iPhone 4 teardown

By Adrian Kingsley-Hughes | June 23, 2010, 1:18am PDT

The guys at iFixit have done it again, this time bringing us the first legal a teardown of the Apple iPhone 4.

Some highlights from the teardown:

Removing the back cover is a snap - undo two Phillips #00 screws and push the back up with thumbs.
The 3.7V 1420 mAh Li-Polymer battery has a massive 115.2 x 58.6 x 9.3 mm footprint.

The dual purpose stainless steel inner frame/antenna assembly addresses possibly the two biggest flaws concerning previous iterations of the iPhone: continuous dropped calls and lack of reception.
The phone uses the 1 GHz ARM Cortex A8 core.
We get confirmation that this handset features 512MB of RAM.
The iPhone 4 sports two cameras — a 1.3 MP front-facer, and a 5 MP on the back. Both are located on their own independent boards, making it possible to physically remove the cameras without damaging the phone.
Logic board goodness:
- Skyworks SKY77542 Tx–Rx iPAC™ FEM for Dual-Band GSM/GPRS: 880–915 MHz and 1710–1785 MHz bands.
- Skyworks SKY77541 GSM/GRPS Front End Module
- STMicro STM33DH 3-axis accelerometer
- TriQuint TQM676091
- The AGD1 is the new 3 axis gyroscope that we believe is designed and manufactured by ST Micro for Apple. The package marks on this device do not appear to be the currently available commercial part, L3G4200D. The commercial version of this gyroscope is yet to be released — Apple got first dibs on it.

- Samsung K9PFG08 flash memory
- Cirrus Logic 338S0589 audio codec (Apple branded). This is the same part as in the iPad.
- AKM8975 - newest magnetic sensor that promises to improve the performance over the prior generation.
- Texas Instruments 343S0499 Touch Screen Controller
- 36MY1EE Numonyx NOR and mobile DDR
Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and GPS are all provided by Broadcom and located beneath EMI shields on the front side of the board.
- Broadcom BCM4329FKUBG 802.11n with Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR and FM receiver.
- Broadcom BCM4750IUB8 single-chip GPS receiver.
The front glass panel of the iPhone is constructed of Corning Gorilla Glass, a chemically strengthened alkali-aluminosilicate thin sheet glass that is reported to be 20 times stiffer and 30 times harder than plastic.
The LCD panel is glued to the glass and digitizer. This means that if you break the glass, you’ll have to replace the glass, digitizer, and LCD as a single assembly.

Good work guys!

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Jimmy

Jimmy41687 Updated - 29th Jun 2010

Informative post. Great improvement in Telecoms Sector

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What is the processor again?

Ben_E 23rd Jun 2010

The phone uses the 1 GHz ARM Cortex A8 core.

I thought it was supposed to use the A4 chip? Or do I misunderstand this?

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RE: iPhone 4 teardown

Lghost 23rd Jun 2010

@Ben_E A4 chip is system on chip, A8 cpu is include, and other chip like GPU also integrate to the one "A4 chip"

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Re: Samsung & Intrinsity Designed A8 Arm is Apple's A4!

i2fun@... Updated - 24th Jun 2010

@Ben_E Samsung contracted with Intrinsity to design the Domino Logic (that's the neural pathways) and chip layout for their Hummingbird A8 originally in 2007/2008. Intrinsity kept getting in trouble needing more funds. Apple knew Domino was risky, but asked Samsung to share in a partnership on the design costs that were now way over budget. On completing the design, Intrinsity were on the verge of bankruptcy and Apple bought them in a fire sale.

It is a combined chip design that includes CPU, GPU, H.264 decoder/encoder, memory, etc on one substrate. Apple got first option to release w/ stripped (lacking camera) down version for iPad and full version for iPhone 4 was to be released concurrently with Sansung's Galaxy S. But this is the same package on both phones with minor tweaks concerning features and varied clocks. With some differences in instruction sets. Same GPU and Domino Logic which are the keys to the overall speed of this processor. The GPU is the fastest mobile chip from PowerVR SGX540 on the Samsung S5PC110 processor ID for both Hummingbird and Apple's A4. Capable of 90million Triangles per second. To put into perspective, that's 3 times what went into the 3GS or other GPU's in other processor packages.

This will also be the same basic chip that gets accelerated for Samsung's Tape Tablet PC's that will be 7" and 10" this year with a supped up CPU with more Memory for 12" model next year. All will have Samsung's own Super AMOLED Screens that they've locked for a 1 1/2 year exclusive. There was talk originally of Apple using AMOLED, but because of concerns with supplying sufficient quantities they elected to go for a process die shrink to increase pixel density. Which also called for an increased power consuming backlight. The reason for opting for an increase in pixel density is that if they got close to the iPad's, then less power would be required for line doubling up for iPad and vectoring down for iPhone on Apps in the market. But Retina IPS is still inferior in contrast ratio and visibility in direct sunlight. That's why Samsung's Super AMOLED is the technology of the future. The reason for the timed exclusivity is because they won't have their new Fabrication plant open till 2012!

Otherwise, the two phones are very similar to each other. The difference being in screen size, OS Android, and Open Network will allow for Galaxy to be on all four networks with full 3G video conferencing coming on AT&T model with full Flash and DLNA server feature. It will also have augmented reality overlay on maps and various other features! Sorry but Samsung walks away the clear winner this time!!!