Infineon Technologies has joined the GSMA, the association of the mobile industry to actively shape mobile communications of tomorrow. The GSMA brings together nearly 800 mobile network operators worldwide with almost 300 companies in the broader mobile ecosystem. As an associate member, Infineon will contribute its expertise in security and data transmission technologies to develop mobile standards used by billions of consumers globally."Our advanced semiconductor solutions are the key to a smart, secure and energy efficient cellular infrastructure connecting consumers, homes, vehicles and factories to the Internet," says Helmut Gassel, member of the management board of Infineon. "As a member of GSMA we will contribute our high-frequency and security expertise to the mobile industry and enable commercial deployment of 5G."An increasingly critical aspect of communication in the era of the Internet of Things (IoT) is secured identification of consumers, devices and machines. Infineon has been supplying security chips for SIM (subscriber identification module) cards since the beginnings in the 1990s. In its role as a GSMA member, Infineon says it will drive further development of next-generation embedded SIM (eSIM) standards.SIM cards are used to authenticate mobile subscribers to their mobile networks. However, form factors are now evolving from removable plug-ins to embedded solutions which are significantly smaller in size and consume less power. eSIMs offer additional advantages: they are integrated into phones, wearables, machines or cars during the manufacturing process. As such they allow remote SIM provisioning and management and are not tied to a single mobile network. The GSMA expects up to 10.5 billion mobile connected devices by 2020 leading to a huge market opportunity for eSIMs, predominantly in the machine to machine (M2M) and mobile consumer devices sectors.