Computer Communication & Collaboration (2013)

Submitted on 27/May/2013
DOIC: 2292-1036-2013-01-024-08

A Study on Anatomy of Smartphone

Muhammad Shiraz(Corresponding Author), Md Whaiduzzaman, Abdullah Gani
Mobile Cloud Computing Lab,
Faculty of computer Science and Information Technology,
University of Malaya, Malaysia
E-mail: [email protected], [email protected],
[email protected]
Abstract: The latest smartphones are attributed with the quality graphics, portable size and user
applications support and multimode connectivity features. Smartphone incorporatesthe capabilities
of both computing and communication devices. The latest distributed computing models are
focused on employing smartphone as a significant stakeholder for enabling complicated and
ubiquitous applications in the changing mobile computing world. Therefore, it is necessary to
understand the components of smartphone and its working behavior for operation in the cellular and
data networks. In this paper we study the anatomy of the smartphone by discussing its major
components such as application processor and baseband processor. We describe different
subcategories of smartphone components and highlight the behavior and significance of each
component for dual mode functionalities of smartphone. The paper provides tutorial for
understanding the architecture of the smartphone and exploring the functionalities of the dual
processors of smartphone which are used for accessing different types of wireless networks. It helps
in developing optimal procedures for deploying the components of the smartphone while accessing
cellular and data networks
Keywords: Smartphone, Application Processor, Baseband Processor, Anatomy

1 Introduction
Smartphone is a new generation high featured and multifunctional cell phone which has
become universal replacements for Personal Digital Assistants (PDA's). A smartphone incorporates
the functionalities of a handheld computer with the communication capabilities of a cell phone. It
provides multimodal connectivity and user customized applications support for local and distributed
services.
Ssmartphones have high end features such as email, a mini browser, external USB
options, large screen, GPS capability, and large memory capacity and basic PC functionality. Many
third party applications, tools and programs are installed by the user to make the smartphone all in
one device [1]. The latest smartphone has replaced different portable devices such PDAs, digital
cameras, Internet browsing devices, and Global Positioning Systems (GPS) [2]. Users dependency
on the latest smartphones is increasing rapidly in various domains such as e-businness, m-learning
and m-gamming, m-healthcare and mobile management information systems[3]. Smartphones are
predicted the dominant future computing devices.
Smartphone are quipped with two different processors for accessing communication network
and performing computation. Baseband Processor (BP) is a dedicated processor which is used for
employing GSM protocol stack, and Application Processor (AP) is a multicore general purpose
processor which is used for providng user interface and running applications. AP and BP
processor havetheir own memory (RAM and Flash), peripherals and clocking. However, due to the
demands for portable devices with rich functionalities, highly integrated products are produced by

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integratingthe AP and BP inside one physical package. Each processor is allocated isolated memory
access by assigning separate portions of the integrated RAM and Flash memory to each of the two
processors. Therefore each processor is provided access to its own memory address space [4].
The latest distributed computing models, such as Mobile Cloud Computing (MCC) and Cloud
Computing are focused on employing smartphone as a significant stakeholder for enabling
complicated and ubiquitous applications in the changing mobile computing world [5]. Therefore, it
is necessary to understand the components of smartphone and its working behavior for operating in
the cellular and data networks. This paper reviews the anatomy of smartphone by analyzing and
modeling major components of the smartphone. We discuss the working of each component from
different perspectives. The paper provides tutorial for understanding the architecture of the
smartphone and exploring the functionalities of the dual processors of smartphone which are used
for accessing different types of wireless networks. It helps in developing optimal procedures for
deploying the components of the smartphone while accessing cellular and data networks.
The paper is organized into four sections. Section 2 presents the architecture of GSM model
and the components associated with baseband processor. Section 3 discusses the architecture of
application processor and models the anatomy of smartphone. Section 4 draws conclusive remarks.

