Under The Hood: TI 65 nm chip at heart of Nokia 2610

I’m trying to think of an analogy that could explain why companies want to reduce the size of transistors …

Grandma and Godiva make brownies. They use the same ingredients, same culinary instruments, everything. Both Grandma and Godiva go to a bake sale to try and make some coin. Grandma sells her brownies for $2 each, she loves kids. Godiva is a company, and a companies main goal is to make money, but they also sell their portions for $2 each. What’s the difference? Both use the same ingredients, both use the same tools, both have the same 128 square inch baking tray. Grandma cuts up her tray so that each portion is a nice large 4×4 inch square; per tray she can sell 8 brownies, $2 x 8 = $16. Godiva cuts up its tray into brownies that are 2×2 inch squares; same size tray as Grandma but Godiva yields 32 brownies, $2 x 32 = $64.

Godiva made more money than Grandma yet they used the same amounts of flour and eggs. The same oven, and the same sized baking tray. This is why Intel, AMD, TI, everyone and anyone who owns a fabrication plant is pouring money into research on how to make a processor out of smaller transistors. Everyone uses the same size silicon wafer (baking tray), but the company who can make a processor (brownie) smaller than the rest can make more money. Back to Grandma and Godiva: if Grandma wanted to sell 32 brownies she would’ve had to make 4 batches of brownies. Godiva just made 1 batch therefore they used fewer raw ingredients (eggs and flour) which means Godiva made more money than Grandma. Let’s run some numbers to see what the profit difference is if we take in to account that a batch of brownies cost $4 to make. Both Grandma and Godiva sold 32 brownies today, $2 per brownie. Godiva did it in 1 batch, Grandma in 4.

Godiva: $64 – (1 batch x $4) = $60

Grandma: $64 – (4 batches x $4) = $48

What if Godiva and Grandma aren’t in it for the money? Both want to donate the money they make at the bake sale. How much should they sell them for to cover the expenses of making the actual brownies? If it cost $4 to make a batch of brownies and each tray Grandma makes yields 8 brownies than that means Grandma should sell her brownies for 50 cents to break even. Godiva cuts their brownies in to smaller pieces, they can make 32 brownies per batch, to break even they would have to sell their brownies for 12.5 cents a pop.

This is a gross simplification but it explains why companies are trying to reduce the size of transistors. A processor has a fixed amount of transistors. Smaller transistors = more transistors per wafer = more processors out of that wafer. If I’ve confused you then I’m sorry this is as best as I can explain it. Hopefully you’ll now have some background information when reading this article now:

The Nokia 2610 is an entry-level dual band cell phone for the GSM 900 and 1800 network. Compared to other entry-level phones in the $90 price range, the 2610 seems to be a bit short on features. While it offers basic functionality, and is capable of connecting to the Internet to view websites and receive e-mail, it does not have a digital camera. While a digital camera is not necessary, and not having one is better than having a poor quality solution, it is almost like the phone is missing something.

The display offers 65,000 colors with 128- x 128-pixel resolution. Unfortunately the display is a CSTN, which makes it more difficult to see in daylight conditions. The phone measures 104 x 43 x 18 mm and weighs 79 g. The battery is a 970-mAh Li-Ion that provides 320 minutes of talk time and 380 hours of standby time.

There are a few interesting components found on the pc board of this particular phone. Part of the reason they are interesting is because they are not publicly available, or at least little to no information can be found out about them.

Source: EE Times <– Check out the whole article if you want to geek out