The first cell phone I ever owned was an LG track phone.

This was a small, by today's standards, flip phone.

It had a screen on the inside when you flipped it open, and a small screen on the outside.

This was around the time when you had to pay for every individual text message that you sent, so I didn't send any.

Funny enough, I actually didn't even want a cell phone at the time.

I tried to wait as long as I could to not have one.

But since I had just got my learner's permit to start driving, my parents thought it would be a good idea for me to have one.

There was nothing special about it. It made calls, and I could listen to voicemails.

There was no data, so I couldn't browse the web.

Not that you'd want to, because the interface was terrible, and the mobile browsers at the time were miserable to navigate with.

The LG track phone was a phone with a chip that could do some computation.

Today's phones with their system on a chip, also known as a sock,

There's nothing but it's fine, there's nothing but a mouse in it.

It's fine but I know if it's fine.

So something to see with a phone 취 physicists at the time,

is a computer that just so happens to make phone calls from ram to gpu to cpus to a single chip

on this episode of in the shell the wrong thing to do is just go out and buy a computer and then

learn about it you'll learn but you'll learn a lot of things that maybe you didn't want to learn

a computer that you buy today will likely be obsolete six months from now and there's not

a dang thing that you can do about it my name is josh and i'm able to keep this podcast independent

and advertisement free because of support from listeners like you if you are finding value in

what i'm doing here consider becoming a paid supporter at members.sideofburritos.com and as

a thank you members get early access to new videos ad free versions of everything bonus content and

access to a live monthly q a thanks for considering now let's get back to the show if you

crack open a modern smartphone, you won't find a big motherboard with separate chips for the

processor, graphics, and memory like in a PC. Instead, there's usually one main chip about the

size of a fingernail. This is the System on Chip, SOC, an integrated circuit that packs most of a

device's critical components, CPU, GPU, memory controllers, wireless modems, onto a single piece

of silicon. This high level of integration minimizes the need for multiple discrete components,

which in turn enhances power efficiency and simplifies device design. Because SOCs combine

so many things together, they allow mobile devices to be incredibly compact. In a desktop computer,

the CPU, GPU, RAM, and other components sit separately on a large board. But in a phone or tablet,

the SOC approach crams that computing power into a single chipset.

The result is that even a slim phone can do complex computing tasks since its system lives

on one efficient chip.

It wasn't always possible to put an entire system on one chip.

In the early days of electronics and mobile phones, a handset needed numerous chips working

together, one for the CPU, others for memory, a separate baseband modem for calls, another

for the radio transceiver.

If you remember old mobile phones, or even early smartphones, they were relatively bulky.

Part of that bulk was due to having a circuit board crowded with many specialized chips handling

different tasks.

By the late 1990s and early 2000s, the industry was pushing hard to miniaturize and combine

these components.

The impact of this evolution was huge.

Integrating formerly discrete components into a single SOC brought shorter interconnections

and system-level optimizations that make the whole device

get theõe and secure.

So I don't think it's just a long time on the server.

run more efficiently. That means phones could keep getting smaller and thinner, even though I think

they are thin enough already, since one tightly integrated chip replaced many larger ones.

It also laid the groundwork for today's wearables and IoT gadgets. Efficiency gains also come from

optimization. The chip's designers can coordinate how the CPU, GPU, and other units work together,

scheduling tasks and managing clock speeds in a tightly integrated way. The result is often

higher overall performance since signals stay on chip. There's also economic and reliability perks

as well. Fewer separate parts on a circuit board means fewer points of failure. A single chip has

many internal connections, but far fewer pins and soldered joints externally compared to a multi-chip

solution. This compact simplicity can make devices more robust and cheaper to produce at scale.

Of course, the trade-off

is that if something does go wrong inside the sock, you can't just replace one component.

The entire chip would need replacing. So as far as repairability goes, that's a downside.

Not that many of us would be soldering chips at that level. Now as far as socks go, each big

manufacturer has their own. Apple designs its own sock for iPhones and iPads, known as the A-Series

Chips. These chips integrate a multi-core 64-bit CPU, Apple's custom GPU, and specialized neural

oh

engines and image processors on one silicone die. Apple even embeds a secure Enclave coprocessor

in its socks, a dedicated security subsystem isolated from the main CPU, to handle sensitive

data like Touch ID, Face ID, and biometrics. By crafting the entire sock in-house, Apple has

been able to optimize iOS to run extremely efficiently on that hardware.

much like they later did with the M chips in Macs. Now moving to Android, Qualcomm's Snapdragon line

is ubiquitous in Android smartphones. A Snapdragon is a full system-on chip that typically includes

multiple ARM-based CPU cores, an Arduino GPU, and a built-in cellular modem for 4G and 5G

connectivity all on the same chip. Snapdragons also have signal processors for audio and video,

GPS receivers, AI acceleration engines, and more depending on the model. This means a phone from

Samsung, OnePlus, or Xiaomi that uses a Snapdragon chip can rely on that one piece of silicon to

handle everything from running apps to connecting to calls over a 5G network. And sticking with Android,

even Google has their Tensor chip, which they first introduced in the Pixel 6 phone. Google Tensor was

co-developed with Samsung and is a custom SOC tailored for Android.

for Google's needs.

It combines standard ARM CPU cores and the Mali GPU

with Google's own AI and machine learning silicon.

Besides some of the benefits I mentioned earlier,

moving to an all-in-one chip

can also bring security advantages.

One benefit is that with fewer separate components

and exposed connections,

there are fewer attack surfaces for hardware hacks.

In a traditional PC, data travels over external buses

between the CPU, RAM, and peripherals,

which could potentially be intercepted or tampered with.

In a single chip system,

much of that communication is internal to the silicon.

Modern SOCKs also come

with hardware security features built in.

Because the manufacturer controls the whole chip design,

they can embed dedicated security subsystems.

There's Apple's Secure Enclave,

which is a secure coprocessor integrated

into the SOCK of iPhones and Macs.

to keep sensitive data isolated. Most ARM-based SOCs, which includes the Snapdragon and Tensor,

implement ARM Trust Zone technology, which creates a secure execution environment on the

SOC itself. It means the chip can run a trusted OS in parallel with the main OS, handling things

like cryptographic operations or authentication in a walled-off area of the processor.

In addition, SOCs often support Secure Boot, which ensures the device only runs trusted

signed software and have on-chip cryptographic engines for speedy encryption and decryption

that never expose keys to the outside. I think SOCs are one of the most important

advancements when it comes to hardware privacy and security, and nearly all of us hold one

in our hand every day and rarely give it a second thought.

In the Shell is written, researched, and recorded by me.

me.

the podcaster on a chip. If you're listening in an app that lets you rate shows,

please take a minute to rate this one. I would truly appreciate it.

And when you travel, always remember to bring extra socks.

That's it. Take care, and I'll see you next time.