Trolling for gold in the BlackBerry Bold

By Brian Dipert, Senior Technical Editor -- 5/28/2009

Research In Motion’s first 3G (third-generation)-data-capable “world” phone, the BlackBerry 9000, or Bold, gets a tech inspection courtesy of an EDN partnership with phoneWreck. How did RIM squeeze triple- or quad-band UMTS (Universal Mobile Telecommunications System), triple-protocol Wi-Fi, a QWERTY keypad, and copious additional capabilities into a 4.5×2.6×0.5-in., 4.7-oz form factor?

1.  To figure out where you are, you can leverage the integrated SiRF GSC3LTif GPS receiver, which works with the phone’s cellular subsystems in an A-GPS (assisted-GPS) mode. To show others where you are, you can use the phone’s built-in and LED-flash-augmented, 2M-pixel camera with digital-zoom capabilities, which also captures 480×320-pixel video streams. Audio capture and playback, the latter both via the embedded speaker and a headphone jack, are the bailiwick of Texas Instruments’ TLV320AIC3106 codec.

2.  The processing heart of the BlackBerry Bold is Marvell's PXA930 Tavor running at 624 MHz. Tavor is a descendant of the ARM-based XScale product line that Marvell acquired from Intel in mid-2006. The CPU’s memory partner is a triple-technology multidie-package stack from Samsung: 1 Gbyte of MLC (multilevel-cell) moviNAND flash memory (claimed by the package marking to be single-die, although other analyses have seemingly uncovered a two-die combination of conventional MLC flash memory and a discrete memory controller); 128 Mbytes of Numonyx’s bootable, SLC (single-level-cell) OneNAND flash memory; and 128 Mbytes of mobile-DDR SDRAM.

The PCB (printed-circuit-board), photo at right, backside is comparatively sparse. It exposes the action end of the trackball module, along with the QWERTY keypad’s membrane switches, and it reserves sufficient space for the Samsung 2.65-in.-diagonal half-VGA LCD with 64,000-color support.

3.  The BlackBerry Bold’s cellular subsystem contains Anadigics’ AWT6221 and AWT6241 power-amplifier chip set, along with Infineon’s WCDMA (wideband-code-division-multiple-access) PMB5701 transceiver. The phone supports UMTS 3G-data services in the 850-, 1900-, and 2100-MHz bands, along with the 800-MHz band in a version for Japan. The phone is therefore compatible with worldwide GSM (globe-system-for-mobile)-communications providers’ 3G networks, with the notable exception of T-Mobile, which bases its service on the 1700-MHz band. A Renesas power-amp-plus-transceiver combo handles the 850-, 900-, 1800-, and 1900-MHz GSM voice and data frequency-band options.

4.  Wireless-communications options other than cellular include dual-band 802.11a/b/g Wi-Fi, which a four-chip transceiver-plus-power-amp-plus-power-management cluster from Texas Instruments (the WL1253B, WL1251FE, WL1253FE, and WL1251PM) implements. The BlackBerry Bold also includes Cambridge Silicon Radio's BlueCore4 Bluetooth 2.0 transceiver supporting A2DP (advanced-audio-distribution-profile) stereo and AVCRP (audio/video-remote-control-profile) protocols. TI’s TPS65850 handles more general systemic power-management control. Cypress Semiconductor's CYWB0124AB administers both mini-USB (Universal Serial Bus) 2.0 transfers and the microSDHC (secure-digital-high-capacity)-memory-card interface. Marvell's CPU directly talks to the phone’s SIM (subscriber-identity-module) card slot.

 

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