IBasis sim card power consumption

[ALPTECH]

Hi, 

Does anyone know the quiescent/average power consumption of the IBasis sim card. 

I have a design based on the Thingy:91 and I am wondering if it is worth moving from the sim card to an eSIM chip to save power. 

Thankyou. 

[Albrecht Markus Schellenberger]

Hello Jared,

Does anyone know the quiescent/average power consumption of the IBasis sim card. 

I have a design based on the Thingy:91 and I am wondering if it is worth moving from the sim card to an eSIM chip to save power. 

Average current consumption of a SIM card in sleep state is around 20-30 uA. Some SIM cards support shutdown during RRC idle, which will decrease the current to 0. For your reference, the nRF9160 DK includes a SIM card current measuring point.

Please note that current consumption of the SIM card itself in most cases just is the “tip of the iceberg”. If SIM card profile does not support PSM/eDRX or provide good network coverage for most of the use cases, this will become irrelevant. 

Cheers, 

Markus