What's inside an SoC aka System on a chip?

Hello friends and welcome again on your own tech guide i.e. TechAnalysia. Today we are going to look at the components of an SoC a.k.a. System On Chip components, which makes it an SoC anyway. What is inside an SoC? 

But before we jump what's inside the SoC, those who are new here let me tell you guys we've already covered the tile "What is SoC" in my previous article. So, make sure guys you watch that article before reading this one because it's gonna make no sense to you if you directly read this one. Which you can simply access by clicking on this link, 

https://www.techanalysia.com/2020/07/what-is-soc-in-smartphones.html

So, without further wasting any time let's get started.

System on a chip aka SoC definition 

The size of this System on Chip, they are as small as the size of a coin. So, now the question is how is it possible to integrate all the parts inside a single chip. So, there are many reasons behind that. So, let's find out these reasons. The first reason is the processor which you see inside the smartphone is not as powerful as the processor which you find inside the desktop and the laptop. So, don't get me wrong. The processors which you see inside the smartphones are powerful enough, but if you compare them with the processors of desktop and laptop, the processors in desktop and laptop are quite powerful. So, if you have seen any motherboard of any laptop or desktop, you must have observed that the processor is enclosed by the heat sink and the cooling fan. Because these powerful processors generate a lot of amount of heat. And they need some sort of cooling. So, just imagine the size of your smartphone if the same processor with all the cooling arrangements is fitted into your smartphone. Forget about the cooling, if you put this processor inside your smartphone then your battery of the smartphone would die in just half an hour. Because these processors are quite power hungry and require a lot of amount of power. So, the fact is that processors which you see inside a smartphone and tablet are designed using a different architecture. 

So, the most of the processors which you see inside the smartphone and tablet are designed using ARM architecture. One more thing is that the operating system which is designed for these smartphones is optimized for this system on chips. So, although on paper these smartphone processors don't look powerful compared to the desktop processors, because of this software optimization, you hardly feel any lag when you operating these smartphones and tablets. Apart from that, the advancement in manufacturing technology has allowed us to integrate more and more transistors inside the same area. So, not only in the smartphone but on desktop and laptop also, you will see that many parts are integrated inside the same chip.

What's inside a System on a Chip

So, these are some of the reasons why you can integrate all the components inside a single chip. So, now as we know about what is the System on the Chip,  let's find out what is inside this System on the Chip.

• Central Processing Unit (CPU) - It's called the brain of SoC. It handles most of the calculations coding-decoding for your smartphone's operating system and almost all other applications in your phone. CPU is the widely used type of processor. It is designed so well that it can handle a variety of different tasks even heavier ones. Apart from running your operating system and apps, it also works as a bridge between other processors for synchronizing data. The CPU performance can be enhanced or lowered down by changing the clock speed which is in (GHz), or the number of cores can also be done by changing the basic architecture to do more work with each cycle.
• Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) - Along with the CPU, the GPU is another component embedded into an SoC. In terms of design, due to their less general-purpose comparing with CPUs, they are very different. It handles all the graphics-related tasks, like visualizing an application's user interface & gaming purposes. As opposed to the CPUs, which can execute only one or two commands with each cycle, GPUs can calculate enormous operations(calculations) with each cycle. In the mobile SoC world, two major GPUs are widely used: Qualcomm's Adreno and ARM's Mali.
• Image Signal Processor (ISP) - It works to convert the data of your phone's camera into Images and Videos. While the editing of an image is often done by the CPU and GPU, there's a lot of processing performed on a camera sensor data, before even you saved it to your phone. An ISP is basically a DSP that handles focusing, demosaicing, sharpening, and noise reduction. In layman's language, it converts all your digital data from the camera sensor into a picture.
• Neural Processing Unit (NPU) - Like other processing units, like GPUs designed for graphics math and ISPs, are designed for image tasks, NPUs are specially designed to execute neural network and machine learning tasks rapidly and effectively CPUs. They have their own local memory caches also, to boost up execution without the usage of RAM. These neural networks frequently need operations that collect multiple pieces of insert data to cause a single output. This is totally different from math used by CPUs.
• Video Encoder/Decoder - As the name suggests it basically handles the power-efficient conversion of video files and formats.
• Modems - Next you see inside a System On Chip are the connectivity modems. And these modems ensures that user has all kind of connectivity like- Wi-Fi, FM radio, USB, Bluetooth, GPS, cellular radios, 4G LTE & 5G modems. It converts wireless signals into data in your phone. The 4G modem is situated inside the SoC while the early 5G modems are external, which means they have to attach to the SoC.

Now, sometimes due to the size constraint, it is not possible to integrate the Random Access Memory or RAM inside this System on Chip. In such cases, the memory package is piled up above the System on Chip package. And they ate connected using this ball grid array. So, this kind of packaging arrangement is known as the Package on Package arrangement. And this type of Package on Package arrangement reduces the cost as well as the size. Now in the scenarios, where memory is outside the System on Chip, you need to establish the connection between the CPU and the memory. And that is done by the module known as Northbridge. So, this module ensures the connectivity between the RAM and the CPU.

Conclusion

So now you know a little bit more about what's inside an SoC and if you liked it then share it with your friends and anything I missed here about components inside of SoC, you can tell me in the comment section right below.