In modern times, it appears that everyone from age 6 to 60 is walking and talking on their cell phone and never out of touch. The design and content of your mobile computer is perhaps more powerful than the desktop computer that sits in the corner of your room. How did we get from mixed-signal designs using analog and digital circuits to powerful computers in your hand?
How Powerful Is Your Cell Phone?
As with every laptop computer, tablet and cell phone, most people only ever use them to around 10% of their capacity. We know what we want them to do and we don’t necessarily explore their other capabilities. For every individual who uses their cell phone to photograph their exact location in a grocery superstore car park, there is another person using GPS to track their movements. Both methods will help find their vehicle when they return.
Some experts have suggested that the modern cell phone has more powerful computers than those onboard Apollo 11, the first to land on the moon.
Your smart phone is a mixed-signal designed integrated circuit. Strangely, in this digital age it uses both digital circuits and analog circuits set within a single semiconductor.
Your Cell Phone Is Very Different from Your Landline
The land line passes your call along electrical cables, whereas your cell phone is essentially a radio telephone. Your call passes through masts organized as a linked network.
They operate through electromagnetic radio waves, the same as your child’s radio controlled car or your wireless doorbell.
The original cell phones were good for making telephone calls and making and receiving short text messages. Today’s smart phone can past substantial files across the airwaves so you can download a film, listen to your favorite MP3, complete your work using the same software on your desktop computer in your office, while probing your favorite search engine with questions looking for answers. Many individuals use the GPS facility in your cell phone as their satellite navigation as they drive, walk or ride from one location to another.
Many homes have already excluded landlines and now the only way of contacting people is via their cell phone. As the PC industry has rapidly reduced in size and models, the smart phone market consistently increases. Marketing activities suggest we need to purchase a new phone once a year to replace our old and outdated model.
As the mixed-signal designers of today’s modern circuit boards within cell phones have an unlimited imagination, it is difficult to comprehend what a cell phone will look like and how it will behave in 10 years’ time.