In this talk we'll focus on the hardware inside the phone: the chips that enable the mobile user experience. I'll give an overview of the semiconductor industry, show typical phone chip architectures, their trends and how they influence the mobile experience. Here and there during the presentation, we'll take a quick peek into the future of the mobile phone.

1. chips: the engine
beneath your apps
marco@marcojacobs.nl

3. Phone 5
Nexus
• Software
• Electronics
• Mechanics

6. 21 January 2014
6

7. Fabs

8. 21 January 2014
8

9. 21 January 2014
ASML
9

11. Industry drivers

12. Moore’s law
“The number of transistors per chip
doubles approximately every 1.5 years”

13. Moore’s law
2013
4x 2.3GHz CPU
2GB RAM
16GB Storage
1996
16x 200MHz CPUs
2GB RAM
2GB Storage

14. The semiconductor value chain
Processor'IP'
license fee+
royalties
(e.g. 1% ASP)
IP yellow pages:
www.design-reuse.com
Chips'
Fabs'
Systems'
Apps'
Consumers'

16. Why phone drives the CE industry - volume
1.8B
per
year
every
5 mins
truck
9x
around
earth
everyone wants to differentiate ! innovation

17. Why phone drives the CE industry - loans
Banks:
Loan-based sales caused huge influx of $$$

18. Mobile phone drives the CE industry
mobile phone architecture and ecosystem has
become extremely complex, innovative and efficient
! it is displacing lots of ICs in other markets

19. Which one is more powerful?
€99
$5,349.00

20. Let’s go inside

21. iPhone 5s
Teardowns:
www.ifixit.com
www.techinsights.com
www.chipworks.com

22. Wired
Wireless
Audio IO
Touch
apps
processor
Memory
IMU
Display / Camera

23. Three kinds of chips
Where
your
software
runs
How it
interacts
with real
world
• Digital
" Logic
" SRAM (fastest memory, expensive)
• Memory
" DRAM (cheap, fast, but loses data
without power)
" Flash (cheap, slower, doesn’t loose
data without power)
• Analog / Mixed Signal
" Radio waves +
" Sensors, audio, etc.
Typically built in different factories

24. Wired
Wireless
Audio IO
Touch
Apps
processor
Memory
IMU
Display / Camera
All digital chips get “sucked into the apps processor”

25. Wired
Wireless
Audio IO
Touch
Apps
processor
Memory
IMU
Display / Camera

26. Wired
Wireless
Audio IO
Touch
Apps
processor
Memory
IMU
Display / Camera
Intel at this moment plays no big role in mobile

27. Apple’s A7
Total: 102mm2
Dual CPU: 17mm2
3.6Mgates each

28. Page 291, http://www.ti.com/lit/ug/swpu249y/swpu249y.pdf
Texas Instruments OMAP5
Dual'
core'
A15'+'
NEON'
audio'
boLleneck'
DRAM'
DSP'
HD'
video'+'
ARM9'
Face'detect'
Display'
Imaging''
(+2'ARMs)'
Imaging'
2D'
GPU'
USB'
Flash'

29. Software design
instruction set
register files
/* Hello World */
#include<stdio.h>
main()
{
printf("Hello
World");
}
source code
compiler
executable

30. Hardware design (for logic)
module up_counter
(
out
,
enable ,
counter ,
clk
,
reset
);
output [7:0] out;
input enable, clk, reset;
reg [7:0] out;
std cell library
+ memories
always @(posedge clk)
if (reset) begin
out <= 8'b0 ;
end else if (enable) begin
out <= out + 1;
end
endmodule
+ MHz target
synthesis
source code
GDS II
place & route
Quite similar to software design

31. Processors and logic: horses for courses
CPU'
Big'
>1Mgate,'2GHz+'
Small''
10kgate,100MHz'
generic processing
(OS, web browser,
database, etc)
GPU'
DSP'
2D / 3D
UI / Gaming
comms'
became generic
and so powerful,
use it for generic
compute
audio'
video'
voice'
hardwired'
CPUs'
10S100kgate,
100S500MHz'
modems
camera, audio
display, video
apps programmers only exposed through APIs

32. Moore’s law: 2x transistors every 18 months
! side effects
• Heterogeneous architectures
" Different processors each with their own specialization
" Exposed with APIs (e.g. OpenCL, Renderscript, app specific, etc)
• ARM’s big.LITTLE
" Automatic code migration between multiple processors with
same instruction set, different power envelopes
" Like a hybrid car: two engines, one optimized for maximum
horsepower, one optimized for power efficiency
" Programmer doesn’t notice
• Dark Silicon
" Transistors up 2x, power only goes down by √2
" Silicon real-estate is cheap, but power becomes issue
" Not everything can be on at the same time ! dark silicon

33. Future

34. Exciting things: depth cameras
Sees depth and can measure volume
Examples: cooking, weighing yourself

35. Exciting things: gestures interfaces
Think “Iron
Man’s user
interface”,
without the
holographic
display
Gestures go from 2D (touch) to 3D
Examples: angry birds, layered keyboard

36. Exciting things: minidrones
Companion to your phone
Examples: navigation, wedding pictures

37. Thank you!
marco@marcojacobs.nl
@marcocjacobs