Improved Baseband - No Deathgrip

We’ve mentioned already that the 4S is more of an evolution of the CDMA iPhone 4 than the GSM/UMTS iPhone 4, and where that’s most obvious is again is its cellular architecture. When we reviewed the GSM/UMTS iPhone 4, we investigated and explained why its design made it especially prone to unintended attenuation when held a certain way. Apple remedied the situation somewhat by giving away free cases, but only in the case of the CDMA iPhone 4 was the fundamental design issue remedied by adding receive diversity with a second cellular antenna at the top.

The 4S builds on this architecture by incorporating the same diverse receive path with two U shaped antennas at top and bottom, and adding transmit diversity to the equation. I’m being a bit fast and loose with the term “diversity” here, since the 4S cannot transmit simultaneously on both antennas, but rather switches between the two antennas based on which has the least receive fading. Receive diversity is a bit more interesting to explain, since the 4S appears to be able to dynamically decide whether to select one of the two receive paths (in the case that one is much more faded than the other), or combine the two (using something like maximal-ratio combining) and get a better quality equivalent signal.

When I talked about the CDMA 4’s receive diversity scheme, I went into detail to prove that this feature was present. With the 4S, these diversity features are much easier to talk about because Apple has been directly forthcoming about the feature this time. In addition, the transmit switching part of the equation is discussed at length in Apple’s FCC disclosure (since the FCC is interested in scrutinizing transmitters), and even includes a nice diagram.

The device is capable of switching between the Primary/ANT1 and Secondary/ANT2 Antennas. The antenna switching is implemented with a physical, "break-before-make" switch such that only one antenna can be used for cellular transmission at a time.

To re-state the evolution that Apple has taken with this design, the GSM/UMTS 4 had one transmit and receive chain, the CDMA 4 added a second receive chain for diversity, and the 4S now has two receive chains and the ability to switch between two transmit chains. The result is that the phone no longer is prone to fading on either the forward or reverse link due to being held near the feed points for one chain.

To be totally thorough, you can immediately see that the 4S still incorporates the same overall design however, complete with a a U.FL connector at the bottom and a feed cable that runs up the side of the PCB to the top. From here it obviously terminates somewhere that makes contact with the top antenna.


Encircled in red: Top antenna feed cable (Original photo courtesy iFixit)

When we saw that the CDMA iPhone used Qualcomm’s MDM6600, we made an educated guess that the next device would likely be based on the same baseband. It turned out that this was pretty close to the case, as the iPhone 4S uses an unannounced Qualcomm MDM6610.


Encircled in blue: Qualcomm MDM6610 and PM8028, Red: Bottom antenna U.FL connector. Note to the right the two test pads for the two chains. (Original photo courtesy iFixit)

There are some immediate differences that stick out about MDM6610 versus MDM6600. First, 6610 doesn’t appear to include an internal transceiver, unlike MDM6600 which previously included a transceiver in its package. MDM6610’s package is correspondingly smaller, at 10x10 mm, compared to 6600’s 9.8x12.2 mm, but again you have to factor in the fact that the transceiver isn’t inside that package anymore. Based on those facts and the state of 28nm maturity, it’s almost certain that MDM6610 is still a 45nm part. The 4S uses Qualcomm’s RTR8605 IntelliCeiver transceiver for cellular RF management and also for GLONASS/GPS. We’ve seen RTR8600 before, and RTR8605 appears to just be an improvement upon that part with the same functionality. In fact, inside the MDM6610’s AMSS it’s just referred to as RTR8600.

Qualcomm isn’t ready to talk at all about MDM6610, but I’ve done a little digging and know more about this part. First off, it’s referred to as codename “Trek” inside the Qualcomm AMSS (Advanced Mobile Subscriber Software), whereas MDM6600 in the CDMA iPhone was referred to as “Phoenix.” When we first saw that the 4S was using a baseband that hasn’t been announced, we assumed it was an Apple specific one-off. However, after some digging I uncovered a reference to a GSM/UMTS only part as well: “MDM6210MDM6610”. For those that aren’t familiar, the 2 connotes GSM/UMTS compatibility, 6 adds 1x/EVDO. Apple appears to have secured MDM6610 exclusivity for the time being, but I expect we’ll see a more formal announcement of the MDM6x10 family down the road. This is pretty much par for the course for Apple when it comes to component sourcing.

