System On A Chip

A system on a chip (SoC; or This article uses the convention that SoC is pronounced . Therefore, it uses the convention "an" for the indefinite article corresponding to SoC ("an SoC"). Other sources may pronounce it as and therefore use "a SoC".) is an

integrated circuit

(also known as a "chip") that integrates all or most components of a

computer

or other electronic system. These components almost always include a

central processing unit

(CPU), memory, input/output ports and secondary storage, often alongside other components such as radio modems and a graphics processing unit (GPU) – all on a single substrate or microchip. It may contain digital,

analog

, mixed-signal, and often radio frequency

signal processing

functions (otherwise it is considered only an application processor).

Higher-performance SoCs are often paired with dedicated and physically separate memory and secondary storage (almost always LPDDR and eUFS or

eMMC

, respectively) chips, that may be layered on top of the SoC in what's known as a package on package (PoP) configuration, or be placed close to the SoC. Additionally, SoCs may use separate wireless modems.

SoCs are in contrast to the common traditional

motherboard

-based PC architecture, which separates components based on function and connects them through a central interfacing circuit board.This central board is called the "mother board" for hosting the "child" component cards. Whereas a motherboard houses and connects detachable or replaceable components, SoCs integrate all of these components into a single integrated circuit. An SoC will typically integrate a CPU, graphics and memory interfaces,The graphics connections (

PCI Express

) and RAM historically constituted the northbridge of motherboard-backed discrete architectures. hard-disk and USB connectivity,The hard disk and USB connectivity historically comprised part of the southbridge of motherboard-backed discrete modular architectures. random-access and read-only memories and secondary storage and/or their controllers on a single circuit die, whereas a motherboard would connect these modules as discrete components or expansion cards.

An SoC integrates a

microcontroller

,

microprocessor

or perhaps several processor cores with peripherals like a GPU,

Wi-Fi

and cellular network radio modems, and/or one or more coprocessors. Similar to how a microcontroller integrates a microprocessor with peripheral circuits and memory, an SoC can be seen as integrating a microcontroller with even more advanced peripherals.

More tightly integrated computer system designs improve performance and reduce power consumption as well as semiconductor die area than multi-chip designs with equivalent functionality. This comes at the cost of reduced

replaceability

of components. By definition, SoC designs are fully or nearly fully integrated across different component modules. For these reasons, there has been a general trend towards tighter integration of components in the computer hardware industry, in part due to the influence of SoCs and lessons learned from the mobile and embedded computing markets. SoCs can be viewed as part of a larger trend towards embedded computing and hardware acceleration.

SoCs are very common in the mobile computing (such as in

smartphones

and tablet computers) and edge computing markets. They are also commonly used in embedded systems such as WiFi routers and the

Internet of Things

.

Types

In general, there are four distinguishable types of SoCs:

* SoCs built around a

microcontroller

,
* SoCs built around a

microprocessor

, often found in mobile phones;
* Specialized application-specific integrated circuit SoCs designed for specific applications that do not fit into the above two categories, and
* Programmable SoCs (PSoC), where most functionality is fixed but some functionality is reprogrammable in a manner analogous to a field-programmable gate array.

Applications

SoCs can be applied to any computing task. However, they are typically used in mobile computing such as tablets, smartphones, smartwatches and netbooks as well as embedded systems and in applications where previously

microcontroller

s would be used.

Embedded systems

Where previously only microcontrollers could be used, SoCs are rising to prominence in the embedded systems market. Tighter system integration offers better reliability and mean time between failure, and SoCs offer more advanced functionality and computing power than microcontrollers. Applications include AI acceleration, embedded

machine vision

, data collection, telemetry, vector processing and ambient intelligence. Often embedded SoCs target the

internet of things

,

industrial internet of things

and edge computing markets.

Mobile computing

Mobile computing based SoCs always bundle processors, memories, on-chip caches,

wireless networking

capabilities and often

digital camera

hardware and firmware. With increasing memory sizes, high end SoCs will often have no memory and flash storage and instead, the memory and flash memory will be placed right next to, or above (package on package), the SoC. Some examples of mobile computing SoCs include:

* Samsung Electronics: list, typically based on ARM
** Exynos, used mainly by Samsung's

Galaxy

series of smartphones
*

Qualcomm

:
** Snapdragon (list), used in many LG,

Xiaomi

, Google Pixel,

HTC

and Samsung Galaxy smartphones. In 2018, Snapdragon SoCs are being used as the backbone of

laptop computers

running

Windows 10

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