Under the Hood of Sharp's V402SH: TV (ana)logs-in to your phone

Some countries get to have all the fun. The Sharp V402SH was released for the Japanese PDC cellular network sporting a built-in analog TV so that you can tune in to news or your favorite re-run while waiting for that important call. Oh sure, it has the usual array of bells and whistles to complement the phone, but it is the TV feature that makes it different, and here analog silicon integration shines bright.

While space limitations preclude showing all the V402SH internals, the lower half of the flip-phone contains a Main Board and a second daughtercard with the TV function. The Main Board supports all of the communications, with a baseband chipset from Toshiba, RF transceiver from Fujitsu, RF frequency synthesizer from National Semiconductor and RF transmit-receive switch from Sony. A stacked memory device from Sharp delivers a mix of three memory technologies in four separate chips, all in a single package to save serious real estate.

As with virtually every cell phone, power management looms large and a Rohm-manufactured chip tackles system-level orchestration of power delivery while local regulators address fine-grained power needs. More analog goodies live in the tightly-packed embedded Sharp camera module which houses a CCD timing generator and image processor in with the 1.3 MP CCD Image Sensor and lens.

The TV System itself is surprisingly simple, requiring only two major chips—a silicon TV Tuner by Sony (shown in inset), and a sound/video Signal Processing chip by Renesas. Output from the TV sub-system is sent through an NTSC/PAL Video Decoder by AKM Semi (#AK8855) to format the broadcast signals as input to a Sharp LCD controller.

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Mechanical design is a complicated affair given the articulated nature of the V402SH enclosure, but a very natural TV-like orientation results with the loudspeaker and screen both directly facing the user.

It’s possible that analog TV will be a shortlived feature in handsets given the rise of digitally- broadcast alternatives being tested.

Power consumption is also an issue and our measurements suggested just one hour of TV time on a charge. Still, the V402SH illustrates that interesting products either “save time or kill time.” In the case of this phone, it gets to do some of both.

David Carey is President of Portelligent. The Austin, Texas company produces teardown reports and related industry research on Wireless, Mobile, and Personal Electronics. (www.teardown.com)