iPhone 4S - Network Support
GSM/EDGE Support 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900 MHz
UMTS/HSDPA/HSUPA Support 850 / 900 / 1900 / 2100 MHz
HSDPA/HSUPA Speeds 14.4 Mbps / 5.76 Mbps
CDMA2000 1x/EVDO Support EVDO Rev.A (800 / 1900 MHz)
Baseband Hardware Qualcomm MDM6610

MDM6610 also appears to inherit all the air interfaces that MDM6600 had, including WCDMA/HSPA+ with HSDPA 14.4, HSUPA 5.76, GSM, CDMA 1x/EVDO (up to Rev.B, though Apple notes only A is used at present), and finally GPS/GLONASS. Superficially, there don’t appear to be any major differences beyond using an external transceiver to accommodate diversity and transmit switching. In addition, the 4S contains all the same bands as the GSM/UMTS iPhone 4.

I was initially worried that Apple would go the same route that it did with both iPhone 4 launches and initially not include FieldTest. Thankfully, the 4S includes FieldTest right out of launch, which works for both CDMA and GSM/UMTS provisioned 4Ses.

 
iPhone 4S Field Test under CDMA Mode

There’s a corresponding difference in the interface for the two modes. On CDMA iPhone 4S mode, there are tabs for 1x and EVDO, and Rx signal strength fields for both receive paths, as well as the current transmit power. What’s interesting here is that when using the 4S in CDMA mode, you can see the receive strength change for each antenna when held.

 
iPhone 4S Field Test under UMTS/GSM Mode

On the GSM/UMTS provisioned iPhone 4S, you don’t get individual receive strength for each chain, instead just the effective RSCP from either the selected chain or combined. If you grip the phone while watching this, you can sometimes watch RSCP race to –130 dBm and then switch entirely to the other antenna and race back up to an acceptable number. As a reminder, to get into FieldTest dial *3001#12345#* - you can then keep numerics instead of bars in the top left by force quitting FieldTest after launching it (hold down power/lock until power off appears, then hold the home button).

So how does the 4S do in our actual attenuation testing? Very well actually. I watched the RSCP of one NodeB and held the 4S all the same ways we’ve done since the 4, recorded a bunch of data, and averaged it together. What we’re measuring here is reported in dBm, and less attenuation is better (0 dBm = 1 mW).

Signal Attenuation Comparison in dB - Lower is Better
  Cupping Tightly Holding Naturally Holding in Case On an Open Palm
iPhone 4S 10.8 8.8 - 4.3
CDMA iPhone 4 16.5 15.5 9.0 7.9
GSM/UMTS iPhone 4 24.6 19.8 7.2 9.2
Samsung Galaxy S 2 18.4 5.9 - 12.2
Droid 3 16.0 11.3 - 5.0
HTC Sensation 15.0 10.0 8.0 0.0
Samsung Droid Charge 10.0 10.0 5.0 0.0
HTC Thunderbolt - LTE 5.3 2.5 - 4.4
HTC THunderbolt - EVDO 6.5 0.8 - 7.2
LG Optimus 2X 13.7 9.3 - 5.9
Nexus S 13.3 6.1 - 4.3
Droid 2 11.5 5.1 - 4.5
BlackBerry Torch 15.9 7.1 - 3.7
Dell Streak 14.0 8.7 - 4.0
Droid X 15.0 5.1 - 4.5
iPhone 3GS 14.3 1.9 3.2 0.2
HTC Nexus One 17.7 10.7 7.7 6.7

When we reviewed the CDMA iPhone 4, I made mention of the fact that this was the first iPhone 4 I felt comfortable using without a case. This same confidence continues with the 4S, which is in practice completely usable without a case, unlike the GSM/UMTS iPhone 4. Since launch time, Anand and myself have been using our 4Ses without cases, and the difference is dramatic.

Introduction Faster Throughput on WCDMA
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  • doobydoo - Friday, December 2, 2011 - link

    Its still absolute nonsense to claim that the iPhone 4S can only use '2x' the power when it has available power of 7x.

