SIM chip memory capacity

"John Smith" <johnofchristchurch@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:d986c0d9.0402091337.69805c86@posting.google.c om...
> My SIM provided with my prepay here in New Zealand (Vodafone) has a
> capacity of 32K. This doesn't sound much, especially in regards
> Moore's law. What size chips are people elsewhere currently using?
Cutting-Edge 3G Wireless SIM Card
24th November, 2003


Europe : As the transition to third-generation (3G) wireless communications
continues to gather momentum, the world's most advanced mobile phone SIM
card was today unveiled by three of the leading global suppliers of
communications services, silicon chips and smart card technologies.
Above shows the current 3G card from which the 1 Mega card has been
developed.

The brand new 1MB SuperSIM card has been developed for TIM, the leading
Italian mobile operator, by Oberthur Card Systems, one of the world's
leading providers of smart card based solutions, and STMicroelectronics, one
of the world's leading suppliers of silicon chip technology.

An essential component of all mobile phones, the SIM (Subscriber Identity
Module) card stores critical subscriber authentication information, and also
optional private data such as personal phone directories and messages. In
the emerging 3G world, where multimedia content such as MMS, audio or video
downloads are widely used, memory capability is an issue that affects either
the mobile phone, the mass storage element and most of all the security
storage element. Further, because this secure data is stored in the SIM card
rather than the mobile phone memory, it can be easily carried if the user
moves to a new handset.

Today's SIM cards were designed to store text-based data such as phone
numbers or SMSs and do not have the memory capacity to store data such as
MMS or photographic images that are increasingly demanded by mobile phone
users. In the emerging 3G mobile communications world, SIM cards will need
to offer far greater storage capacity and much faster communication between
the SIM card and the mobile phone.

The new card, called SIMphonIC 3G MEGA, contains a state-of-the-art silicon
chip, called ST22FJ1M, made by ST, which includes ST's proprietary SmartJT
Java-accelerated 32-bit processor and a huge megabyte of embedded Flash
memory (enough to hold hundreds of JPG image files) and embedded Operating
System (OS) software developed by Oberthur Card Systems.

"The new 1MB SuperSIM, enables us to add a variety of 3G multimedia
proposals to the exciting services already offered by our InteracTIM engine.
It represents the latest step of an evolution started some years ago that
brought TIM to pass, in less than 30 months, from a 32K card to the newest
SIM-Plus 128K recently launched in mid October up to this very first
innovative product that will revolutionize the mobile telephone market. This
unequalled success has been possible thanks to the strong partnership that
TIM has always developed with its Card Manufacturers and Chip Makers and
that, based on this innovative product, will soon bring other important
innovations related to smart card technologies," said Paolo Paganucci Smart
Card Manager of TIM.

"The exceptional performances of the SmartJT processor combined with our
state-of-the-art OS has allowed us to boost the communication speed between
the card and the mobile phone to almost forty times faster than a normal 2G
SIM card and four times faster than today's best 3G SIM cards," said
Velipekka Kuoppala, 3G product manager, Oberthur Card Systems.

"The SmartJT chip, combined with the Oberthur SIMphonIC 3G MEGA Operating
System will allow TIM's subscribers to enjoy maximum portability of their
mobile content and fully benefit from the new 3G features," said Simone
Cavallo, Group Vice-President, Smart Card Telecom Division General Manager,
STMicroelectronics.

The communication between the SIM card and the mobile phone's electronic
circuit is effected via the ISO7816 protocol. However, within this global
standard, chip manufacturers and smart card experts can join forces to
develop solutions that offer the optimal trade-off between interoperability
(any SIM card should work in any mobile phone) and performance. The enhanced
performance of the new SIM card allows TIM customers to take advantage of
the much greater memory capacities provided by ST and to benefit from the
quicker multimedia management between the card and the most advanced mobile
phone that is provided by Oberthur's SIMphonIC platform.

The new SIM card developed by Oberthur Card Systems to TIM in partnership
with ST is compatible with both the new 3G networks (UMTS/W-CDMA) and
current GSM networks in order to ease migration and enable services such as
info-on-demand, mobile banking and access to a wide range of services