Last week, we saw a report on cnet making claims that Apple’s iPhone 4 is powered by the same device as the Samsung Wave S8500. The renowned A4 chip is manufactured by Samsung – it makes sense that it might appear in a Samsung device.

What many North American’s don’t know is that Samsung is a massive company – much larger then they might think. Samsung plays in semiconductor design, manufacturing, consumer electronics, appliances and even automotive (ie. They make cars). From personal experience, the various divisions have difficulty working together. The concept of a Samsung device having a Samsung core is slightly less likely then you probably thought.

R&D costs on a chip such as the A4 are bound to be quite high. Have you ever seen a chip that you weren’t able to ID on Samsung’s website?  Chances are it has proprietary claims – much like “Apple’s A4″.

Well, today Dr. Wreck has news for you – semiconductor manufacturers often resell or repackage bare die in an effort to extend a devices life-expectancy or even functional base. That means you might find yourself purchasing a crippled or often repackaged device for your next design application. This is often done by rotating the die 90 degrees inside of the package – which modifies the pin-out.

What is the device actually called? The S5PC110A01. It’s no wonder Apple, the king of branding in all things electronic, decided on something simple and sexy like the A4. This news is really no surprise – that said, the iPhone is about the only smartphone anyone should really consider building proprietary devices for (sales volumes are high enough to support R&D and tapeout).

Technical Specifications at a glance:

• PowerVR SGX 535 3D Graphics core
• 1 GHz Cortex-A8 (iPad)
• L1 cache – 64KB
• L2 cache – 640KB
• PoP – 2x 128MB DDR SDRAM chips, 64-bit data bus

Make sure to check out @DrWreck on twitter for the latest and greatest in Smartphone news.

Just a quick update today – something Dr.Wreck likes to keep track of and is probably of interest to most of our readers. Thinking of buying a smartphone? Want to predict what’s hot based on last quarter’s sales?

Check out the below chart.

Q1 2010 Smartphone Performance by OS

To be honest, no real surprises here. The iPhone is an ever threat – with it’s new corporate plays it seems to be inheriting a portion of RIM’s “prosumer” share. Android is doing just as well with a matched +2% QoQ (Quarter on Quarter performance).

Interestingly enough is that the two proprietary Hardware Software Combo Makers (RIM and Apple) seem to dominate the market. Cross platform OS’s (WinMo, Android, etc.) don’t seem to be doing as well. Android is a relatively new player (compared to RIM and Apple) – it’s most likely only a matter of time before our little robot friend starts to absorb BlackBerry and iPhone users. What’s your opinion? We’d love to hear it!

@DrWreck

]]> http://www.phonewreck.com/2010/06/07/smartphone-market-share-q1-2010/feed/ 2 http://www.phonewreck.com/2010/05/21/foxconns-tegra-2-powered-android-tablet/ http://www.phonewreck.com/2010/05/21/foxconns-tegra-2-powered-android-tablet/#comments Fri, 21 May 2010 18:37:57 +0000 Dr. Wreck http://www.phonewreck.com/?p=706

In the interim of Product Teardown’s, Dr.Wreck has decided to call on his vast experience with taking apart and creating consumer electronics. Today we’d like to briefly discuss Foxconn’s new platform featuring Tegra 2 and Android.

Nvidia has done fantastic things with it’s Tegra platform – recently engadget got a chance to play with the latest creation via Foxconn. The device looks great – it’s widescreen, it’s simple, it get’s covered in smudges, it’s looks are not what we want to talk about. What’s inside this device? What about Tegra 2 makes this package so interesting?