    Not only does the iPhone 4s support wireless streaming to TV's, making performance very important, there are also games ALREADY out which require this kind of GPU in order to run fast on the superior resolution of the iPhone 4S.

    Not only that, but you failed to take into account the typical life-cycle of iPhones - this phone has to be capable of performing well for around a year.

    The bottom line is that Apple really got one over all Android manufacturers with the GPU in the iPhone 4S - it's the best there is, in any phone, full stop. Trying to turn that into a criticism is outrageous.
  • PeteH - Tuesday, November 1, 2011 - link

    Actually it is about the architecture. How GPU performance scales with size is in large part dictated by the GPU architecture, and Imagination's architecture scales better than the other solutions.
  • loganin - Tuesday, November 1, 2011 - link

    And I showed it above Apple's chip isn't larger than Samsung's.
  • PeteH - Tuesday, November 1, 2011 - link

    But chip size isn't relevant, only GPU size is.

    All I'm pointing out is that not all GPU architectures scale equivalently with size.
  • loganin - Tuesday, November 1, 2011 - link

    But you're comparing two different architectures here, not two carrying the same architecture so the scalability doesn't really matter. Also is Samsung's GPU significantly smaller than A5's?

    Now we've discussed back and forth about nothing, you can see the problem with Lucian's argument. It was simply an attempt to make Apple look bad and the technical correctness didn't really matter.
  • PeteH - Tuesday, November 1, 2011 - link

    What I'm saying is that Lucian's assertion, that the A5's GPU is faster because it's bigger, ignores the fact that not all GPU architectures scale the same way with size. A GPU of the same size but with a different architecture would have worse performance because of this.

    Put simply architecture matters. You can't just throw silicon at a performance problem to fix it.
  • metafor - Tuesday, November 1, 2011 - link

    Well, you can. But it might be more efficient not to. At least with GPU's, putting two in there will pretty much double your performance on GPU-limited tasks.

    This is true of desktops (SLI) as well as mobile.

    Certain architectures are more area-efficient. But the point is, if all you care about is performance and can eat the die-area, you can just shove another GPU in there.

    The same can't be said of CPU tasks, for example.
  • PeteH - Tuesday, November 1, 2011 - link

    I should have been clearer. You can always throw area at the problem, but the architecture dictates how much area is needed to add the desired performance, even on GPUs.

    Compare the GeForce and the SGX architectures. The GeForce provides an equal number of vertex and pixel shader cores, and thus can only achieve theoretical maximum performance if it gets an even mix of vertex and pixel shader operations. The SGX on the other hand provides general purpose cores that work can do either vertex or pixel shader operations.

    This means that as the SGX adds cores it's performance scales linearly under all scenarios, while the GeForce (which adds a vertex and a pixel shader core as a pair) gains only half the benefit under some conditions. Put simply, if a GeForce core is limited by the number of pixel shader cores available, the addition of a vertex shader core adds no benefit.

    Throwing enough core pairs onto silicon will give you the performance you need, but not as efficiently as general purpose cores would. Of course a general purpose core architecture will be bigger, but that's a separate discussion.
  • metafor - Tuesday, November 1, 2011 - link

    I think you need to check your math. If you double the number of cores in a Geforce, you'll still gain 2x the relative performance.

    Double is a multiplier, not an adder.

    If a task was vertex-shader bound before, doubling the number of vertex-shaders (which comes with doubling the number of cores) will improve performance by 100%.

    Of course, in the case of 543MP2, we're not just talking about doubling computational cores.

    It's literally 2 GPU's (I don't think much is shared, maybe the various caches).

    Think SLI but on silicon.

    If you put 2 Geforce GPU's on a single die, the effect will be the same: double the performance for double the area.

    Architecture dictates the perf/GPU. That doesn't mean you can't simply double it at any time to get double the performance.
  • PeteH - Tuesday, November 1, 2011 - link

    But I'm not talking about relative performance, I'm talking about performance per unit area added. When bound by one operation adding a core that supports a different operation is wasted space.

    So yes, doubling space always doubles relative performance, but adding 20 square millimeters means different things to the performance of different architectures.

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