Posted by: Chipworks Technology Insider
in Technology on Mar 16, 2011
Tagged in: Untagged
In the last 24 hrs our lab guys have torn down the iPad 2 and come to the conclusion that the main innovation is the A5 chip. Flash memory is flash memory, the DRAM in the A5 package is 512 MB instead of 256 MB, and the touchscreen control uses the same trio of chips as the iPad 1 – not even a single chip solution as we’ve seen in the later iPhones. And the 3G version uses the same chipset as the Verizon iPhone launched a few weeks ago.
Who? Tear down a Microsoft Kinect game sensor, and you’ll find that PrimeSense provides the core technology that does the key function of the motion-sensing and related processing in it. We posted a teardown of it just before Christmas, and found the PrimeSense PS1080 inside.
The iPhone 4 is the first portable consumer device to feature full nine degree-of-freedom (9-DoF) inertial sensing. Apple have done this by integrating a three-axis accelerometer and a three-axis gyroscope from STMicroelectronics (ST), together with an electronic compass from AKM. The iPhone product line has moved steadily towards this goal with each successive model. Steve Nasiri and his Invensense colleagues discussed the benefits of 9-DoF sensing in some detail in a recent Whitepaper.
We recently got hold of TI’s Sitara AM3715, a 45 nm application processor with a 1 GHz ARM Cortex A8 core and a POWERVR SGX™ graphics accelerator, among other capabilities, but of course, so does the OMAP3630 (not coincidentally similar to Apple’s A4 chip from the Ipad and iPhone 4).
Past public teardowns on Apple mobile devices from Chipworks and others, have tended to focus on the lack of state-of-the-art silicon. They pointed to Apple's success as a result of good systems integration and a holistic experience. While this presented headline-worthy analysis, it downplayed the importance of the truly amazing semiconductor innovation.
Metal gates are back. First Intel used them in its microprocessors and now Winbond in its latest DRAM.
To the broader market, the move to metal gates is understood as being based on pure electrical performance (i.e., speed), but in the case of the DRAM device, this new technology also suggests a significantly lower manufacturing cost. By way of a history lesson, metal gates haven’t been used in production for several decades because the lack of self-aligned source/drains added unnecessary process complexity. Ironically, in this product, they actually simplify the process.
I mentioned in a previous blog that image sensor companies would be deploying BSI technology when their targeted applications demanded it. Admittedly, I was mostly thinking about mobile phone applications where form factor and ever shrinking pixel pitch seems to be the primary driver for BSI.
As noted in several news articles, nicely consolidated in Image Sensors World blog postings, BSI is also making headway in digital still camera (DSC) and video camera applications. The latest Sony BSI design win that we’ve seen is from Casio’s EX-FH100 EXILIM DSC. In fact we documented a number of interesting and innovative devices in a product teardown on this camera.
Computing is getting closer to the consoles we see on old episodes of Star Trek TNG, with everything seeming to go touch screen these days. It is actually uncanny how the touch screens resemble the shiny black sleek things that Captain Picard used to use. The latest hot gadget to leverage this technology is, of course, the Apple iPad.
Chipworks recently extracted and analyzed the circuits from Alpha and Omega’s AOZ9007 battery protection IC. This chip is used for lithium-ion rechargeable battery packs, and competes with products from Sony, Texas Instruments, Fairchild Semiconductor, ON Semiconductor, Analog Devices, and Maxim Semiconductor.
When it first landed on my desk, I figured that it was “just another IC with comparator circuits” – ho hum.
Reverse Engineering Software and Systems
As part of our aptent support business, Chipworks applies software reverse engineering to generate evidence of patent infringement, which is used by IP groups and outside counsel in patent licensing negotiations and litigations. This evidence is in the form of a claim chart which maps relevant patent claim elements to the infringing product. We apply software reverse engineering to analyze and document infringement on a wide variety of products, from consumer electronics to communication devices and automotive systems.
