Inside the iPad: An iPod on steroids

The A4 processor in the iPad is packaged like Apple's iPhone processors using package-on-package technology, according to the firm. The lower part is for the microprocessor and the upper is for the two DRAM die. The DRAM die are confirmed to be Samsung Electronic Co. Ltd.'s 128-MB devices, according to Chipworks.

Some 16 GB of memory is provided by two of Samsung's K9LCG08U1M 8-GB MLC NAND flash memory chips. ''Apple is not using the do-all touch screen controller from Texas Instruments that it used in the iPhone 3G; instead, Apple has gone back to the three chip solution seen in the iPhone 2G,'' according to the firm.

The accelerometer design win was by STMicroelectronics.

"Essentially, the iPad is an iPod Touch with an enhanced display and much increased battery life,'' said Dick James, senior technology analyst for Chipworks, in a statement. ''The iPhone 2G-style touchscreen architecture perhaps reflects the date of design start, and we will likely see TI get the design win in the next generation iPad -- especially as we have seen the same chip in the latest iPhone, iPod Touch, and Magic Mouse."

The Apple iPad sports an unusually high processor-to-memory channel, an abundance of touch-screen silicon and a novel case design, according to a teardown report from UBM TechInsights, a sister division of EE Times. The report shows Samsung and Broadcom are among the major silicon suppliers in the system released to much fanfare Saturday (April 3).

There are a plethora of reviews on the iPad, which are all over the map and mixed.