The Apple Watch has now been taken apart, revealing the guts that power Apple’s first wearable.
The teardown comes courtesy of ABIResearch’s TeardownIQ team and offers new information about the fledgling smartwatch.
The biggest surprises are centered on the manufacturers behind many of the Apple Watch components.
For example, the accelerometer and gyroscope were developed by STMicroelectronics. Before launch, it was predicted that InvenSense would produce these components.
Also surprising was that the touch controllers were made by ADI and the wireless charging chip came from IDT.
ADI has struggled to integrate its components into mobile devices for the past three to five years, so an Apple Watch listing is a huge win for the company.
At the heart of Apple’s S1 system-in-package is the main processor, which we now know has the model number “APL 0778”.
Bundled on top of the processor is a 512MB SRAM chip built by Elpida, a major Japanese memory manufacturer.
Next to the processor is an 8 GB flash memory chip provided by SanDisk and Toshiba. There are no surprises there.
We also get a glimpse of Broadcom’s Wi-Fi/NFC module, located at the top center of the Apple Watch.
The left side houses the STM-built accelerometer and gyroscope we mentioned earlier, while the right side carries the NFC controller and NFC signal booster built by NXP and AMS, respectively.
Related: Apple Watch vs Android Wear
“The design is an obvious departure from Apple’s smartphones, with many high-end features/chips not typically found in a basic watch,” said Jim Mielke, VP Engineering of ABI Research.
He continued, “Judging by the complexity of the circuit board and the number of parts on the circuit board, you might think the Apple Watch is a full-fledged cellular-connected watch, but actually the connectivity is on Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and NFC.”
The Apple Watch was made available for pre-order on April 10th and began shipping to customers on April 24th.
Unfortunately, alleged problems with the Taptic motor’s vibration motor have meant that many customers have suffered delivery delays.