Well for starter’s the Tegra 2 is a 1GHz ARM Cortex 9 CPU which is capable of Symmetric Multi-Processing – kind of like your PC. Not only does this thing crunch math like nobody’s business, it includes a low power GPU (details are scarce) that we can only assume takes influence from the lightweight and popular ION/ION2 platform. What is means is that Tegra 2 is effectively an MCP capable of pantsing your netbook in fixed function applications. It’s capable of encoding and decoding 1080p h.264. It’s really hard to put this device in perspective – considering it combines the PC hardware of ~2006 into a single chip package smaller than an after-8 chocolate. Nvidia even claims it’s capable of 140 hours of audio and 16 hours of HD video playback! What size battery would that be?

If you ever find yourself at a trade show and see Nvidia’s booth, make sure and take Tegra 2 for a spin. Then ask yourself why this device isn’t integrated into every facet of your mobile computing life. Is it price? Is it IC politics? Probably a combination of the 2 – our guess is a similar situation as to why we don’t see ION in more netbooks – Intel supremacy.

One thing is for certain, Tegra 2 packs alot of punch. It’s combined architecture means your PCB requires less. Mobility enabling Semiconductor’s are becoming heavily integrated platforms which can both reduce cost and design effort.

The future is exciting. We can’t wait to grab one of these devices!

@DrWreck

The unboxing - courtesy of ifixit

Apple “surprised” us early this month with the announcement of it iPhone 3G “s”. Whenever Apple releases a new device – everyone and their brother/sister has to get involved.

Dr. Wreck is no exception and has been working hard with the gentlemen/women over at ifixit to get the skinny on the new device. Without further ado, here we go!

Explosion - courtesy of ifixit

Those Apple Engineer’s really know how to pack a PCB. They’ve managed to fit almost everything onto the “top” of the main logic board. The 3Gs’ PCB makes the 3G’s PCB look sparse (the apostrophes were probably a little bit confusing there).

Let’s take a minute here to talk about the new Applications Processor Core. Apple has chosen to go from the ARM 11 Samsung S3C6400 to the ARM A8 Samsung S5PC100 with this device.

iPhone 3Gs Block Diagram - In Progress

This is the single largest difference between the 3G and the 3Gs. Firstly the manufacturing process has been chopped from 90nm to 65nm. Pipeline depth has been boosted to 13 – stage from 8. More importantly the clock speed of this newer processor rolls in at 600MHz – opposed to the 412MHz core of the old – obsolete 3G. Samsung has also doubled the quantity of L1 cache from 16 to 32KB.

None of this even takes the new PowerVR graphics core into consideration. Apple is clearly thinking along the lines of a gaming device for this puppy. The SGX is fully programmable – like the graphics card on your PC or mac. Expect some sweet gaming action in the near future.

@ 200MHz the SGX can pop 7M triangles/second and render 250M pixels/sec. That’s roughly 7 times the performance of the old, “obsolete” MBX.

It’s kind of like comparing your old 486 to a Pentium.

Moving around the rest of the PCB – it’s easy to notice the similarities with the previous 3G device. The Power Amp wins once again went to Triquint and Skyworks. We also see the NAND flash going to Toshiba – which as far as phoneWreck is concerned is fairly surprising. The battery has been bumped from the previous 1150mAH to 1219mAH – a much needed upgrade. Only time will tell if Apple’s claim of increased battery life will hold.

Once again the psuedo SRAM win goes to Numonyx. The BaseBand Processor appears to have similar markings to the previous 3G therefore we can assume it’s an Infineon. This has been paired with the Infineon PMIC. The Applications Processor mentioned Earlier (Samsung S5PC100) is paired with a PMIC courtesy of what appears to be NXP.  It’s mounted with a DDR SDRAM coming in at 256MB.

True to form, Apple has re-branded some of the higher profile IC’s we’re very interested in. We’ll be performing some more thorough analysis further identify these. Make sure to follow Dr.Wreck’s twitter or subscribe to the RSS for updates!

Underneath the logic board we have a little surprise! A new combo chip from Broadcom (BCM4325) This puppy packs 802.11a/b/g and Bluetooth 2.1 (+EDR and FM).  This is a fairly substantial change from the Marvel and CSR combo on the old – obsolete 3G.

