TELECOMMUNICATIONS

ENGINEERING
Assignment Cover Page
Section: C
Submission Date: 13.08.2020

Submitted By,
Rahaman, Mostafizur 17-33276-1

Faculty Use Only,

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Evolution of Smartphone
Mostafizur Rahaman,
rmostafizur399@gmail.com*,
Dept. of Electrical & Electronics
Engineering, American
International University-
Bangladesh

Abstract— A smartphone is a mobile phone with

highly updated & advanced features. A typical
smartphone has a high-resolution touch screen
display, WiFi connectivity, Web browsing
capabilities, and the ability to accept sophisticated
applications. The majority of these devices run on
any of these popular mobile operating systems:
Android, Symbian, iOS, BlackBerry OS and
Windows Mobile.

Index Terms— Smartphone, hardware, software,

Fig 1: World first smartphone
processor, display.
The history and evolution of the smartphone is
I. INTRODUCTION important to understand, because it gives us a
glimpse of where we've come from, and of what's
In addition to the features mentioned earlier,
coming. That goes for improvements in technology
smartphones are also equipped with innovative
as well as consumer trends.
sensors like accelerometers or even gyrscopes.
In 1992, IBM revealed a revolutionary device that
Accelerometers are responsible for displaying
had more capabilities than its preceding cell phones.
screens in portrait and landscape mode, while
This prototype smartphone was known as the Simon
gyroscopes make it possible for games to support
Personal Communicator, but it wouldn’t see its way
motion-based navigation. The earliest touch screen
to consumers until 1994.
smartphones used resistive touchscreen displays,
The device had many of the modern elements we
which required the use of slender pointing objects
attribute to current smartphones and mobile devices.
known as styli (or stylus in singular form). Most of
Highlights included:
the later models however, like the iPhone and most
• Touch screen
Android phones, employ capacitive displays, which
• Email
feature multi-touch finger gestures.
• Fax
• Notes and Calendar
II. HISTORY OF SMARTPHONE • Apps and other widgets that would become
widespread decades later
The modern smartphone has taken a long 28-year
The iPhone was one of the most advanced consumer
journey to reach us in 2020, and it's changed a lot
smartphones the market had ever seen. Priced at
along the way. It’s an evolution that's taken the
$499 for the 4gb unit and $599 for the 8gb model,
market by storm! What were once large and bulky
users flocked to the device - and to the AT&T carrier
luxury items have become small, compact devices
it was exclusive to. Apple sold 1.4 million iPhones
we can’t live without. In fact, 77% of Americans own
its first year on the market, and the device exploded
a smartphone, according to Pew Research Center,
to 11.6 million sold in 2008. Apple already had the
and 95% of Americans own a cell phone of some
iPod Video, but one large drawback was its small,
kind.
4:3 aspect ratio screen. The iPhone came with a wide
LCD screen that was perfect for video. It’s extended
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battery life allowed for 8 hours of talk time and 250