2 Baseband Processor
Baseband processor employs GSM protocol stack for enabling smartphone to access different
types of wireless network technologies such as WCDMA, EDGE, CDMA, Zifgbee, Bluetooth 4.0,
Wi-Fi, or LTE. BP manages radio communications and control functions such as signal modulation,
radio frequency shifting and encoding. Baseband processors were used earlier inordinary mobile
phone technology for accessing cellular network,however, its architecture has evolved in several
stages from analog to digital to 3G, and the latest development to LTE. Smartphone has a GSM
modem which interfaces with the GSM network [6]. The GSM modem consists of the following
parts.Figure 1, shows the block diagram of the parts of baseband processor associated with GSM.

Figure 1.Block Diagram of GSM Modem components

The baseband processor is differentiated into two sections; analog functions and digital
function;whereas the RF section remains as a whole circuit section.
2.1 Radio Frequency (RF) Section
Radio Frequency (RF) front end component of the BP is responsible for receiving and
transmitting on different frequencies. RF is employed as the mode of communication for all types of
wireless technologies; such as cordless phones, radar, ham radio, GPS, and radio and television

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broadcasts. RF waves are electromagnetic waves which propagate at the speed of light, or 186,000
miles per second (300,000 km/s). The frequencies of RF waves, however, are slower as compared to
visible light; for that reason RF waves are invisible to the human eye. RF component is responsible
for the access of wireless cellular network and communication between smartphone and base
transceiver station (BTS). RF section is composed of a transceiver for transmission and reception of
signals and a power amplifier.
2.1.1 Transceiver
A smartphone employs transmitter and receiver circuits for correspondence with other mobile
phone. A transmitter circuit transmits radio signals in the air and a receiver is used to receive
transmissions (radiation) which are spread in the air by any transmitter on a specific frequency. The
two way communication is made possible by setting two transmitters and two receivers
synchronized in such a manner that a transmitter in a cell phone is synchronized with the frequency
of other cell phone's receiving frequency; similarly the transmitter of second cell phone is
synchronized with the receiving frequency of first cell phone. Figure 2, shows the basic operation
methods of RF section.

Figure 2. The Basic Operation Methods Of RF Section

2.1.2 The Analog Baseband (ABB)
The ABB part of a GSM modem is responsible to interface between the digital domain and the
analog domain of the GSM modem. ABB consists of the following components.
A/D and D/A section: Analog to Digital (A/D) and Digital to Analog (D/A) component is
responsible for modulation and demodulation; digital to analog and analog to digital conversions.
Control section: The control subsection acts as the controller of the input and output of any
analog and digital signal.
Power Management: The power management subsection is responsible for the management of
energy matter of the smart mobile devices. The power management subsections is composed of two
components; power distribution and switching section and charging subsection.
Power Distribution (PD):The power distribution subsection of ABB is used for the
distributionof desired voltage and current to the other sections of the smartphone. It takes power
from a battery (commonly 3.6 Volts) and in some places it converts or step down to various volts

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such as 2.8 V, 1.8V and 1.6V. On the other hand, PD steps up the voltage such as 4.8 V. Power
distribution section is commonly designed around a power IC (and integrated circuit) which is used
to distribute and regulate the voltage used in other components [12].
Charging Component: The charging component is responsible for charging the battery of
smartphone. It is composed of a charging IC which takes power from an external source and gives it
to battery of the smartphone. It uses 6.4 V, from an external battery charger and regulates it to 5.8 V
while giving it to battery.
Audio Codecs Section: AudiCodecs is responsible for the processing of analog and digital audio
signals received through microphone, earpiece speaker headset and ring tones and the vibrator
circuits. Figure 3, shows operational structure of analog baseband processor component.

