The 2010 CTIA wireless show also saw the introduction of Samsung's latest Android phone, the Galaxy S. As many people have already noticed, it bears an uncanny resemblance to the iPhone in terms of the user interface (despite running Android). However, its specs happen to be actually much more impressive, both on the inside and the outside. With a 4" AMOLED screen and a 1 GHz processor, it is indeed better than the iPhone 3GS hardware wise. As already noted in the opening remarks, this phone uses an app processor that is likely very similar to Apple's A4. Engadget covered the launch at CTIA and shot this video showing the similarity that the phone shares with the iPhone 3GS.
Looking into the specs of the S5PC110 a little more, one realizes how much it shares in common with the purported specs of the Apple A4. They were both fabricated in the Samsung foundry, and the Cortex-A8 core in both these chips are capable of running at 1 GHz. In fact, it is believed that Samsung and Apple both utilized the
services of Intrinsity to harden the Cortex-A8 core to enable it to run at 1 GHz in Samsung's 45nm process. The process of hardening a core involves optimization of the layout and placement of the components of the processor in order to improve the speed of operation as well as reduce the power consumption.
Semiconductor companies which integrate ARM's designs into their products usually take it as a hard macro from the foundry. This saves them the licensing costs, and can act as an incentive for the fabless company to choose a particular manufacturer over another. However, some companies may decide to devote time and effort to optimize the original design in layout and not rely on the foundry to do it for them. This is usually done by big companies which can spare the manpower and the associate costs. Usually they also have an architectural license, which gives them the freedom to even modify the pipeline behavior, and not just the layout. Examples of such companies are Marvell and Qualcomm. Sometimes, the hardening of the macro may be outsourced to another firm. These dedicated firms do a better job than the foundy themselves (since the latter may be able to devote only a small amount of resources for the purpose of hardening). Intrinsity is one such dedicated firm which has been employed by both Samsung and Apple (through the Samsung foundry) to harden ARM's version of Cortex-A8. Their version is used in both the Apple A4 and the S5PC110.
The GPU core in the S5PC110 as well as the Apple A4 is Imagination Technology's PowerVR SGX540. This product line has already proved its worth in the previous iPhones, and the SGX540 in the S5PC110 promises more than 90 million triangles per second of graphics performance. This is more than four times the performance of the graphics engine in the Snapdragon chip present in HTC EVO 4G. Even users who do not play games will find that this performance translates to a responsive and pleasing user interface.
The major difference between the Apple A4 and the S5PC110 is the fact that the latter can decode 720p HD videos as evidenced in the video above. It is possible that Apple decided to go with the decode acceleration provided by the NEON engine in Cortex-A8 (which would explains the complete lack of HD support in the iPad), while Samsung decided to go with their custom HD decode accelerator (Some suspect that it is a member of the PowerVR VXD family which enables the HD decode in S5PC110). We will get to know further about this platform when it starts shipping.
Why does the S5PC110 deserve a place in this roundup? The sole reason is that the next iPhone is probably based on a variant of this app processor. In effect, we are being provided with a sneak peek at the hardware capabilities of the next iPhone hardware platform.
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Strings - Wednesday, March 31, 2010 - link
How does the smart phone of today compare with the PC of yesterday? Would be interesting to see an article on the subject.ganeshts - Wednesday, March 31, 2010 - link
Thanks for your suggestion.We do have an article coming up on the different app processors in the market (as noted in the above article), and could probably add in information relevant to your request.
Personally, I would say that the smartphone of today is much more powerful than, say, a PC from 10 years back, and I dare say, probably more efficient at some common tasks than even the current day PCs (in terms of performance to power ratio). For example, most PCs from 2006 can't play back HD video without dropping frames (and the GPUs of those days didn't have decode acceleration either). However, even a small smartphone / PMP is able to playback such material flawlessly.
On the general purpose computing side, the advancement in smartphone capabilities has been entirely reliant on how much ARM has been able to innovate, coupled with advances in semiconductor manufacturing processes that the fabless semiconductor companies have access to. Usually, PC CPU vendors have an advantage with respect to the latter point.
The smartphone market has shaped itself in such a way that the most common tasks are taken care of through specialized hardware accelerators (for example, UI through 3d graphics cores, and media playback through specialized decode engines) which give it an advantage over PCs.
Whether PCs can be completely replaced by smartphones is something up for discussion. Again, my personal opinion is that it depends on the extent of success of cloud computing and how much people trust it. But then, that is a whole different domain altogether :)
Drizzt321 - Wednesday, March 31, 2010 - link
Because if it is, I'm of two minds about if I'd like this phone or not. See the ArsTechnica article (http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/news/2010/03/secret... which details some interesting things about it.ganeshts - Thursday, April 1, 2010 - link
Recently, it was brought to our attention that the WiMax baseband chip on the HTC EVO 4G is not manufactured by Beceem as previously thought, but by the French company Sequans Communication:http://www.eetimes.com/rss/showArticle.jhtml?artic...
We will continue to keep in touch with the market and bring you further information.
The error is deeply regretted.
ulbdd@free.fr - Saturday, April 3, 2010 - link
Indeed. The first WiMAX phone made by HTC for Russian operator Yota already did use a Sequans chipset, the SQN1130. The EVO uses the more recent SQN1210 with improved performance and lower power consumption and smaller footprint.See for example on Yota phone using SQN1130:
http://www.wimax.com/commentary/blog/blog-2009/nov...
And a more recent indicating Sequans again for EVO:
http://connectedplanetonline.com/ctia/2010/news/sp...
http://www.wirelessweek.com/News/Feeds/2010/03/wir...
For info on the SQN1210:
http://www.sequans.com/products-solutions/mobile-w...
dadicool - Friday, April 2, 2010 - link
Somehow Nvidia's Tegra2 doesn't make it to the list of App Processors. Omission or is it deliberate?ganeshts - Friday, April 2, 2010 - link
I believe Tegra2 is a very promising platform, but the truth is that it hasn't been demonstrated yet in a smartphone form factor. All we have seen at CES and MWC this year have been tablets and the like. It is likely that Nvidia is unable to fit the platform within the power envelop required by a smartphone.Personally, I think Tegra2 deserves kudos for being the first chip to bring out Cortex-A9 in silicon inside real third party demo-ed products (such as the Notion Ink Adam). Whether they are able to get it into production before OMAP4 (which is also Cortex-A9) products hit the market remains to be seen.
Randomblame - Friday, April 2, 2010 - link
I NEEeed a new phone msm7201a and 128mb of ram is just pathetic, I want the hd2 but at&t won't be carrying it and it won't support 3g on their network, desire looks nice but it won't be out for a while yet and it's android native which means there won't be the fun of porting linux to it or the freedom to run winmo when I want. I may have to get a topaz or rhodium to tide me over till the next great thingyouli - Friday, April 2, 2010 - link
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Eurobrsg - Saturday, April 3, 2010 - link
It looks like Apple has recently purchased Intrinisity. Shortly after this article went live, I tried to visit their website, now I know what happened. Great article.