hours on standby. This battery was a huge
B. Display
improvement over IBM’s Simon! It also made the
iPhone a much more consumer-friendly device, The type of display found in modern phones is the
particularly for daily use. Active Matrix Organic LED, or AMOLED. Not to be
confused with LCD’s with OLED backlights,
AMOLED displays offer very high contrast ratios,
III. TYPICAL FUNCTIONAL BLOCK DIAGRAM high dynamic range, fast refresh rates and wide
viewing angles, all in a very thin, and even flexible
display. In addition to the actual display element, the
whole assembly also contains drivers and interface
electronics such as MIPI. The touchscreen interface
is also built-in. This, in turn, offloads the low-level
task of actually displaying an image from the
processor’s GPU (Graphical Processing Unit).
C. RF Section
There are many different cellular communication
standards, and smartphones have to support the latest
standards. Additionally, a smartphone must be able
to support previous generations of cellular standards.
This makes for a very large combination of
modulation schemes. For example, even the latest
smartphones still support the very early GSM/EDGE
and CDMA standards. This is accomplished by a
Fig 2: Major functional blocks of a typical
multi-standard modem that, in modern phones, is
smartphones
part of the processor SoC. There is, however, more
to the implementation of cellular communication
IV. MAJOR COMPONENT OF A SMARTPHONE than just the modem. For one thing, different
countries have different frequency bands for cellular
Modern smartphones are marvels of technology, and
communications. Universal, or quad-band, phones
it is really impressive how much technology is
can communicate on any one of these four current
crammed into such a compact device. The product
cellular bands: 850MHz, 900MHz, 1800MHz, 1900
that the customer holds in their hands is certainly the
MHz.
result of many compromises made to satisfy many
conflicting requirements. D. Power Management System
A. Processor The smartphone runs off battery power. This battery
must power the entire smartphone. It also has to be
At the heart of the smartphone hardware is the
charged, so a charging system has to be included in
system processor. In modern smartphones, this is
the device. The many sub-systems in a smartphone
mainly based on a System On a Chip, or SoC, that
require multiple supply voltages. Operating at the
integrates more than just the processor. This SoC is
lowest voltage an active component can reliably
by far the most complex component in the entire
operate at, saves power.
smartphone since it encompasses as much as possible
The battery voltage is not constant, and will drop
in order to save space. This SoC, and what it actually
depending on how discharged the battery is. All of
does, differs from one smartphone to another.
this means that multiple voltage regulators are
Here is a look at one of them: the Qualcomm
required to supply these various supply rails. Most of
Snapdragon 855. It is used in a variety of
these are switching regulators with high energy
smartphones, including the Samsung Galaxy
conversion efficiencies. However, some need to be
S10/S10+. Figure 3 shows the main sub-blocks of the
linear regulators in cases where power supply ripples
Snapdragon 855.
cannot be tolerated. This is especially required in the
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receive sections of the RF sub-system where the

received input signal level can be very low if the
phone is far from the nearest cellular tower, or is
indoors. All of these functions are provided by the
power management sub-system.
E. Peripherals
While some peripherals such as accelerometers are
usually found on the mainboard itself, most are
located off board. These external peripherals are
typically sourced as independent modules that are all
connected to the mainboard by flex PCBs with low-
profile connectors.
Also include front and back cameras, speakers,
microphone, fingerprint scanner, haptic devices, and
a variety of sockets and adapters for removable items
such as SIM card, SD card and earphones. Fig 3: Cellular network architecture and mirroring
of A-interface in the network
V. MAJOR MANUFACTURERS OF SMARTPHONE
PARTS VII. CONCLUSION
Table 1: For anyone who was not old enough to remember life
before smartphones, imagining a world without them
Manufacturers Parts would be pretty hard. What’s even more staggering
Samsung a. Display: is the fact that such devices were largely niche items
b. Camera a mere 10 or 12 years ago. The mass adoption of the
c. Chipset: Samsung smartphone is undoubtedly a historical landmark.
Exynos
d. Storage system
e. Battery REFERENCES
Qualcomm a. Snapdragon 200, [1] https://www.indiatimes.com/lifestyle/self/11-things-
400, 600, 700 and we-did-before-smartphones-came-along-and-ruined-
800 series everything-333298.html
[2] https://straitsresearch.com/blog/worlds-largest-top-
b. Qualcomm 10-smartphone-companies-in-2020
Snapdragon LTE [3] https://www.gsmarena.com/the_worlds_first_smartph
modem one_is_now_two_decades_old-news-9381.php
c. Qualcomm Adreno [4] https://predictabledesigns.com/whats-inside-a-
d. Qualcomm Hexagon smartphone/
[5] https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Cellular-
e. Qualcomm Spectra network-architecture-and-mirroring-of-A-interface-
in-the-network_fig1_261058985
[6] https://www.academia.edu/31841333/The_History_o
Huawei a. Chipset: Kirin f_the_Smartphone_Mobile_Industry_Review
(HiSilicon)
b. Battery
c. Display
MediaTek Chipset: Helio G series

VI. CELLULAR NETWORK