iPhone in depth: The Ars review

iPhone autopsy

The iPhone is truly a marvel of modern electronics engineering. Because of the extreme limits put upon cell phone manufacturers by the market to produce thin, light, and extremely powerful devices, Apple had to squeeze a lot of circuitry into a small space. This, paired with Apple's notoriety for producing products with exemplary design (even to the point of hindering the internal design of the device itself), means that Apple's product, electrical, and computer engineers no doubt had to work overtime to make the iPhone a reality.

Despite what you might think, the majority of the iPhone's mass is its massive battery and display system. The actual electronics and other sundry bits that power the functions that the end-user experiences are relatively small. Shown here are the main processor board and daughter board of the device (all the major and minor electronic components of the device) compared to two pieces of US currency.

When fully assembled in the device, all of the major chips that are exposed in these photographs are sealed within RF shielding, and the two boards themselves are attached via snap-together bus connectors (see above), forming a single, compact package.

There has been much speculation concerning which manufacturers would be providing the integrated circuit components for the iPhone, and while many of those can be divined from these tear-downs, a few of the chips inside the iPhone have not yet been fully identified (their purpose nor their manufacturer). Several organizations have speculated as to these chips' purposes and origins, but as of yet there have been no conclusive results. Even for those chips whose roles have been identified, as is often the case with Apple's cutting-edge devices, their existence has not been made public by their manufacturers via data sheets or promotional information on their web sites.

Here's the parts list:

• Samsung
  flash memory. K9HBG08U1M for the 4GB models. The 8GB models also have a
  single chip, the K9MCGD8U5M.
• Wolfson
  audio codec. WM8758BG.
  This is the exact same audio codec we found in our 5th-generation iPod (video) vivisection.
• Linear
  4066 USB battery charger, also found in the 5th-generation iPods.
• Marvel
  802.11bg package. W8686B13.
• Intel
  Wireless Flash memory. The ID on this chip is 1030W0YTQ2, which is
  extremely similar to Intel's current offering, 1020W0YTQ1, a "Flash Memory device in combination with a low power SRAM
  device, a versatile and compact Stacked-CSP solution is available for high
  performance, low power, board-constrained memory applications." This
  is most likely the main memory of the device.
• iFixit and other sources
  claim that the chip to the right of the Intel flash memory with CSR
  markings is the manufacturer's BlueCore4-ROM WLCSP
  Bluetooth radio.
• The IC in
  the lower-left is purported to be a Multimedia Engine by Infineon by
  several sources. However, the markings on this device do not match up with
  any Infineon devices as far as we could tell. This particular part is a
  jack-of-all trades that can decode/encode audio formats, decode H.264
  video, perform EDGE modem capabilities, and interface with Bluetooth, FM radio, and
  other systems, as well as drive the camera and the high-resolution display. (Edited for clarity.)
• The chip
  in the upper right of what we are calling the daughter board is a Skyworks
  quad-band GSM/EDGE power amplifier, the SKY77340.
• The
  imaging sensor is a Micron MT9D112D00STC.
  There are no focusing, zooming, or otherwise moving parts in this package.
  There is only a single package of lenses which expose the Micron CCD.

Several independent sources have taken the iPhone apart and come to the conclusion that the device is, in fact, a Samsung part, but we have been unable to confirm that information. We are unclear whether these entities are merely quoting the news that was reported in late January or have come to an independent conclusion through other sources. However, at this time, we're still putting our chips on Samsung as the producer and the device as the S3C6400, or an unannounced next-generation device, the S5L8900, as uncovered by Semiconductor Insights' Greg Quirk.