We’ve received some rumours and speculation about the other devices we weren’t able to ID. There is a guess from a few readers that the GPS chip may be the same as on the previous 3G – the Infinieon Hammerhead II. This may be true but the new package is a different size – this means that it could incorporate the compass hardware as well.

That said, we’ve had some rumours that the compass chip is the  Asahi Kasei – AK8973. We’ll still have to do some more digging!

We’re currently in the process of performing a much more thorough analysis. Keep checking back for more details as they come – we’ll most likely be putting  this device through it’s paces to see how it stacks up with the Palm Pre and BlackBerry Bold & Storm.

Thanks again to the wonderful people at ifixit for gracing us with these great photos! If you want to see how it’s taken apart, make sure to check out their teardown.

Stay tuned and keep wrecking!

Dr.Wreck

As promised, we’re coming at you with the second part of our analysis of the Palm Pre from Sprint. This time, we’ll be talking about the specifics of the form-factor design. What we like, what we don’t like and what is merely – satisfactory.

This review will be a good compliment to what ifixit has already done. Also, make sure an checkout our hardware analysis and UI Review!

So without further ado, we present you the Palm Pre Design Analysis!

Overall

The Palm Pre feels good in your hand and is much smaller than the Doctor’s weapon of the choice – The BlackBerry Bold.

In the next review, we’ll see how it stacks up to this device in terms of performance.

The Pre definitely has a minimalist design. To us, it’s shape resembles the perfect skipping stone… an expensive skipping stone at that. One thing this device definitely has is curves. The screen isn’t made of glass which may have been a cost cutting decision. However from a design perspective, this allowed Palm to shape and flex the screen around the chassis of the device which creates a genuinely sexy look. Unfortunately, as with all plastic screen covers, we’re skeptical about how it will resist scratches.

Smudge Magnet

One thing we’re used to seeing as of late is the faux/real metal border surrounding the device. This is a ploy often used by ODM’s to make the device looks smaller in your hand. Fortunately for Palm, this device is already quite small – this might reduce the devices resistance to drops and scratches though.

Cosmetically speaking, the all black look is definitely attractive and leaves the door open to many future colour options which we’re sure we’ll soon see.

Moving around the edge of the device, things are once again kept very simple – there is only one flap, the one that exists for the  microUSB port. It is flat and flush with the body – a very suprising and clever design move for Palm.

That door is flush.

Of course, there is no external (or internal) slot for removable storage. This thing comes packed with 8GB of internal memory – which as any iPhone user knows, isn’t a whole lot. At least we got a removable battery right? Dr.Wreck is calling future versions with 16-32GB of internal storage – mark his words.

Keyboard/Sliding Mechanism

The Palm keyboard we're so used to seeing

On the outward, this device doesnt feel like it has a keyboard – it’s so small and fits so nicely in our hands! In reality it probably feels like this as the keyboard is fairly small and shall we say… flimsy. The sliding mechanism feels solid although not as smooth as the Xperia’s which we previousely took apart.

The keyboard is the same as previous Palm devices – small and hard to press with anything but your nails. Dr.Wreck has some massive thumbs and as such found it difficult to hit the buttons. Moreover, the space between the top keys and the device is fairly small… stay tuned for some speed typing benchmarking.

Dr.Wreck has some massive thumbs

As we started taking it apart, we revealed the sliding mechanism. We also peeled the keyboard off (turns out the keys are just a sticker with gelled buttons).

The leaf spring

Looking closer at the sliding mechanism, we can see there are two tracks. The entire device has a slight curve which allows the keboard to slide out and toward the user – a very cool and useful feature. There is a small leaf spring which helps pop the keypad into place but is not too loose or too resistive. That said, Dr. Wreck is also abnormally strong… which is also probably why he didn’t experience any binding.

