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Wednesday, July 04, 2007

What's an iPhone? - the breakdown

Website ifixit.com to an iPhone apart to find out what was in it. Much of this has already been suggested (Marvell's wifi chip rather than Broadcom's, the Infineon S-Gold GSM/EDGE phone chip with ARM processor) but it is all in one place and confirms things like the memory and applications processor from Samsung, DAC from Wolfson in Scotland and Bluetooth from CSR in Cambridge, and power amplifier from SkyWorks.

This of course means that this stripped down variant of the OS X operating system for the iPhone (embedded OS X, if you like) has been ported to the ARM architecture for the Samsung chip, a 700MHz ARM1176JZF core, and so could run on TI's OMAP chips, for example, or many other ARM microcontrollers. This is potentially great news for embedded system designers. The bad news is that Apple as said it won't be released to the outside world. Shame.


The ifixit breakdown:

* Samsung chip underneath the metal shield on the left side of the board on the left. Ours reads K9MCGD8U5M. The 4 GB model that Think Secret took apart had K9HBG08U1M on it, which is a 4 GB chip.
* Samsung memory stacked with an ARM-architecture processor, Part number 339S0030ARM, 8900B 0719, NOD4BZ02, K4X1G153PC-XGC3, ECC457Q3 716 shows it to be a Samsung processor rather than a Mavell Xscale. The processor is likely stacked on the SDRAM, which could be two 512 Megabit chips. The processor could have H.264 and MP3 hardware decoding built in.
* The chip above the ARM is a Wolfson audio chip. Part numbers WM8758BG and 73AFMN5.
* The chip underneath the ARM is a Linear Technology 4066 USB Power Li-Ion Battery Charger, which Apple uses in the iPods as well.
* The chip on the bottom center has this text: MARVELL, W8686B13, 702AUUP. This is Marvell's 802.11b/g 18.4mm2 chip.
* The chip in the upper right is a Skyworks GSM/Edge Power amplifier (SKY77340)
* The silver chip to the left of the Skyworks chip reads CSR 41814 3A06U K715FB. This is a CSR BlueCore4-ROM WLCSP single chip radio and baseband IC for Bluetooth 2+EDR.
* The chip with the blue dot on it is rumored to be an Intel Wireless Flash 32 MB chip. Part numbers 1030W0YTQ2, 5716A673, and Z717074A. EE Times adds the part #PF38F1030W0YTQ2.
* The chip in the lower right some claim this is an Apple-branded chip, but it's purpose is currently unknown.
* The chip in the lower left is an Infineon PMB8876 S-Gold 2 multimedia engine. Part numbers: 337S3235, 60708, and EL629058S03.

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