What is the SoC ?

Q1- What is the SoC?

Ans-  A SoC is a complicated integrated circuit that stuff most or all of the functions of a complete electronic system. Exactly what components are assembled on the SoC changes with the application. Many SoCs implant analog and mixed-signal circuit for both input/output (I/O), but most of SoC’s are digital because that is the only way to produce such complicated functions properly. Also SoC refers to unified all components of a computer or other electronic system into a single integrated circuit (chip). It may contain digital, analog, mixed-signals,memory, CPUs, specialized logic, busses all on a single chip substrate. A complicated application is in the area of embedded systems. Many SoC products can be built using industry-standard CMOS technology for better power consumption.

In the Simple word SoC means “Something which contains more than a Simple Processor”.

Electronic module from a Hamilton Pulsar digital watch

Q2- When was the first Soc appeared?

Ans- The first SOC rationale developed from the $2,100 Hamilton Pulsar "Wrist Computer" digital watch exposed on the Johnny Carson Show in 1970. contemplate by George Thiess and Willy Crabtree at Electro-Data, Inc., the watch holds 44 chips and 4,000 bonding wires was seems unreliable until RCA engineers diminished the time deferment circuitry to one chip. External transistors were still required to drive power-hungry light emitting diode (LED) displays. In 1972-73 Microma and Seiko introduced low-power liquid crystal displays (LCD) that extended battery life by orders of quantity. Intersil co-founders John Hall and Jean Hoerni created the Seiko chip.

The first true SOC come out in a Microma watch in1974 when Peter Stoll unified the LCD driver transistors as well as the timing functions onto a single Intel 5810 CMOS chip. TI's single chip LCD watch, introduced at under $20 in 1976, started a battle of friction withTimex and dozens of other semiconductor manufacturers who entered the market.

Q3- What is Inside a SoC?

Ans- Now that we know what a SoC is, let’s take a quick look at the components that can be found inside it. Mind you, not all thefollowing parts are built in all the different SoCs that we’re going to showyou later on, but in order to better understand how a SoC works, you shouldhave a general picture of what goes inside it:

Processors,Memory, I/O, ASIC, A/D Converter etc.

Q4- Where is we get SoCs?

Ans- Systems-on-chipscan be found in many product categories ranging from consumer devices toindustrial systems:

• Speech Signal Processing.

• Imageand Video Signal Processing.

•Information Technologies

– PC interface(USB) Computer peripheries (printer control, LCD monitor controller, DVD

controller,.etc).

• DataCommunication

– Wireline Communication: Gigabit Ethernet, Etc

– Wireless communication: Bluetooth, WLAN,2G/3G/4G, WiMax etc

Q5- What is the typical Architecture of SoC?

Ans- As an example of typical SoC showing how the software of a programmable componentcan be structuredon top of the hardware. Here, the real-time operating system (RTOS) includes aprocess scheduler. A DSP with a fixed process execution order and optimized memory communication will needfewer RTOS functions,but not so in real-time mobile applications. In other words, the heterogeneousand multifarious hardwarearchitecture of mobile phones leads to similarly heterogeneous and multifacetedsoftware

architecture.

Q6- How many Soc’s Available in Mobile Industry?

Ans- There are many Soc’s available in mobile Industry like, Intel’s Atom-basedsystem-on-chips , Samsung’s  Hummingbird, Qualcomm’s Snapdragon,Nvidia’s  Tegra Etc.

Q7-What is the advantage of System on Chip?

Ans- The benefits that this brings are significant in terms of speed, area and power like-

•        Higherperformance-  Fast data transferscompared to Multi-chip design.

•        Lower powerconsumption-  Multi-chip design needsadditional drivers/ power for inter-chip and inter-board connection.

•        Low Costing

•        smaller physical size.
• source: miuiForum