A month again, I tore down Walmart’s onn. 4K Streaming Field, the Google TV-based successor to the corporate’s preliminary Android TV-based UHD Streaming Machine that I’d dissected mid-last 12 months. And as promised in final month’s protection, this time I’ll be looking on the guts of its “stick” kind issue sibling, the Google TV-based Full HD Streaming Machine, the successor to the Android TV-based FHD streaming stick predecessor that went “beneath the knife” final December.
Machine, stick, or field?
Learn via these earlier two sentences once more and also you would possibly catch the which means behind the “simply don’t name it a stick” bit on this writeup’s title; equally, you would possibly get why final month I wrote:
Additionally, it’s now referred to as a “field”, versus a “gadget”. Maintain that latter thought till subsequent month…
The phrase “gadget” appears to have inconsistent kind issue affiliation inside Walmart. Within the first-generation onn. product line, it referred to the “field”, with the oblong kind issue explicitly referred to as a “stick”. This time round, the “stick” is the “gadget”, with the sq. kind issue known as a “field” as a substitute. Then once more, as I discussed final month, the primary era “field’s” UHD most output decision is now as a substitute known as “4K”, and equally, the “stick” kind issue has transitioned from “2K FHD” to “Full HD” within the product identify, so…
Anyway…in final month’s piece, I identified the surprising-to-me commonality between the {hardware} within the two “field” generations’ designs. Will the identical be the case with the 2 generations of “stick” units? And as with Walmart’s “field” units compared to the TiVo RA2400 Stream 4K, will I additionally encounter commonality between Walmart’s “sticks” and different producers’ units? There’s just one strategy to discover out…let’s start with a “inventory” shot:
Unboxing the product
Now for the precise packaging of right now’s affected person, which set me again $14.88 in November 2023.
The joke by no means appears to get previous, not less than for me…you would possibly disagree…
It’s a box-within-a-box!
Flip open the highest flap, and we get our first glimpse of the still-protected-by-plastic gadget inside, together with a sliver of literature (PDF right here).
Right here they’re now free of their cardboard captivity, as common accompanied by a 0.75″ (19.1 mm) diameter U.S. penny for measurement comparability functions:
Beneath are the AC energy adapter, an HDMI extension cable, the distant management and a set of batteries for the latter:
Right here’s a close-up of the AC energy adapter’s micro-USB connector:
and its markings; curiously, the max enter present is larger than that for final month’s “field” PSU (0.25 A vs 0.2 A), though the output present specs are the identical (1 A). I believe that the enter present variance is simply efficiency-reflective of the sourcing deviation between the 2 PSUs, not of the respective programs’ precise energy necessities. In reality, I’m anticipating a lower-power-consumption SoC inside this time, together with decreased reminiscence and the like.
Listed below are the “male” and “feminine” ends of the HDMI extension cable:
And right here’s the battery compartment-exposed bottom of the distant management, which seems to be equivalent to final month’s “field” distant:
The teardown
Now for our affected person, with dimensions of three.54 x 1.18 x 0.51 inches (90.5 x 30 x 13 mm), fairly near these of its Android TV-based precursor (3.81 x 1.39 x 0.61 inches). That mentioned, there are some bodily design variations between them:
- No passive airflow vents both high or backside this time, and
- Final time there was no standing LED included within the design, and the recessed reset swap and micro-USB energy enter have been on reverse sides of the gadget. This time, the micro-USB energy enter is on one finish (with the HDMI connector once more on the opposite), and a standing LED has been added, subsequent to the reset swap.
A closeup of that final shot reveals, amongst different issues, the FCC ID (2AYYS-8822K2VTG, and no, paying homage to what I additionally mentioned final month, I don’t know why there are 21 completely different FCC paperwork posted for this ID, both!).
Making use of a spudger to the hole between the 2 case halves get them aside with injury to solely one of many plastic tabs.
For orientation functions, we’re wanting on the within the highest half of the gadget case, together with the highest of the PCB (“high” and “backside” being considerably meaningless with a “stick” kind issue, as I’ve famous earlier than, however I’m going by the place the model emblem is stamped on the case):
The PCB then lifts simply out of the remaining backside case half.
Right here’s the within of the underside half of the case, as soon as once more accompanied by the high of the PCB:
and now with the PCB flipped over to disclose its backside facet. Word, for instance, the sunshine information (aka, mild pipe, mild tube) that, as with the one we noticed final month, routes the output of the LED on the PCB (at backside, to the best of the Faraday cage) to the surface world.
Talking of Faraday cages, let’s flip again to the PCB topside and start our disassembly. En path to that vacation spot, listed below are snapshots of each side:
The warmth sink on high clung to the Faraday cage beneath it stubbornly lastly relented within the face of my intense spudger consideration.
The Faraday Cage itself was a lot much less removal-resistant:
A take a look at the ICs
Focusing in proved to be…fascinating, amongst different issues (together with initially irritating).
The IC on the left was simple to ID, though the marking was faint (keep tuned for one more picture the place it’s clearer, courtesy of augmented lighting). It’s Amlogic’s S805X2, one other in a protracted line of examples of onn. units primarily based on utility processors from this provider. The S805X2 was launched in Q2 2020, and Wikipedia lumps it into the corporate’s fourth-generation product line in seeming distinction to the “2” finish character in its product line. The “X”, as I defined final month and versus the “Y” model seen in that teardown, refers to its integration of wired Ethernet help, which is a bit curious, significantly for a “stick” kind issue gadget, albeit not distinctive (observe, for instance, Ethernet over micro-USB on the Chromecast Extremely).
