What’s Under the Hood of the Sleek and Sexy Apple iPhone?
Move slider to take apart the iPhone and see its parts.
Credit: Alastair Halliday
The Apple iPhone, the latest mobile craze, is revolutionary in both
design and technology. Whatever components can be found under its hood may
be considered jewels in every sense of the word. Suppliers of the
Apple iPhone parts are renowned manufacturers of semiconductor chips and
materials and are sure to have provided the latest and the best chips
available.
The first for the iPhone is its excellent use of multi-touch screening
that provides users with a new ergonomic feel in using a mobile phone.
This feature is the latest craze in the computing industry. Note that
there are even rumors that the next Operating System after Windows Vista
will also make available a multi-touch screen feature for use by
computer users. The Apple iPhone has two main circuit boards that make it
capable of being a communications as well as a multimedia device. Apple
strives to maintain its good image from its popular line of iPods and
attempts to integrate their top-of-the-line design as well on the iPhone.
What we can expect though, is that there are parts in the iPhone that
matches parts in the Apple line of iPods.
The Processing Power
The other circuit board of the iPhone houses the Central Processing
Unit or CPU of the iPhone as well as the memory chips that controls its
storage capacity. The Apple iPhone uses Apple’s OS X operating system but
a rather customized version for mobile.
Samsung Electronics Company is the one responsible for the
microprocessor, a mobile DDR SDRAM microprocessor of the iPhone. The CPU is based
upon an embedded core from ARM, the same company renowned for embedding
dedicated systems in cars, smart cards, handheld games and in other
applications where power is necessary.
Mobile Communication Features
A dedicated circuit board controls the communication features enabling
users to engage in services riding on GSM or Global System for Mobile,
the conventional telecommunications of voice and data services, and
EDGE or Enhanced Data Rates for GSM Evolution, which basically connects
the subscriber to the Internet and making Internet-based services such as
MMS or Multimedia Messaging Service within easy reach of the phone
users. Infineon technologies, a Germany-based chipmaker is the one
responsible for the chips for mobile communications.
The iPhone currently provides no means for 3G mobile access. The 3G
communications is the latest mobile standard that commits higher data
rates enabling users to make video calls and video conferencing. This is a
potential risk for the successful marketing worldwide of the iPhone,
for instance, 3G network is already in use in most parts of Europe.
Networking Features
Marvell Technology Group Ltd, on the other hand, a Santa-Clara-based
chipmaker, is the one responsible for the 802.11 b/g chips that will let
iPhone users connect to the Internet via Wireless Fidelity or Wifi, one
o the wireless technologies to access the Internet. The 802.11 b and
802.11 g are standards that regulate the area coverage as well as
bandwidth capacity for Wifi.
A chip from Cambridge Silicon Radio Ltd, an England-based semiconductor
company, also provides Bluetooth 2.0 access to the iPhone. The latest
Bluetooth standard release is Bluetooth 2.1 while Bluetooth 3.0 that
enables faster data rates to iPhone, which means that if not improved,
the iPhone will soon be left behind in the Bluetooth technology.
Camera Features
The Apple iPhone also features a 2-megapixel camera as well as a photo
management application. Users will be able to synchronize their photo
library from the Mac or personal computer.
Largan Precision provided the camera lens for the iPhone while Altus
Technologies provided the camera module assembly. On the other hand,
Micron Technology, provided the CMOS Imager for the iPhone.
Storage Memory Capacity Features
Meanwhile, there are two flash memory chips that are manufactured for
iPhone, the NOR and NAND flash memory chips. These two are the major
flash semiconductor memories used in portable devices. The two are very
hard to distinguish from one another.
The NOR memory is the best in reading speed while the NAND memory is
known for its writing speed. Intel and Samsung Electronics Co., are both
responsible for the NOR and NAND flash memory chips, respectively. The
NOR wireless flash from Intel has 32 MB of NOR that is partnered with
16 MB of SRAM, which are used for the execution of code.
Power and Battery Management Features
The reason behind the non-inclusion of the 3G communications in the
iPhone is battery life. Apple claimed that introducing 3G early on have a
negative effect to the battery life by introducing additional heat.
This is a problem even though a power amplifier chip from Skyworks
Solutions, a Woburn, Massachusetts chip maker, can provide enhanced power to
the iPhone while a power management chip manufactured by Texas
Instruments can be used to balance power consumption of the iPhone.
Based from reviews, a standard Lithium-Ion battery for the iPhone
provides an estimated 5 hours of talk-time. On the other hand, based from
the executives of Apple, the battery can retain 80 % of its charging
capacity that will provide users about 6 hours of talk-time. This 6 hours
is advertised even after completing 400 depletion-and-recharge cycles.
Tracking User Movement For Ease of Display
The Apple iPhone uses an accelerometer, similar to the one used in the
Wii game console of Nintendo. Accelerometers are used to be able to
keep track of the movement of the user. Integrated sensors in the iPhone
will know if the phone is used horizontally or vertically, which then
tells the operating system to accordingly rotate the display. STMicro
supplies the accelerometer chip.
The Magic of the Touch Screen Display
The iPhone screen is made with an optical-quality glass unlike the
iPods that are made with scratch-prone plastic surface. Using a touch
screen display, the iPhone discards the use of Graphical User Interface
or GUI functions such as menu, pointer and the icon systems. There is
actually no need for a physical keyboard or buttons because a virtual
keyboard can be accessed through the screen. The use of two-fingered
actions to perform paired actions such as zoom in or out makes the iPhone
very user-friendly.
Balda, a German-based company, made the design for the touch-screen
display while Broadcom Corporation, an Irvine-based company, provided the
controller chip used to manage the touch-screen display. National
Semiconductor, on the other hand, designed the mobile pixel link LCD
interface, a device that serves as an interconnection from the circuit board
to the glass screen.
Comparison to the Apple iPod
There are a number of technical designs that are similar with their
iPod devices. This made the design of the iPhone easier because of the
familiarity with the interaction of the components. For instance, the 8
Gigabyte capacity of the NAND flash memory is comparable to the memory
capacity of the iPod nano. Users can store any kind of data such as
pictures, images, videos and songs.
Also, the audio codec chip from Wolfson Microelectronics, which is the
same chip used in the Apple iPod, is also present in the iPhone. This
provides assurance to the iPod fanatic users of the same sound quality
tradition in the iPhone.
Even some of the battery-related functions of the iPhone can be
compared to the iPod. Linear Technology Corporation, a Milpitas-based
chipmaker supplies the same battery charger chip for the iPhone.
Apple’s iPhone is revolutionary but deep down inside, it uses the same
electronic components and batteries that powers an ordinary smart
phone. What makes it revolutionary in its own way is the design and
integration of various components from different technical suppliers to come-up
with a phone that not only promises state-of-the-art designs, but
functionalities as well.
Magnificent take! From Whom do ya get your iPhone news from?
My hat goes off to you.