EE Times Under The Hood - October 8, 2007 - (Page 20) under the hood: MOBILE “The first thing that strikes us as SI looked at the insides of the iPhone are the number of Apple branded components,” said Quirk. That makes it difficult to discern what parts make up the iPhone. To get inside the chips, SI resorted to decapping, a process that involves immersing the chips in acid to dissolve the outer packaging and then manually scraping away any residual packaging material. There were three parts with the Apple logo, and another four that seemed to have a numbering scheme similar to Apple’s without any discernable manufacturer markings. “The first Apple-branded component is the Samsung processor, which is a three stacked die package containing an S5L8900 and two 512-Mbit SRAM dice,” said Quirk. While SI had not seen the S5L8900 marking before, it said the numbering conforms to other Samsung processors found in smart phones and PDAs. The second Apple-branded part is the Broadcom BCM5973A. While no information is available about this part, SI believes it provides the I/O controller used for the video interface to the touchscreen. Philips designs the third part, said Quirk. Further investigation into the component’s purpose is ongoing. Infineon makes two of the six remaining unknown parts. Its www.eetimes.com • www.techonline.com learned and redesigning it into their phone. This surely made the design process easier for them, as they are familiar with the components and how to implement them.” For example, Samsung’s 65-nm 8-Gbyte MLC NAND flash (K9MCG08U5M) was used in the iPhone. “This is the exact same component that was used in the 8-Gbyte iPod nano,” said Quirk. “This memory is used to store things like songs, pictures and videos. Samsung provides the K9HBG08U1M in the 4-Gbyte version of the iPhone.” The audio codec is the Wolfson WM8758. “This is the same codec that was used in the iPod video, making the sound quality similar to what you experience from your iPod,” said Quirk. Other components similar to the iPod’s are parts from Linear Technology and Silicon Storage Technologies. The new components include wireless connectivity and touchscreen. The Marvell 88W8686 is a 90-nm WLAN device; the same die can also be found in the Wi2Wi 802.11 + Bluetooth System in Package Solution. The CSR BlueCore 4 ROM is a Bluetooth device that was also used in the BlackBerry Pearl 8100. Balda, a German company, scored the design win with the touchscreen. “Balda is known for making touchscreens that are durable and scratch-resistant,” said Quirk, noting that a common complaint among iPod users is that the screen scratches too easily. According to Quirk, Balda has worked with Nokia, Motorola and Sony-Ericsson, but this is its most visible design, which should enhance its own visibility in the market. The iPhone also implements Intel wireless flash with 32 Mbytes of NOR coupled with 16 Mbytes of SRAM for code execution. “Interestingly, many in the industry predicted a design win for Intel, but thought it would be for an Intel [now Marvell] applications processor instead of flash memory,” said Quirk. ■ IN BRIEF The components used in the Apple iPhone are fairly standard but solid and reliable devices from the likes of Samsung, Infineon, CSR, STMicroelectronics, Linear Technology,Wolfson and Marvell. However, it’s the touchscreen from Balda, combined with motion sensing capability and incredibly smart software, that brings the system together to form a user-friendly, intuitive interface. PMB8876 S-Gold 2 multimedia engine with EDGE functionality provides the iPhone’s baseband. The second Infineon part appears to be the GSM RF transceiver. Another component is the National Semiconductor 24-bit RGB display interface serializer. The other parts are harder to determine, but one appears to be a Texas Instruments power management device, another is a multichip package with STMicroelectronics and Peregrine Semiconductor die markings, and the third has the characters “PMA19.” “What is also interesting are the components that are similar between the iPhone and some of the latest iPod models,” added Quirk. “Apple is taking what they Component focus A number of main semiconductor components that make the Apple iPhone function have been widely talked about.Though many of today’s designs for GSM phones are seeing discrete components replaced by application-specific ICs, these components are still very important today, even in the iPhone. Discrete components are represented by a variety of devices, including, but not limited to, resistors, capacitors, regulators and connectors. Discrete components are often used to reduce parasitic inductance on a circuit board. This has an impact on performance at frequencies above 800 MHz, where most wireless devices operate.And discrete components still play an active role in ESD protection. Integrated filters and zener diodes can incorporate protection against contact discharge up to 8,000 V.According to iSuppli, there are 640 passive components in the phone that make up about 3 percent of the total cost of the phone, not including the packaging and literature. By Allan Yogasingam, sourcing manager at Semiconductor Insights, a CMP Technology company. 20 Electronic Engineering Times, TechOnline | October 8, 2007 http://www.eetimes.com http://www.techonline.com
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