The two tracks (phone is in closed position)

Back Cover/Touchstone Charging Kit

The back cover is suprisingly easy to remove – although with no removable storage or SIM card, there is very little reason to remove it – unless of course you got yourself the Touchstone Charging Kit. If you purchased the kit, you need to put the new backcover on. At this point, Dr.Wreck wanted to give a science lesson on inductive coupling. We figured that might be a little bit boring and decided to forgo it. That said, it charges the same way as your electric toothbrush and isn’t really that ground-breaking – unless of course you consider this as the first time it’s been implemented on a mobile phone.

Touchstone Charger and Touchstone Cover

It’s worth mentioning that the touchstone cover has a matte finish while the original cover is glossy. The glossy cover looks nice but is slippery and susceptible to smudges and scratches. We prefer the matte touchstone cover.

Conclusion

In conclusion this phone is fairly well built and very well designed. If you’re a sprint customer looking for an upgrade, without a doubt this is the phone to choose. If your thinking of switching carriers to get this phone we suggest you try before you buy.

First Impressions: 9

Build Quality: 8

Estimate on Durability: 5

Keypad/Interface devices: 7

That’s it that’s all! In the meantime, subscribe to our RSS, watch Dr.Wreck’s Twitter and check out the Pre’s hardware review and UI Review!

Keep WRECKING!

Dr. Wreck

We apologize for the hiatus on posts, but we’ve been running into a few technical difficulties.  Needless to say, we’re hopefully back in full force, with another analytical post!

In State of the Industry we take a step back from the typical archaic product cycles of the mobile industry and focus our attention on one particular aspect of the industry.  In this episode, we target the media aspect.  Pictures, music, videos, movies, the whole shebang.  We discuss the entertainment focus versus the enterprise focus, and we discuss consumer needs versus the technical limitations.  We discuss what to look for in the future, and we discuss it in style.

More mindful media madness momentarily.

Previous State of Media

Media has become an essential (and obvious) part of the handset market.  It is becoming rare that a cellphone doesn’t have some sort of music playback functionality, and even more rare to come without a camera.  Back in the day, cellphones were split between a barebones phone, media-centric phones, and enterprise phones.  BlackBerry devices came out with specific lines (i.e. 8800) to address the sans-camera enterprise market.  Heck, back then, it was scary if someone walked into a bathroom with a cellphone equipped with a camera.

[Image Courtesy: CrackBerry]

During those times, the differences between functionality from handset maker to handset maker was quite drastic.  RIM held onto its enterprise market with the fastest, most secure, and most reliable e-mail service.  Palm fought back with its strengths in 3rd-party applications.  HTC and Windows Mobile tried to bring “mobile computing” in the truest sense of the word, to the smartphone industry.  In the midst of the enterprise battles, came Motorola, Sony Ericsson, LG and Samsung, battling on the low-end and music forefront.  And with a cellphone for nearly every demographic, Nokia came out with guns and cannons blazing.

Current State of Media

With a sigh of annoyance, the overused and unfortunate word “convergence” comes into play.  The Engineers reading this have probably skipped to the more technical sections by now, but it must be stated.  The North American market (for the most part) has converged to handling everything without a sweat.  In fact, the arguments of yesteryear about music playback versus e-mail, have turned into virtual keyboard versus physical keyboard versus hybrid attempts.  As such, functionality arguments have turned into a focus on usability and enhancing the user-experience.  With statistics like these, it’s difficult to argue that this is the case.

With media being integrated and assumed, the spotlight turns to implementation.  It’s arguable, with iTunes being so well integrated and a history of industry-changing music players, that the iPhone presents itself as one of the best phones for music and general media capabilities.  RIM with no less of a media player, also recently announced its intentions to play in the music space.  HTC/T-Mobile/Google ventured in with Amazon MP3 integration, and it can only be assumed that Palm has something up its sleeves.  With contenders like these, it’s no wonder the PMP market has really died.  Luckily for us gadget freaks, companies like Cowon continue to impress with amazing audio-centric players like the S9.

