Palm Pre includes some component, design surprises
By Suzanne Deffree, Managing Editor, News -- 6/11/2009
Palm’s new Pre, the company's rival to Apple's popular iPhone, hit shelves recently and came with a few unexpected component and design choices, according to iSuppli Corp.
A dissection conducted by the market research company's teardown analysis service found that Texas Instruments, Qualcomm, Sony, and Samsung Electronics are the leading component suppliers for Palm’s new Pre, providing key semiconductor and display technologies for the smart phone.
“With the Pre, Palm has made some surprising choices not only in the phone’s features, but also in its design and component selection,” said Andrew Rassweiler, iSuppli's director and principal analyst for teardown services, in a statement.
According to the dissection, the Pre makes use of an advanced low-temperature polysilicon (LTPS) LCD display supplied by Sony that is a 16-million color LCD with a pixel format of 320 by 480. Noting that it expected such technology inclusion in the Pre, iSuppli said that LTPS displays provide higher resolutions and faster response times than the conventional LCDs used in most mobile phones, but are also more expensive. (See below table for estimated cost and component list.)
ISuppli further noted that while Sony was the supplier in the specific Pre torn down by its service, Palm is likely using other sources, given the availability of such displays from other companies.
Like the iPhone, iSuppli reported that Pre’s design is split into two core spheres, with the applications processor portion of the phone centered on TI’s OMAP3430 applications processor and the wireless interface portion centered on the Qualcomm MSM6801A baseband processor.
“Employing a discrete and completely separate applications processor inherently should have the advantage of improved performance over designs that choose to leverage a single piece of core silicon,” Rassweiler said. “Most of the so-called 'iPhone killers' iSuppli has torn down keep costs down by having one—and only one—core silicon asset. However, this approach burdens a single processor with multiple functions, degrading performance. This Pre’s two-pronged solution may be more costly, but should yield a superior-performing smart phone.”
Pre also utilizes a companion chip to TI's OMAP3430 OMAP, TI’s TWL5030B dedicated power management/audio codec device, according to the teardown.
Included in the design surprises iSuppli noted was that the Pre includes 2 Gbits of SDRAM in two 1-Gbit dies, opposed to most smart phones and PDAs torn down by the company that incorporate only 1 Gbit or less of SDRAM. This DRAM is mounted directly on top of the applications processor using a package-on-package enclosure, iSuppli said.
ISuppli said that the larger amount of memory likely is needed as a buffer to support the Pre’s capability to multi-task various applications, a key allure of the Pre’s webOS operating system relative to that of the iPhone and competing smart phones. Elpida was identified as the supplier of the SDRAM in the specific Pre torn down by iSuppli.
The Qualcomm MSM6801A baseband processor is the key wireless semiconductor portion of the Pre, supporting CDMA2000 1X and CDMA2000 1X Rev A EV-DO air standards. Qualcomm also landed two RF support chips, the RFR6500 receiver and RFT6150 transmitter, in the Pre.
ISuppli said that it was surprised Palm did not employ Qualcomm’s PM6650 chip, which performs the power management function in almost all Qualcomm-based designs. Instead, that function is supported by Maxim’s MAX8695 power management IC.
In what iSuppli called "another interesting design choice," the Pre makes use of 8 Gbytes of Samsung’s eMMC MoviNAND flash memory, rather than regular MLC NAND commonly found in mobile phones. The eMMC memory is a premium variety of NAND that combines high-density MLC NAND flash with a memory management controller to deliver higher performance and easier integration into electronic designs, iSuppli reported.
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