When Samsung announced the Galaxy line of smartphones, we decided on that day to make sure the minute the first phone in the series came out, we would get it. When the GT-I9000 was released in Europe, we went to work quickly bringing it to our Ottawa office and dissecting the latest handset from Samsung. What we found inside the GT-I9000 (or the Vibrant, as it’s named in North America) was a telling scene of the current semiconductor landscape in the handset market. Companies that were scoring big design wins all year were continuing their winning streak with Broadcom, Triquint and Infineon all surfacing on the main board.
The teardown also revealed what we think is a brilliant sales strategy by Samsung. Samsung is the current leader in the applications processor market, recently taking the title away from Texas Instruments. What better way to keep the lead than to create a new line of smart phones utilizing your application processors? The Samsung Vibrant features the S5PC110A01 processor that was also used in the Samsung Wave.
The Samsung Vibrant is called so for its use of a Super AMOLED screen that provides vivid colors even in sunlight conditions. The selection of this expensive screen shows that Samsung means business with the Samsung Galaxy S line of phones and is ready to compete with Apple and HTC for a share of the marketplace.
Take a look inside for all of the major components. To take a look at all the components on both sides of the board, click on the board images on the sidebar.