Figure 3. Functioning Diagram of Analog Base Band Processor

2.1.3Digital Baseband Processor (BBP)
A baseband processor (also known as baseband radio processor, BP, or BBP) is a chip or part
of a chipin a smartphone that is responsible for managingall functions that require an antenna [7].
The digital BBPemploys the actual GSM protocols from Layer1 up to Layer 3 as well as higher
layers; such as a user interface in the case of the feature phone. In a smartphone, the BBP employs a
machine interface which is used by the AP. A normal BBP design includes a Digital Signal
Processor (DSP) for the lower half of Layer1, and a general purpose processor (MCU) for the upper
part of Layer1. DSP and MCU communicate by employing shared memory interface.
The shared memory contains both actual data, control information. The actual data is processed
by application processor; whereas, control information and parameters describe the action to be
taken with the respective data. The MCU instructs the DSP to perform decoding for a particular
GSM burst type on the receiving side, after which the DSP receives I/Q samples from the ABB, and
performs detection/demodulation/decoding and the result of the operation (including any decoded
data) is reported back to the MCU. For the transmit path, the MCU presents the transmittable data
and auxiliary information to the DSP, which then takes care of encoding and sends the
corresponding burst bits to the ABB (remember, most ABB devices take care of the modulation to
reduce DSP load) [4]. The Baseband Processor (MCU) cores have the typical set of peripherals of
any Advanced RISC Machine (ARM 7) based microcontroller, such as RTC, UARTs for RS 232
and IrDA, SPI, I2C, SD/MMC card controller, keypad scan controller and USB device. The
additional GSM specific peripherals are: GPRS crypto unit, GSM TDMA timers and smart card
reader interface for the SIM card. The MCU generally runs a very small real time operating system

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(RTOS) such as Nucleus, VxWorks or the L4 microkernel [2]. Figure 4 shows the components of
digital baseband processor for mobile device.

Figure 4.Components of the Digital Baseband Processor

Recently, a number of multi-SIM mobile devices entered the market such as Dual-SIM or
Triple-SIM. Multi-SIM functionality of the smartphone is implemented in different ways. One
way of implementing the dual SIM operating procedure of the mobile devices is that a multiplexer
is employed on the mobile device, which allows electrical switching between multiple SIM card
slots. This is technique is similar to replacing the SIM card in a phone, just without the manual
process of mechanically removing/inserting the card. As a result, mobile user can use one of the two
SIMs at any time. The second method of implementing dual SIM functionalities on the smartphone
is by employing two complete phones in one case. Mobile device contains two full GSM phone
chipsets, i.e. 2 antennas, 2 RF frontends, 2 analog basebands, 2 digital basebands. Dual sets are
implemented in such a way so that one of the two basebands does not have keypad or display and is
simply a GSM modem connected via serial line to the other baseband processor. A smartphone is a
GSM modem connected to a PDA in one case, similarly a Dual-SIM phone is a GSM modem
connected to a ordinary phone in one case [4].

3 Application Processor
Smartphone is equipped with a dedicated Application Processor (AP) for performing
computation. The AP is a special type of System on a Chip (SoC) which supports a number of
multimedia related features such as web browsing, email, multimedia entertainment and games.
Application processor enables smartphone to run autonomous operating systems [13] and employ
customized user applications. The application processor provides additional processing capabilities
for performing such taskswith minimal power consumption [8]. A smartphone runs different types
of operating system such as Android, Windows Mobile and Symbian [9, 13]. Application processor
processes The multimedia contents which are either delivered to the consumer's multimedia device,
or produced by the consumers multimedia device are processed by the application processor with
the intention of sharing the content with others or storing it for later use [10]. The application
processor is comprised of the following vital components.
1. Processor Core (ARM926EJS)
2. Multimedia Modules
3. Wireless Interfaces
4. Device Interfaces

