processor, a memory, CODEC circuitry, I/O circuitry, communication circuitry, accelerometers, capacitors, or any other suitable component), could alternatively or additionally have been illustrated.
The PCB 100 of FIG. 1 could generally couple together the various components or entities for an entire system of an electronic device. For example, the PCB may couple together the necessary entities for a system used in a cellular telephone, a personal data assistant ("PDA"), a digital media player (such as an iPod available from Apple Inc. of Cupertino, Calif.), a computer, or any other suitable electronic device. Because the components of the system are each formed as their own, discrete entities and are generally pre-packaged instances, the minimum size of the system could be significantly constrained by the discrete entities. As one example, the use of the discrete entities may cause difficulties in routing the wiring between the entities, thus requiring additional wiring and space to effectively couple the entities together. As another example, because they are generally pre-packaged entities and cannot be altered, the size of the entities may not be decreased. These limitations may, in turn, limit how small in size the electronic device that is utilizing the system could become.
Overview of Other Systems-on-a-Substrate Configurations
Apple's patent FIGS. 3, 5, 6, 7A and 7B are illustrative systems-on-a-substrate while patent FIG. 4 is an illustrative system-on-a-substrate including a ledge.
Apple credits Gloria Lin, Bryson Gardner Jr., Joseph Fisher, Dave Goh, Barry Corlett, Dennis Pyper and Amir Salehi as the inventors of patent application 20100213958, originally filed in Q3 2009.
Update Noon August 26, 2010: An in-depth report on the the inside of the A4's Heart has just been released by the Tech-On website from their parent magazine Nikkei Electronics Asia that's worth a review.
Other Noteworthy Patent Applications Published Today
System and Method for Processing Graphics Operations with Graphics Processing Unit: This 2007 based Continuation-Patent 20100214305 was invented by Mark Zimmer who was behind this week's granted patent "Multi-Conic Gradient Generation."
Today's patent application covers OpenGL. OpenGL is the industrial-strength foundation for graphics in Mac OS X and the gateway technology for accessing the power of the graphics processor. As the most widely adopted 2D and 3D graphics API in the industry, OpenGL powers a broad range of applications that visualize and manipulated graphics, including games, animation, CAD/CAM, and medical imaging. In Mac OS X Leopard, OpenGL also accelerates key graphics technologies such as Core Animation, Core Image, Core video and Quartz Extreme. Apple's patent FIG. 3 above includes iPhoto and iMovie.
Also published today is an ancient FileMaker Pro Continuation Patent 20100217779 in addition to an interesting new patent application relating to a possible future iPhone "Audio Jack with Included Microphone" under patent application 20100216526. See our full report on this here.
Lastly, there's a patent application titled "Video Acquisition with Processing Based on Ancillary Data" under number 20100214448. Although it appears to be a current patent application, as of May 2010, but it's not, due to the noted claims that have been canceled. The patent notes that claims 1-76 have been cancelled and that's never presented on an original patent application. Therefore the patent is dated.
The vast majority of this patent, though extremely detailed, is primarily reviewing details about Apple's iSight camera and iChat in relation to utilizing GPU advances from video cards such as those from NVIDIA and ATI. Although the patent could extend to "videophones," the vast majority of the patent is about processing video via ichat, QuickTime and iMovie. Apple may have decided to quickly update this patent in order to cover the iPhone 4's FaceTime which debuted shortly after the renewed application. FaceTime will eventually spill over to other devices later in 2010 or 2011, such as the iPad