Wednesday June 24, 2009
Technology sector expert Paul McWilliams offers a fascinating look at the new iPhone 2G S from Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) to uncover what tech companies are supplying components.
In his Next Inning newsletter -- a specialty service devoted to tech savvy investors -- the advisor offers a look at the players inside the iPhone.
"A few interesting notes have come from the folks busily tearing down the new Apple iPhone 3G S.
The first is confirmation that the rumor I shared in April that Omnivision (NASDAQ: OVTI) would win a 3MP image sensor design in the next generation iPhone. It appears the tear down report published by EE Times has confirmed this win.
"The second is that Broadcom (NASDAQ: BRCM) displaced both the CSR Bluetooth and Marvell WiFi chips with its BCM4325 that supports both functions in a single chip.
"The third is confirmation that SkyWorks (NASDAQ: SWKS) in fact is the power amp supplier. I noted this in my first report on the new iPhone 3G S even though none of the early tear down reports mentioned the design. What tipped me off was a very faint SWKS logo showing through in a photograph.
"TriQuint (NASDAQ: TQNT) won the three duplexer sockets. And STMicro (NYSE: STM) also maintained its MEMS design that facilitates the changing screen orientations as users rotate the phone from portrait to landscape modes.
"The monstrous NAND Flash, which includes 128Gb in a single package (actually four 32Gb die stacked) contains chips showing the logo from Sandisk (NASDAQ: SNDK).
"This is the largest single package memory I've ever seen and is easily enough memory to support a nice netbook application let alone the needs of a smartphone. Note, 128Gb translates into 16GB (large B equals bytes whereas a small b indicates bits - there are eight bits in a byte).
"For disclosure, at the time of this publication, we hold long positions in Apple, STMicro, Sandisk and SkyWorks."
