Date: 04/03/2011

Semiconductor chips for tablets: Analysis after iPad2 launch

The launch of Apple iPad2 and announcement of new Galaxy 10.1 from Samsung starts phase-2 of tablet market. In fact version 2 of iPad has arrived faster than expected to keep the competitors behind. In this version game of tablet PCs, the new version will have more at little-less price or may be same price of older version. It's all about selling more features in the price bracket of $400 to $500.

How should be the semiconductor devices for the future versions of tablet computers?
Here is brief and quick analysis:

Multicore processors: when the media-streaming, processing at real time speed and communicating to n number of devices around take place at same time without letting the user knowing any delays in accessing information, the muticore is essential. Dual core is not enough, quad core makes strong case. To run multiple process intensive apps on a tablet smoother and faster than the way its runs on notebooks, dual core is not sufficient. Tablet is heading to become way of information access for all kinds of professionals. So the number of cores will differentiate the product. Tablet market has a high chance of branching as application specific tablets, low cost and high cost version, etc. But the main-stream high-end tablet demands high processing power. So the SoC for tablet will be driven by processing power but the unit of measurement will be MIPS per Watt or something like that.

And its not just muticore, much of digital logic has to stay on single chip for cost benefits and space advantage. However multichip option still works, if the total footprint size of all chips falls with in the tablet specs, because tablet is wider than smartphone.

The device form factor: One dimension, which can go down, is thickness. Tablets demand thin semiconductor chips. Advanced packaging technologies matter here. Apple iPad2 is 8.8 mm in thickness.

4G LTE is around; the wireless semiconductor vendors got to look at how they can pack multiple radios in single chip. LTE radios, Bluetooth (newest standard) and WiFi (newest standard) radio; all in single chip or module is the need. The size, power range, power consumption are the key specs to select.

Apple iPad2 supports UMTS/HSDPA/HSUPA (850, 900, 1900, 2100 MHz); GSM/EDGE (850, 900, 1800, 1900 MHz), CDMA EV-DO Rev. A (800, 1900 MHz), Wi-Fi (802.11a/b/g/n,)Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR technology.

Latest tablets require semiconductor chips supporting technologies to stream video and other content on TVs and LCD monitors and any such displays in other devices. HDMI, AV Ethernet, Displayport and any such standards are some of the examples, which need to be supported. 3D video will suddenly emerge and the chips supporting them are essential.

Power electronics: 10hours+ video watching on 10 Inch screen need smart power electronics. The switching regulators delivering anything more than 94% can atleast stand eligible for powering SoC chips in tablets. There are power ICs offering 97% power efficiency. Smart power-rail monitoring, switching to different modes of power sourcing based on usage, and smart battery monitoring are must for the power ICs inside latest tablets.

OS software support is a key thing for the tablet specific semiconductor chips. For semiconductor vendors who are not Apple customers getting their chips inside Apple iPad is difficult. But there are plenty of vendors attempting Android based tablet designs. So chip companies look at Android with high priority and any other such competing OS in the market, mainly Windows mobile version and the software from phone companies such as Nokia. Microsoft is active in getting into tablet market, so support for Windows version for tablets is important.

Finally cost of the chips, even though chips exceed or fulfill market requirements, the cost of the chips got to support the present price bracket of $400 to $500. It can be less, but not more.

So it's about processing power, communication and wireless power, seamless interface to other devices and more importantly software support. All this at best possible power-consumption and less space.

Our analysis on LCD, MEMS devices (accelerometers, gyros) and memory for tablets will come out in separate article.