Hasta La Gadget!

Ever so gently, we’re starting to peel away the layers of mystery surrounding the A4 system-on-chip that powers Apple’s fancy new slate device. iFixit, helped by reverse engineering firm Chipworks, have gone to the trouble of both dissecting and X-raying the iPad’s central processing hub in their quest to lift the veil of ignorance. Their findings confirmed that the A4 is built using a “package on package” method, meaning that the 256MB of Samsung-provided SDRAM is stacked immediately atop the CPU, which is noted as being reductive to both latency and energy use. With a single core processor inside, the iFixit team concluded the iPad had to be running on a Cortex A8 — which is very much the likeliest choice at this point — but their assertion that it couldn’t be a Cortex A9 MPCore inside is inaccurate, as those chips also come in single-core options. Either way, it’ll be interesting to see how it stacks up against Samsung’s Hummingbird chip, which was designed by Intrinsity, the same company Apple is being rumored to have recently acquired. Finally, the visual inspection of the iPad’s mobo puts a model number to the already known PowerVR GPU, narrowing it down to the SGX 535, while also naming and picturing a number of other exciting components, such as the always popular capacitive touchscreen controller. Hit the source link below for all the lurid images.

Apple’s A4 system-on-chip gets decoupled from iPad, investigated with the help of an X-ray originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 06 Apr 2010 05:04:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  iFixit  | Email this | Comments

Before many of us even had a chance to buy an iPad, teardown company iFixit dissected one and analyzed its innards.

Tearing apart the iPad was a 31-step process, and a look inside reveals some interesting insights. The highlights are as follows, courtesy of iFixit CEO Kyle Wiens:

• The iPad’s battery has five times the capacity of the battery in the iPhone. The iPad actually has two batteries wired in parallel, for a total of 24.8 Watt-hours.
• On average, the iPad sips just 2.5 Watts. That’s 1/5 the power of a compact fluorescent bulb!
• The A4 processor is a Package-on-Package (PoP), with at least three layers of circuitry layered on top of each other. A4 is packaged just like the iPhone processors, microprocessor in one package and 2 DRAMs in the other package. They’re all sandwiched together in a very nice and thin PoP.
• The iPad has 512 MB RAM inside the A4 processor package. iFixit had to X-Ray the processor to confirm this. The X-Ray revealed two layers of RAM. In addition to the ARM processor, the A4 package contains two stacked 256 MB Samsung K4 SDRAM dies.
• The rumored slot for a camera is actually taken up by the ambient light sensor.
• The glass panel is quite thick: about 1.18 mm, compared to the iPhone’s 1.02 mm thick glass. This ensures durability with the panel’s large size.
• The touch circuit design is more similar to the old 2G and early 3G iPhones than the current 3GS. Chip analysis firm Chipworks told iFixit that “there is so much room in the iPad that Apple didn’t need to use small chips, just the right ones and cheap ones.”

These tidbits of information added together explain just how the iPad gets such epically long battery life (12 hours, according to some tests) and incredible speed. From our testing today, the iPad is surprisingly fast, especially with Google Maps’ street view and web browsing, and we’ve barely even dented the battery.

For the full iPad teardown and more photos, visit iFixit’s tutorial.

See Also:

• Punked: iFixit Tears Down 'Apple Tablet'
• Gallery: iPhone 3GS Teardowns Reveal Underclocked CPU, More …
• iFixit disassemble new iPod Shuffle
• If You Love Your Gadgets, Tear Them Apart
• Contest: Tear Apart Old Sony Gadgets, Win a PSP Go or PS3 Slim …

Wowsa, looks like those FCC folks really take their jobs seriously. With the iPad they didn’t just bother to test out the radiation and maybe take a little peek for themselves under the covers, but instead disassembled the whole machine on camera. Unfortunately they took it upon themselves to cover over the specific chips, so we’ll have to wait for one of those pro bono teardowns to get the full lay of the land, but it’s still a unique look at the makeup of this thing. Check it out in the gallery below.

Update: The dudes and dudettes over at iFixit are analyzing the board and the components in uncensored fashion — head on over if you considering yourself a “nerd.”

Update 2: iFixit’s now got photos of the iPad’s 3G communications board as well, even though it’ll be another month before the 3G version comes out!

FCC reveals iPad internals; you still don’t have one (update: iFixit has 3G pics!) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 02 Apr 2010 14:20:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |   | Email this | Comments

Having filled our business laptop lust with a T410 undressing yesterday, today we’ve come across a comprehensive teardown of Alienware’s gamer-friendly M11x ultraportable. Touted as the world’s most powerful 11-inch notebook, this is certainly one of the most tightly packed, with the battery and CPU cooling solution taking up more than half of the real estate, while the hard drive, memory, and wireless modules leave just enough room for an asymmetric speaker arrangement. From this strategic view, the examination moves into a very finely detailed investigation of the onboard components, including the particulars of the heatpipe-equipped heatsink, the SU7300 CULV processor, and the GT 335M GPU from NVIDIA. The whole thing culminates with the weighing of all the important parts, leaving us with pretty much no mysteries about this decidedly manmade machine.

Alienware M11x gets torn down, earthly components found inside originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 09 Mar 2010 06:05:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink Gadget Mix  |  Tech 163  | Email this | Comments

For the average geek like us, there’s nothing more satisfying than watching a gadget skillfully torn apart by its creator. That’s why we’re slightly envious of Engadget Chinese, who saw Sony VAIO Z Series project leader, Takamitsu Kasai, explaining the differences between the old and new VAIO Z literally part by part. Hightlights include Sony’s proprietary Quad SSD (so not user-upgradable, sadly), a redesigned heatsink to accommodate the new chips’ higher TDP (thermal design power), and various features of the “one-piece milled aluminum” and “hybrid carbon” chassis. Of course, all we really care about are photos of the naked VAIO Z, so go ahead and gorge yourselves after the jump.

Sony VAIO Z with Quad SSD stripped down and explained by its project leader originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 05 Mar 2010 10:33:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  Engadget Chinese  | Email this | Comments