Systems on a Chip (SOCs) as Fast As Possible
Techquickie
·Techquickie
·2017-05-06
·
1,141 words · ~5 min read
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so as we were sitting down to review this episode of fast as possible I saw
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the folder name for the project and I asked John what is a system on a chip
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and he replied I'm glad you asked it's
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all in the script we're about to go over so uh here we go then we are now in an
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era where a lot of us expect the
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smartphones we carry around in our pockets to do most of the things a PC
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can I mean the Samsung Galaxy even has a
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setting for multiamp anti-aliasing so your mobile games will
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look nicer but given that Flagship phones are much smaller than even the
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most compact PCS how have they grown
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from Novelties that can't even copy paste to do it all devices in only about
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10 years well much of the growth has been driven by advancements in systems
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on a chip commonly called s so's well
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hold on a second lonus my phone isn't a system on chip it has a screen and
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buttons and a case with rhinestones on it well when I say system I'm talking
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about all the crucial inerts that a phone or a tablet needs to function like
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processors memory and storage and IO
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controllers and if you've ever built or upgraded a desktop PC what you'll know
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is that for the most part these functions are all handled by different
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components that you have to either physically install separately or are
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installed separately on something like a motherboard an S so by contrast
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integrates multiple or even all of these
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functions into one piece of silicon
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that's the same size or even smaller than a conventional
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CPU but how can all of this stuff fit
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onto just one chip well remember that
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because phones and tablets are mobile devices that spend most of their lives
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running off of a battery a lot of the components inside have to suck less
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power and produce less heat I mean a
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phone with a 10-minute battery life that feels like a hot stove top wouldn't do
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you much good would it so this means
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that manufacturers have to save energy
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somehow which usually translates to less
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powerful components with fewer transistors which makes them physically
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smaller but just because components on an so don't pack the punch of their
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desktop PC counterparts doesn't mean that they're bad in fact many mid-range
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and higher end s so's deliver very smooth performance in part because their
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CPUs use the ARM architecture which runs
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a smaller simpler instruction set to make processing easier though perhaps
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less versatile and you can learn more about ARM CPUs in this video and because
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mobile apps and and operating systems like iOS and Android are written for
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these CPUs that means that you're not waiting around three times longer for
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your phone to do something even though your s so might be several times less
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powerful than your desktop rig and if you're an Apple fan their s so's take
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the concept of less is more even further
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because unlike Android s so's which have
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to work with tons of different devices and Brands Apple's s so's only need to
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work with their own hardware and their own software so iOS has been further
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optimized to run well on apple chips
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that are at times less impressive sounding than their Android equivalents
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on paper for example the new Apple A10
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so inside the iPhone 7 is the first quad
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core chip we've seen in an i device when Androids have been available with eight
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core chips for years now and we're even seeing the same integration Concept in
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desktops it's not limited to S so's although PCS aren't packing everything
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from RAM to LTE communication logic onto
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the die or even the package for that matter and the trend towards this goes
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back decades even with Intel being the first to move the cash which used to be
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an external chip that you plugged in onto the CPU and AMD's more recent
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integration of the memory controller into the CPU die which used to be a
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separate chip on the motherboard called the Northbridge this might have seemed
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at first glance like they were just increasing the CPU's complexity for the
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sake of it when we'd rather just have a bigger more powerful CPU and keep all
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that stuff offboard but in reality the
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reduction in cash and memory access latency from getting them closer
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together more than compensates for the wasted die space and additional cost and
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this is even true of onboard graphics with better on chip gpus now being
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pushed as an all-in-one solution for light to moderate gaming as we've seen
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with Intel's Iris Pro graphics and AMD's Apu series not quite the same as a full
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fat graphics card but who knows with the way things are going maybe one day we
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will have entire systems the size of a
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postage stamp or you know failing that even just a modern CPU that can max out
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