Design Article
A first look inside the Palm Pre
Rick Merritt
6/7/2009 6:45 PM EDT
The Pre held few surprises in the components it uses. The company had announced its plans to use the TI 3430 at CES, one of the first big smart phone wins for Texas Instruments. Samsung and Qualcomm provide the applications processors in the iPhone and HTC Dream, respectively.
TI needed the boost. Its share of the apps processor market fell from 23 percent in 2007 to 16.8 percent last year, said iSuppli. Samsung is gaining share in apps processors and is now number two at 16.4 percent right behind TI, thanks to its use on the iPhone.
Otherwise the Pre's mainboard uses parts often seen in other cellphones such as a Marvell (
The separate radio board uses a relatively older generation Qualcomm 6801 integrated baseband and associated Qualcomm transmit (RFT6150) and receive (RFR6500) chips. However, rather than using the related Qualcomm power management device, the Pre substitutes a Maxim 8695.
The Maxim chip may reflect an attempt at cost savings given the Pre does not use the integrated apps processor on the Qualcomm baseband, Brown said.
The Pre does use the assisted GPS capabilities of the Qualcomm baseband. That means the phone will not be able to get a location fix when it is not connected to the cellular network.
Other parts on the radio board included power amplifiers from Triquint and Avago and more Samsung flash—all widely used in other cellphones. The Wi-Fi and Bluetooth capabilities were part of a module from Murata on the mainboard.
Click on image to enlarge.
Click on image to enlarge.
Click on image to enlarge.
Click on image to enlarge.
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