one might just go mainstream.
