Traditional mobile phones use a physical card called a SIM card to connect to the cellular network. The eSIM digital card that is currently being promoted is not progressing fast, in part because Android is not well supported. According to a new report from Esper, Google may push eSIM in Android 13 to push the technology's popularity.
Esper reports that Android 13's codebase contains a patent filed by Google in 2020 that allows the use of multiple SIM profiles on a single embedded chip.
From the patent description, it does so by splitting the single physical data bus between the modem and eSIM chip into multiple logical interfaces that are multiplexed on a single physical interface. It sounds a bit like modern CPUs split physical CPU cores into logical CPU cores to perform more tasks simultaneously.
Unlike a physical SIM card that needs to be equipped with a slot, eSIM only requires a small component on the motherboard, which leaves more room for the phone to accommodate larger batteries, camera hardware, or other components. However, not many phones have completely ditched the physical SIM card slot.
Google hasn't publicly mentioned this feature, but if it does remain in the final version of Android 13, it would be a huge boost to eSIMs.
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