Of course, music represents only a portion of the media umbrella.  Video playback is a whole different ball game.  Technical challenges arise such as codec and format support, processor and RAM resource use, ability to push more pixels, and network and handshaking challenges for streaming video.  Of course, the computing power required for graphical-intensive applications is starting to become available with platforms such as NVIDIA’s Tegra platform and Qualcomm’s possible-vaporware, Snapdragon.  Traditionally, many of the companies, such as RIM, have opted for single processors solutions, but its possible that this is no longer working.  With many of the core functions like GPS, audio, and graphical support being integrated into single processor solutions, these do-it-all processors could struggle depending on how capable the devices need to be at multi-tasking.  Perhaps video computing still requires a discrete solutions, such as is currently the case with higher-end laptops.  Companies like Apple have opted for graphical accelerators from Imagination Technologies, while other devices like Nokia’s N-Series and the upcoming Palm Pre use Texas Instrument’s OMAP platform.

Playing video is just one of the current problems.  Storage has always lent itself to problems.  If high-definition videos come into play, say, with Tegra’s platform, it’s very possible that a traditional microSD card or internal storage will pose limitations.  Transferring high-density files like these are another problem.  Currently, sideloading and syncing with phones are quite slow (with the exception of most BlackBerry devices).  Solutions are available, such as Cypress’s USB controllers, but perhaps companies need to take a stab at USB 3.0 integration in the near future.  Assuming there are controllers and memory types to handle the bandwidth, with USB 3.0, it’s possible that transferring files will not pose a problem for another decade — but these companies really need to get on that.

Finally, the last aspect, pictures.  Pictures are really a bore to talk about, but what is interesting is the camera integration in handsets.  LG, Samsung, and Sony Ericsson have really stepped up recently.  Phones like the Samsung Pixon, LG’s many 8MP entries, and even Sony Ericsson’s Cyber-shots, now have face-detection technology, image stabilization, and some pretty impressive functions.  However, one of the main hassles with cameraphones is its inefficiency.  They’re slow to access, slow to snap, and a hassle to view.  Night shots are grainy, continuous shots are slow, and shooting video in HD is a whole other story.  In essence, the hindrances here lie in processing power and lens technology.  Phones with slimmer form factors don’t have the space for processors like Canon’s DIGIC III, let alone optical zooming capabilities.  Integrated solutions are becoming the fad with manufacturers nowadays, so perhaps there is really no space for an amazing cameraphone.  We do hope that they continue to search for a solution though.

Important Side Notes

North America is an awkward market, and we do believe it’s suffering because of its uniqueness.  Europe and Japan love to integrate network-intensive features like DVB-Tuners, live TV, video conferencing, etc.  Fortunately for the sake of carriers here, this isn’t the case.  The geographical sparseness in the States, not to mention Canada, presents itself with the technical problem of putting up enough towers.  Perhaps the 35% market share of the global music industry attests to what we North Americans look for.

Gaming is another industry that’s really booming, even in the midst of the economic conditions.  Perhaps companies need to take another look at solutions like, well, a PSP Phone.  One of the interesting stories is how touch sensing capabilities got hold of the gaming industry with consoles like the DS.  This inherently, went to the advantage of Apple, as the iPhone now proves to be one of the strongest contenders for mobile gaming.

Conclusion

Handsets have really become a “console” for media entertainment.  Akin to the DS and PSP of gaming consoles, what was previously left for the living room, has now been made available for users, wherever they are.  Functionality and to a degree, usability, has already reached a plateau of “innovative use”.  For now, the difference lies in implementation, content distribution (preferably DRM-less, although that’s a separate topic in and of itself), and the upcoming computing/processing battle for graphical power.

In fact, much of what is happening in the handset market, mimics the gaming market.  The gaming industry went through a battle of controls, processing and graphical power, content distribution, and innovation.  Perhaps in a different order, and perhaps with different companies, but hey, no model is perfect.