Inside Today s Hot Products: What Teardowns Can Reveal Dick James, Senior Technology Analyst, Chipworks
Outline Chipworks Inc. Apple s first iphone Samsung S4 Qualcomm Snapdragon, Toshiba flash, Sony camera, Synaptics touch-screen controller Summary & conclusions 2
Chipworks Inc Chipworks' vision enabling our clients intellectual property strategies by being the premier source of knowledge of what s inside technology. Celebrating over 20 years of operations Over 100 dedicated professionals Employee experience dating back over 40 years Service semiconductor and electronics manufacturers International presence offices in North America, Europe, Japan, Korea, Taiwan 3
Reverse Engineering - Is it legal? YES!!! RE is actually protected by the USA Semiconductor Chip Protection Act: Title 17. Copy rights Chapter 9. Protection of Semiconductor Chip Products 906. Limitations on exclusive rights; reverse engineering; first (a) Notwithstanding the provisions of section 905, it is not an infringement of the exclusive rights of the owner of a mask for (1) A person to reproduce the mask work solely for the purpose of teaching, analyzing, or evaluating the concepts or techniques embodied in the mask work or the circuitry. Logic flow, or organization used in the mask work; or (2) A person who performs the analysis or evaluation described in paragraph (1) to incorporate the results of such conduct in an original mask work which is made to be distributed
Apple s 8-GB iphone (2007) Two boards.. ipod(+) board Wireless board
ipod board.. Wolfson WM8758BG audio codec Samsung 64Gb dual-stack package, multilevel cell NAND Flash memory (same as 8-GB ipod) Apple (NXP) power manager STMicroelectronics LIS302D 3-axis MEMS accelerometer Apple/Samsung application processor with ARM 1176 core + 1 Gb mobile DDR SDRAM memory, package-onpackage configuration
Wireless board.. EDGE MCP including Peregrine SP4T RF switch CSR 41B14 BlueCore4-ROM Infineon GSM transceiver Skyworks SKY77340 power amplifier module Marvell W8686B13 WLAN Intel PF38F1030W0YTQ2 32 Mb NOR Flash + 16 Mb PSRAM Infineon PMB8876 S-Gold2 baseband processor
Samsung Galaxy 4S (US LTE model, 2013) One double-sided board + peripheral board 8
Samsung Galaxy 4S Side 1 Audience earsmart es325 Advanced Voice Processor Qualcomm PM8018 PMIC Qualcomm WCD9310 audio codec Qualcomm MDM9215M Gobi modem (including 1 Gb SDRAM) Fujitsu MBG965H ARMbased MCU Atmel ATUC128L5-U SoC AVR Microcontroller Bosch BMP180 pressure sensor ST 3060G2 front end module with Broadcom BCM4335 + Skyworks SKY85303 ST LSM330 gyroscope + accelerometer Qualcomm PM8917 power management IC (PMIC) Toshiba 16 GB multi-level cell NAND Flash Samsung 16 Gb mobile LPDDR3 SDRAM memory + Qualcomm APQ8064 4-core Snapdragon 600 app s/ baseband processor, package-on-package configuration 9
Samsung Galaxy 4S Side 2 2x Knowles S1054 MEMS microphones Qualcomm WTR1605L UMTS/GSM/CDMA/LTE-A/TD-SDCDMA Tranceiver + GPS, GLONASS, Beidou Sony IMX135 13-Mp CMOS image sensor with TSVs Lattice LP1K36 1K mobile FPGA LED flash Broadcom BCM20794 NFC Controller Maxim MAX77803 PMIC Wisol RF diversity module including Peregrine SP8T RF switch Skyworks SKY77737 LTE PAM Murata GNF09 Antenna Switch Module including Peregrine SP12T RF switch Qualcomm PM8821 PMIC Silicon Image SiI8240BO video transmitter RFMD RF7307 PA Skyworks SKY77619 GSM, EGPRS, EDGE, WCDMA, and LTE Power Amplifier Module (PAM) 10
Samsung Galaxy 4S Peripherals Synaptics S5000B touch screen controller Super AMOLED display Sensirion SHTC1 temperature and humidity sensor Knowles S1030 MEMS microphone 11
Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 TSMC 28LP process PMOS transistor SRAM cell area 0.156 µm 2 Floorplan showing some of the major functional blocks Minimum gate length observed ~30 nm, T ox ~2.2 nm, ONO Embedded SiGe raised source/drains in PMOS, Ge ~40%, cavities etched to (111) planes 12
Toshiba 64-Gb, 19-nm NAND Flash Top metal level die size ~130mm 2 Plan-view TEM of wordlines control circuit bitline control circuit bond pad wordline wordline drivers bitline cell array cell array Polysilicon (poly) level Plan-view SEM of poly level 13
