The announcement follows a collaborative agreement between the two companies signed earlier this year, which was aimed at integrating Onomondo’s SoftSIM to cellular IoT end-products based on Nordic’s nRF9160 low power System-in-Package (SiP).
According to Onomondo, its SoftSIM is the world’s first 100% software and agnostic IoT SIM. While non-physical eSIMs are promising, they require additional supporting hardware. However, by reusing modules that already exist for cellular IoT, Onomondo’s IoT SIM can be stored and executed as pure software.
In addition, many of the embedded commercial agreements on eSIMs lack the flexibility modern IoT use cases require, SoftSIM is network and platform agnostic, meaning there are no hidden lock-ins or unnecessary costs for users.
This announcement means that users can now download SoftSIM from the Cloud, which will then be executed as software by the nRF9160 SiP’s embedded ARM Cortex-M33 application processor. The availability of SoftSIM in nRF91 Series-based designs is not only a world first, but also delivers a compact and flexible solution for cellular IoT connectivity. Without the need for extra hardware, users can significantly reduce the bill-of-materials (BoM) and simplify the design of IoT projects.
In addition, by combining SoftSIM with Nodric’s SiP solution, the potential for low power IoT projects is set to be transformed.
According to Onomondo, during testing, they found that using a SoftSIM reduced the current consumption by 100% compared to a physical SIM in idle, resulting in around 3.5µA. The SoftSIM itself consumes near zero current consumption in idle mode, compared to an average consumption of 46µA observed when using physical SIM cards from other connectivity providers. This means that the total average current in idle mode of the radio module can go from 52µA to 9.5µA which will help to greatly increase the battery lifetime of the device.
Commenting on the announcement, Michael Karlsen, co-founder and CEO of Onomondo said, “This is an important milestone for Onomondo and our mission. Our promise has always been to break down the silos that exist between hardware and software within the IoT industry, and the successful integration of SoftSIM into nRF91 Series-based designs and now its availability to users is a huge step forward in delivering on it. The testing data already shows how much it could impact low power IoT projects globally, so we’re excited to see what the future holds as we work to build on this success and continue bringing SoftSIM to IoT users globally.”
“Back in 2015, we started developing the nRF9160, a groundbreaking product for Cellular IoT, with a vision of one day replacing the traditional SIM technology with smarter solution,” said Svein-Egil Nielsen, CTO/VP R&D at Nordic Semiconductor. “This innovation (SoftSIM) simplifies how IoT devices connect, significantly cuts costs, enhances power efficiency, and provides more flexibility for our customers. This partnership shows our dedication to pushing the boundaries of what's possible in the IoT world.”