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3.1 Processor Core
Smartphone application processor is Advanced RISC Machine (ARM) based RISC processor
which is specially optimized for application for minimal power consumption (measured as joules
per instruction).
3.1.1 Multimedia Modules
Multimedia modules perform multimedia related computation; for that reason, they are
hardware implementation of one or more multimedia standards. Multimedia related operations are
often time consuming; therefore, single purpose hardware is generally better than general purpose
hardware in order to save power. Application processor is composed of the following modules.
1. JPEG module for decoding pictures for viewing on the LCD screen, and encoding
pictures taken with the camera, for later viewing or for sending out on the network.
2. MPEG module decoding streaming live video, video on demand, and incoming video
conferencing data, and encoding video taken with the video camera for later viewing, or for
sending out via the network (for video sharing or conferencing)
3. Audio modules allow the device to act as an MP3 (music) player, or encode/decode voice
data.
Smartphone contain Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) for rapidly manipulating multimedia
functions. It is a specialized electronic circuit which is designed to speedily operate and change
memory for accelerating the creation of images in a frame buffer which is intended for output to
display. The highly parallel structure of modern GPUs make them highly effective than
general-purpose CPUs for algorithms wherein large blocks of data is processed in parallel [14]. The
role of the GPU is to manage 2D and 3D graphics, video capture, playback, deliver mobile gaming,
and provide a rich user interface.
3.1.2 Wireless Interfaces
The wireless modules found within an application processor enable the smartphone to
communicate with the cellular network and data network (internet). The digital components of the
wireless communication scheme are integrated into the chip as part of the application processor,
whereas the analog parts are placed off-chip. A smartphone employs the following wireless
modules.
1. Bluetooth Module allows for communication with peripherals such as headset, or other
nearby mobile devices.
2. WiFi module enables smartphone to communicate with local 802.11 network.
3. GSM modules enable smartphone to communicate with the cellular network for both vice
communication and access to internet.
Figure 5 shows smartphone device
wireless network interfaces.

Figure 5. Smartphone Network

Components

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 2013 Academic Research Centre of Canada

3.1.3 Device Interfaces
Devices interfaces enable the smartphone to communicate with any peripheral device.
Examples of the peripheral devices attached to an application processor include; LCD screen,
keypad, camera, Universal Serial Bus (USB), Secure Digital (SD), Multimedia Card (MMC). Each
type of peripheral device is connected to application processor through a separate interface. For
example display controller interface allow for convenient communication between the display and
other modules. Similarly camera interface allow for interaction between the camera and other
digitial modules integrated with SoC. USB interface facilities the connection of external devices
on USB port. SD/MMC interface enables smartphone to connect external memory devices.
Examples of the application processor are ARM Cortex-A9, Samsung S5PC100, and TIOMAP4
Platform, Apple A4. Figure 6 shows the anatomy of smartphone.
Smartphone

Application Processor

DRAM

BaseBand Processor

Digital Baseband
Processor

Flash Memory

Analog Baseband
Processor

SD/MMC Card

SRAM

ADC/DAC

Keypad

SIM Card

Control A/D, D/A

IrDA

Power Manament

Radio Frequency

Transceiver
Power Amplifier

Camera
Power Battery
Bluetooth

Power Distributor

GPRS

Charger

Wi-Fi

Audio Codec
Speaker

GPS

Head Phone

USB
FM Radio
LCD Screeen
Touch Screen Sensor
Orientation Sensor

Figure 6.Anatomy of Smartphone

Smartphones contain highly integrated computing and communication components. For
instance, main chips include the CPU, GPU, other specialized coprocessors, motherboard buses,
memory controller, LCD controller, sound chipset, CMOS camera interface, on-board memory, and
several peripheral devices (such as Cell, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth radios). The application processor
is the chip responsible for general processing (like a CPU and motherboard chipset of desktop
computer) and can have several other functions built into it; whereas, the baseband processor is
responsible for cellular wireless communications [11] which include all functions that require an
antenna.

4 Conclusion
Smartphone is a portable device that encapsulates computing capabilities and cellular network
access functionalities in a single integrated multicore processor. In modern smartphones, dual core
processor is composed of two processors; each one with a separate RAM and flash memory access

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and distinct objectives. The baseband processor is responsible for radio access of the wireless
network environment and the application processor is specially designed for the execution of
software stack on smartphone. Application processor is assisted by some specialized multimedia
modules in the execution of multimedia functions such as audio, and video with optimal computing
resources consumption. A hardware interface bridges the functionalities gap between application
processor and baseband processor.

Acknowledgments: This research is carried out as part of the Mobile Cloud Computing
research project funded by the Malaysian Ministry of Higher Education under the
University
of
Malaya
High
Impact
Research
Grant
with
reference
UM.C/HIR/MOHE/FCSIT/03.

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