You all know these Cards you need to have in order to activate your cell phone.
While the first cards had a size of 85.6x54mm, as the phones of earlier times
were ridiculously big and heavy, modern smartphones happen to need smaller
and smaller cards. The current smallest factor is Micro-SIM.

The first shrink of these SIM-Cards has been fulfilled in 1994 when first cellphones were smaller than the original SIM card that has a size of 85.6 to 64mm. So The Mini-SIM got invented of whose size is only 25x15mm. A radical shrink that was needed in order to shrink the phones also. In 2010 with the release of the iPhone 4, the Mini-SIM once again had to be shrunken. The result was a 15x12mm small card that fits into the iPhone 4, iPad and modern phones of Nokia. The thickness is 0.76mm

However the Micro-SIM still seems too big for Apple’s newest upcoming phone, the iPhone 5. So Gisecke&Devrient, a company in Munich managed to shrink down the SIM size to an astounding 12x9mm size. Also the thickness has been reduced to 0.66mm! Et voilà, the Nano-SIM is born!

Such a small card is also delicate to handle. Hopefully, Gisecke&Devrient makes the new Nano-SIM as ruggedized as their predecessors.

The following picture might give you an idea on how the SIM-card has evolved in the last 15 years:

I wonder if they still are enineering on even smaller SIM-cards for which you will for sure need pincers!