Prying Eyes: Teardown of the Sony Playstation Vita

At the E3 Expo, Sony unveiled their latest portable gaming console, the Playstation Vita – a console that aims to magnify the gaming experience of their previous portable release, the PSP. Of that feature set, the standouts include a 5in OLED multi-touchscreen that provides 16 million colors. To add a new level of functionality, the Playstation Vita also includes a touch-sensitive back, which allows game developers to incorporate new actions by tracing one’s fingers along the backside of the system.

The Playstation Vita also incorporates all the bells and whistles of current high-end smartphones, including GPS, three-axis gyroscope, accelerometer and electronic compass, with both 3G and Wi-Fi connectivity.

From a technical perspective, the Playstation Vita is gaining popularity because it is the first portable computing device (apart from laptops) to incorporate a custom quad-core ARM-based processor. Sony has apparently turned to IBM once again for a customized processor to maximize its quad-core graphics processor. With the selection of a quad-core powerhouse, Sony hopes to differentiate itself not only from other gaming consoles, but also the gaming experience offered on tablets and high-end smartphones like the Apple iPhone 4S.

According to a teardown report done by UBM TechInsights, the inside of the Sony Playstation Vita featured four separate PCBs that served different purposes. Two of the PCBs were relegated to the system’s analog and digital joysticks, another dedicated to the wireless communications of the Vita, and a main board that housed the powerful processor, GPU and other components.

Toshiba was able to leverage their relationship with IBM and Sony to aid in the manufacturing of the quad-core processor that powers the operations of the Vita. The company also received design wins in providing the multichip memory package and the system memory of the device.

Qualcomm again wins a socket in a major consumer electronic device (their last being the Apple iPhone 4S) by providing their MDM6200 HSPA+ GSM modem solution. Unfortunately, it looks as though Sony decided to make the Vita a GSM-only device so CDMA customers will be out of luck hoping for their providers to offer the cellular-enabled version of the Vita. Qualcomm also scores another design win for the PM8028 power management IC, which was seen in numerous devices this year.

Avago scored six socket wins in the Playstation Vita – recording a number of devices on the communications board. Other design winners include Kionix with their accelerometer and STMicroelectronics with two design wins.

Powering the Playstation Vita is a chip that is an industry-first for portable gaming (and handsets) - a quad-core ARM-based processor designed by the same partnership that brought out the CELL processor used in the Playstation 3. Manufactured in a joint effort between Sony, IBM and Toshiba, the CXD5315GG is a four core ARM Cortex-A9 MPCore processor.

Primary Component Listing
o Sony CXD5315GG – Quad-core processor with two Samsung K4P2G324EC 256 MB Mobile DDR2-S4 SDRAM Memory die (512MB total memory)
o Toshiba THGBM3G5D1FBAIE - Multichip Memory Package – Memory and Memory Controller
o Marvell 88W878S-BKB2 - Avastar WLAN/Bluetooth/FM Single-Chip System-on-Chip
o Fujitsu MB44C026A – Possible Multichannel Switching Controller
o Sony 1144KM427 – suspected AKM Magnetic Compass
o Wolfson Micro WM1803E – Audio Codec
o Qualcomm MDM6200 – Gobi Single-mode Modem
o Qualcom PM8028 – Power Management IC
o Toshiba TY890A111222KA - Mobile SDR SDRAM Memory
o Kionix KXTC9 - Three-axis MEMS accelerometer
o Avago ACPM-7868 - GSM Power Amplifier
o Avago ACPM-5005 - W-CDMA Band V Power Amplifier Module
o Avago ACPM-5001 - W-CDMA Band I Power Amplifier Module
o Avago ACPM-5002 - W-CDMA Band II Power Amplifier Module
o Avago ACPM-5008 - W-CDMA Band VIII Power Amplifier Module
o EPCOS B7429 - SAW Duplexer
o Sony CXM3555ER - SP10T Antenna Switch Module
o Atmel MXT224 – 224-Channel Touchscreen Sensor
o STMicroelectronics 32P10SOD
o STMicroelectronics 3GA51H – Gyroscope


Sony