Monthly Archives: September 2013

Inside the iPhone 5s | Chipworks Blog

 

US-APPLE-EXPECTED-TO-INTRODUCE-NEW-IPHONE-AT-P...

US-APPLE-EXPECTED-TO-INTRODUCE-NEW-IPHONE-AT-PRODUCT-LAUNCH (Photo credit: Globovisión)

Inside the iPhone 5s | Chipworks Blog.

Wow, I didn’t think that Chipworks will publish such a detailed tear down for free.

Most interesting takeaway for me is the M7 co-processor that is supplied by NXP. It monitors and processes accelerometer, gyroscope and compass data. This is interesting as the NXP LPC18A1 co-processor is based on ARM Cortex-M3 microcontroller, yet another win for ARM. Big loss for AKM and STMicroelectronics and big win for NXP.

Obviously, the most important part of the iPhone 5S is the A7 SoC which has a quad-cord GPU cluster using Imagination Technologies PowerVR serious 6. It supports 3MB of SRAM for the fingerprint sensor, pretty amazing.

Related articles

What’s the Difference Between Product and Project Management? |

Guest Post: What’s the Difference Between Product and Project Management? |.

I am sure I am not the only product manager who has been asked the question: “What is the difference between Product Manager and Project Manager?”. I think the most important difference is the level of involvement of both these positions throughout the product life cycle.

The Product Manager is involved from product conception all the way till the product is obsolete and retired. The Project Manager is involved in the planning of a project (development of product) till the product is launched. The Product Manager is tasked to create value for a product from cradle to grave, whereas a Project Manager is tasked to plan and execute a development project with the appropriate resources, budget and deadline. The level of involvement is deeper for Project Manager during the development phase, but the overall life cycle of the product is handled by the Product Manager.

This article refers to the Project Manager as “Vertical leadership” and the Product Manager as “Horizontal leadership”. I think there is some truth in this definition, though the level of involvement of a Product Manager can also be quite deep and it really depends on the type of development. For new product categories, I believe the Product Manager has to provide guidance and could very well be deeply involved in many decisions which are not part of the Project Manager’s job.

 

iPhone 5s Teardown, iFixit Style | EE Times

Iphone 5S board

 

The ICs identified on the iPhone 5s are as follows:

  • SK Hynix H2JTDG8UD3MBR 128 Gb (16 GB) NAND Flash
  • Qualcomm PM8018 RF power management IC
  • TriQuint TQM6M6224
  • Apple 338S1216
  • Broadcom BCM5976 touchscreen controller
  • Texas Instruments 37C64G1
  • Skyworks 77810…
  • Skyworks 77355
  • Avago A790720
  • Avago A7900
  • Apple 338S120L
  • Apple A7 APL0698 SoC (based on this MacRumors post, the markings F8164A1PD indicate the RAM is likely 1GB)
  • Qualcomm MDM9615M LTE Modem
  • Qualcomm WTR1605L LTE/HSPA+/CDMA2K/TDSCDMA/EDGE/GPS transceiver.
  • NXP M7 coprocessor

via iPhone 5s Teardown, iFixit Style | EE Times.

Related articles

Audi Adds LTE to S3 Sportback

Audi A3 Sportback

Audi A3 Sportback (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Audi Adds LTE to S3 Sportback

Audi is taking the lead in introducing LTE into connected cars. To enable LTE in the Audi S3 Sportback, a suitable SIM card with a data rate plan needs to be inserted into the MMI navigation plus unit in the car.

The Audi S3 Sportback also supports WLAN and passengers can connect to the hotspot integrated into the car to surf the web while on the go.

Audi brands its connected car as Audi Connect and it is definitely intensifying its efforts to differentiate itself as the Connected Car of choice. Its press release emphasized the seamless use of media stored on a server (data in the cloud) and networking and communications with other cars and transport infrastructure (V2V and V2I communications)

Related articles

Intel Atom Roadmap

Bay Trail Family of Atom processor

Bay Trail Family of Atom processor

According to the roadmap released by Intel at IDF earlier, it is developing a quad core Z3700 with Intel HD graphics which will support Windows and Android environments. Z3700 will be targeted at Windows Surface devices and Android tablets. Still no sign of any viable processor to compete against Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 or Samsung Exynos Octa.

Related articles

Cool Iphone 5S Features

No surprises or ground breaking upgrade for iphone 5 users. The flagship iphone 5S does come with new features such as new home button with finger print scanner (touch id), new front facing lens for better facetime experience, image stabilizer, 64-bit A7 processor and dual flash lights for improving image quality in low ambient light environment.

Nothing that will entice iphone 5 users to want to upgrade to the new iphone 5s. As for me, I am a iphone 4S user, so this to me will be a significant upgrade.

Related articles

Global semiconductor sales reach highest total for 2013

Worldwide sales of semiconductors in July 2013 grew by 5.1% over the same month last year

Electrical Apparatus Magazine

The Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA), a Washington, D.C.-based group that represents U.S. semiconductor designers and manufacturers, announced that worldwide sales of semiconductors reached $25.53 billion for the month of July, the highest total for the year and an increase of 5.1% over July 2012. Global sales for the month were 2.6% higher than the previous month’s total of $24.88 billion. Sales in the U.S. increased 21.5% compared to July of last year, marking the region’s largest year-over-year increase in more than two years. All monthly sales numbers were compiled by the World Semiconductor Trade Statistics (WSTS) organization and represent a three-month moving average.

Regionally, July sales increased on a sequential monthly basis in Japan (7.9%), the U.S. (5.4%), Asia Pacific (1.2%), and Europe (0.3%). Compared to the same month in 2012, sales in July increased in the U.S. (21.5%), Asia Pacific (7.2%), and Europe (1.1%), but fell in Japan (-18.6%)…

View original post 68 more words