The iPad Dissected, Thanks To The FCC: Steve Jobs, I'll Wager, Is Quite Unhappy

As I mentioned in yesterday morning’s April Fool’s Day post, I’m going to be once again working with iFixit to publish a Prying Eyes teardown of Apple’s iPad, due to go on sale beginning tomorrow morning. However, before Kyle and his team could get their hands on product samples, the FCC published its detailed qualification reports on the device, complete with abundant images of the iPad’s insides, and ignoring Apple’s request that it not do so in the process.

The photos contained strategically located gray-layer regions intended to shroud IC details, but both AnandTech and iFixit easily figured out how to circumvent the obscuration courtesy of a little Adobe Photoshop trickery (that the software came from the same company that makes Flash, which Apple seemingly so vehemently detests of late, is an irony that didn’t escape me). Courtesy of my partnership with iFixit, I’m passing along some of the stripped FCC images below (see iFixit’s writeup for the rest), complete with commentary from yours truly. But as you peruse the paragraphs that follow, keep in mind iFixit’s qualifier:

This is likely a preproduction board, and Apple very well may have changed some suppliers since they gave the FCC a sample unit. Take this data with a grain of salt until we are able to analyze a production model tomorrow.

As soon as iFixit snaps production-unit photos, which will thankfully also be much higher in resolution, I’ll publish a follow-up post discussing any differences between it and the prototype whose analysis follows.

Back in mid-February, I admittedly simplistically said, "Basically what we have here is a large-screen iPod touch." At the time, I didn’t realize how accurate my off-hand comment was. The iPad’s primary PCB is reportedly around the same size as that of an iPhone or an iPod touch. The image above is the top side of the logic board, showcasing the mythical Apple A4 CPU (in which, I believe, Samsung combined an Intrinsity-developed ARM processor core and an Imagination Technologies-developed PowerVR graphics and still/video image co-processing core). It also reveals two Toshiba NAND flash memories, and a Broadcom BCM5973 touch screen controller, the same device used in the third-generation iPod touch.

And here’s the main logic board’s bottom side. Until tomorrow, when higher-resolution images are available in conjunction with a physical sample (and a magnifying glass!), specific IC identification is not possible. For now, after perusing both logic board sides, I have the following design questions:

• Does the CPU boot from the NAND flash memories, or is there a separate NVM firmware device?
• Where’s the SRAM (I suspect integrated on the CPU die) and DRAM (I suspect within the CPU packaging, as a multi-die configuration)?
• Is the Bluetooth function integrated within the Wi-Fi chip (probably), or discrete? What about FM transmission, and/or FM (or HD radio) reception?
• Speaking of Wi-Fi, is it 802.11n (again, probably)? And
• Where are the accelerometer, the silicon compass, the power management controller, and the audio codec? And the flux capacitor, requiring 1.21 gigawatts of electrical power to operate? (kidding on that last one)

This cable tethers the iPad’s dock connector to the main logic board. Also attached to it is…

…the Wi-Fi-plus-Bluetooth module. Could it be based on the same Broadcom BCM4329 IC found in the third-generation iPod touch and in the Google Nexus One, or did Apple redirect its focus to Marvell or another supplier?

The audio emitted from the dual ’stereo’ speakers routes to the outside world through three iPad bottom-edge openings. Given the transducers’ size, full-fidelity music reproduction should not be assumed Fortunately, a headphone jack is also available.

Here’s the bottom side of the LED-backlit LCD (no, once again, Apple did not pick an OLED). Recall from my previous writeup that it uses in-plane switching technology to expand its usable viewing angle and otherwise improve quality. Based on panel markings, the supplier may be LG-Philips.

And here’s the battery, the nexus of Apple’s 10-hour operating and 1 month standby life estimates. According to iFixit, it’s a 3.75V, 24.8 watt-hour unit comprising two 3.75V cells connected in parallel; in contrast, the iPhone 3GS has a 4.51 watt-hour battery and the MacBook Air has a 40 watt-hour battery.

Careful readers may have noticed that so far I’ve made no mention of integrated GPS capabilities. That’s because the unit evaluated by the FCC is a Wi-Fi-only device; Apple also plans to sell iPads with 3G data services (but no cellular voice capabilities) supplied by AT&T in the United States, and those iPads are the only ones that also tout GPS attributes.

iFixit somehow managed to also secure snapshots of the unreleased 3G module and its accompanying cellular and GPS antennas, both standalone and integrated within an iPad. Unwilling to completely steal my valued partner’s thunder ;-), I’ve decided not to reproduce those particular images here; instead, please visit page 2 of iFixit’s piece for all of the details, including IC vendors and part numbers.