Toshiba 64-Gb, 19-nm NAND Flash Cross-section SEM in flash array Cross-section TEM of wordlines Al + Cu + W metals Tunnel ox ~6.7 nm, ~12 nm NONON inter-poly dielectric WL pitch ~38 nm, BL ~52 nm, cell size ~0.0018 µm 2. Air gaps between wordlines and M3 close-packed lines Linear-section TEM of wordlines 14
Sony IMX135 13-Mpixel CMOS Image Sensor TSVs TSVs CIS Top metal Die corner CIS ISP Top metal + filters 15 TSVs strapped in pairs
Sony IMX135 13-Mpixel CMOS Image Sensor bonding interface image sensor 90-nm back-illuminated sensor bonded face-to-face with 65-nm image processor up & over TSVs filled with Cu, appear to be filled simultaneously image processor Cu Cu SEM cross-section of stacked dies SEM cross-section of TSVs 16
Synaptics S5000B Touch Screen Controller The Samsung Galaxy S4 is powered by the Synaptics ClearPad touch technology with patented 3D-Touch capability. This 3D-Touch technology is the industry s first capacitive touchscreen solution to offer high performance proximity sensing. Air View allows users to hover with their fingers to preview the content of a text message email, image gallery or video without having to open it. High signal-to-noise ratio and proprietary algorithms also allow for seamless multitouch performance in the presence of moisture, with gloved fingers or fingernails. 17
Touchscreen Controllers Markets Chipworks Observations Touch Screen Controller Market 2012 2013 (YTD) Based upon Chipwork s teardown data Synaptics now on top Chinese companies coming into play Forecast shipments of Capacitive Touch Screen controllers will exceed 2 billion units in FY13. Atmel was not in one flagship product in Q1 (vs owning the socket less than a year ago) Broadcom and Texas Instruments still in Apple iphone and ipad Synaptics was in several flag ship products in Q1 and now in the Samsung Galaxy S4 18
Touch Screen Controller IP Landscape 2500 Touch Screen Publica0ons 2000 2012 2000 1500 1000 500 0 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 Nearly 8,000 filings in last 4 years January 2013 Apple granted integrated touchscreen patent US8363027 Feb 2013 Texas Instruments granted patent for capacitive measurement system for touch screens for phones and tablets. Given the revenue at stake and the room for technical innovation in this field, expect the patent landscape to be rich with litigation and or licensing 19
Packaging Apple s iphone 5 iphone 5 motherboard top & bottom A6 Cross-section of motherboard 16 GB Hynix NANDflash APL0598 2 x 4 Gb Elpida LP DDR2 SDRAM Cross-section of Apple A6 PoP on motherboard 20
Packaging Sony s PS Vita Sony CXD5315GG is the core chip; uses quad-core ARM Cortex-A9 MPU + Imagination SGX543MP4+ quad-core GPU. 21
Sony CXD5315GG 2 Gb mobile DDR2 SDRAM spacer 2 Gb mobile DDR2 SDRAM 1 Gb wide i/o SDRAM processor Uses Toshiba stacked chip SoC package with Samsung SDRAM Microbump pitch ~ 40 µm 22
Sony CXD5315GG Laid out for face-to-face bumping (or TSVs) 1080 pads in two blocks of 540 (4 blocks of 45 rows of 6 pads) Likely 2 x 512 bit I/O operation, possibly sub-divided into 4 x 128 23
Summary and Conclusions Quick reviews of Apple s iphones, Samsung Galaxy S4, and Sony s PS Vita RE lets us see BOMs, systems, circuit, process and market info and examine patent use when required Technology enables applications which drive technology which enables applications.. right across the spectrum APUs, graphics, screens, PMICs, RF, etc., etc We re into 2x-nm processes for logic, DRAM, 1x for flash HKMG, double patterning, air gap dielectrics are here and in consumer goods 3D stacks are slowly becoming reality In this industry we re forever pushing the boundaries, and you guys keep us RE types forever challenged! 24
Acknowledgements I would like to thank Chipworks laboratory staff and process analysts for all the hard work of analyzing these complex devices. They do a great job! Thank you for your attention! 25