Versus the Amlogic S805Y-B seen within the Android TV-based “stick” predecessor, the S805X2 bumps up the quad-core Arm Cortex-A35 processor cluster’s clock pace from 1.5 GHz to 1.8 GHz (vs 2 GHz within the Amlogic S905Y4 seen final month, nevertheless), upgrades the GPU from the Mali-450MP to the Mali-G31 MP2, and (like final month’s S905Y4) provides decoding help for the AV1 video codec. And talking of Chromecasts, I want to offer credit score the place it’s due (the Reddit crowd) on this one; it’s essentially-to-exactly the identical SoC discovered within the “HD” variant of Google’s Chromecast with Google TV. The one variance, for which I can’t discover clarifying documentation, is that on this case it’s marked “S805X2-B” whereas the one in Google’s design is the “S805X2G”.
Transfer to the best and also you’ll encounter one other instance of Chromecast with Google TV commonality…form of. And this one brought on me no scarcity of teeth-gnashing till I finally figured it out. Revisiting my last-December teardown of this gadget’s Android TV-based predecessor, you’ll discover that it incorporates 1 GByte of system DRAM, comprised of two 4 Gbit reminiscence units. Final month’s “field” sibling, conversely, touts 2 GBytes of system DRAM, assembled from two 8 Gbit recollections. I already knew from the product specs on Walmart’s web site that this gadget embeds 1.5 GBytes of DRAM. And so, since I’d thought reminiscence just about all the time is bought in binary-increment capacities (1, 2, 4, 8, 16…), I figured that as with the equally 1.5 GByte-equipped Chromecast with Google TV HD Version, I’d discover the two-device combo of 8 Gbit and 4 Gbit recollections inside.
Downside is, although, that after figuring out the opposite two notable ICs on this design, which you’ll see subsequent, I might solely discover one different chip: this one. And it’s marking have been in contrast to any I’d ever seen earlier than. Once more, they’re fairly faint beneath ambient mild; I attempted each a loupe and supplemental lighting to make not less than the corporate emblem clearer for each me and thee:
Right here’s the four-line mark:
[COMPANY LOGO] ARTMEM
ATL4X12324
M102
325M10
Doing net searches for “ARTMEM”, “ATL4X12324” and the mixture of the 2 received me…mainly nothing. Finally, nevertheless, I stumbled throughout an obscure web page on MIT’s web site that clued me in to the doubtless full firm identify, Artmem Know-how. That web site is completely in Chinese language, nevertheless, which didn’t assist me in any respect. However after looking once more on the complete “Artmem Know-how” phrase, I got here throughout the web site of one other China-based semiconductor provider, Rayson HI-Tech, which affords an English-language choice and identifies Artmem as its subsidiary.
Progress! Diving additional into Rayson’s web site, particularly to the “Industrial/Automotive LPDDR4/4X” product web page, I certainly discovered a 1.5 GByte product variant (together with different non-binary increment choices…3 GBytes and 6 GBytes, particularly) with the next parameters:
- Product mannequin: RS384M32LX4D2BNR-53BT
- Bit width: x32
- Pace (presumably max, and working voltage-dependent): 3733 Mbps
- Encapsulation mode: FBGA 200-ball
- (Working) voltage: 1.8/1.1/0.6V
- (Working) temperature: 25-85°C)
I’m guessing that is our chip, with alternate (subsidiary) provider branding. Is there an atypical 12 Gbit monolithic reminiscence die inside that bundle? Or did the corporate mix extra frequent 8 Gbit and 4 Gbit die side-by-side beneath a single bundle “lid”? Or was it a three-die 4 Gbit “stack”? Or did the provider simply “down-bin” a 16 Gbit die to provide you with the 12 Gbit assured capability? I ran this thriller by my long-time colleague Jim Useful, semiconductor reminiscence skilled at market analyst agency Goal Evaluation, and he had a number of insights:
- Non-binary packaged unit capacities are extra frequent than I’d realized, particularly for LPDDR DRAM variants (that are additionally generally spec’d in GByte vs Gbit densities)
- His guess is that there’s a three-die “sandwich” inside, with every die 4 Gbit in capability, doubtless sourced from CXMT and/or JHICC, the 2 main DRAM makers in China, and
- The built-in translation help supplied by Google’s Chrome browser works fairly properly, judging from the screenshots of Artmem Know-how’s English language auto-converted web site that he despatched me (I’m usually a Mozilla Firefox man).
Please reply within the feedback, readers, if in case you have further knowledgeable insights on this!
The opposite notable IC—wi-fi module, to be exact, as you’ve most likely already guessed from its antennas’ proximity—on this facet of the PCB and to the best of the thriller DRAM, is far simpler to ID. Like its predecessor in final December’s teardown, and in contrast to its sibling in final month’s teardown, it’s clearly marked on high. That is the 6222B-SRC from Fn-Hyperlink, containing a Realtek RTL8822CS Bluetooth-plus-Wi-Fi transceiver (which you’ll see within the inside pictures on the FCC web site). There was no separate (PCB-embedded or in any other case) Bluetooth antenna that I might see on this specific design, and Fn-Hyperlink’s documentation subsequently confirmed my suspicion that the module optionally helps multiplexing the two.4-GHz Bluetooth and Wi-Fi features on the identical antenna:
Talking of which, listed below are some closeups of these antennas:
Final, however not least, let’s flip the PCB again over once more and see what’s beneath that bottom-side Faraday cage we earlier glimpsed:
It’s the nonvolatile reminiscence counterpart to the sooner risky DRAM; a FORESEE FEMDNN008G-08A39 8 GByte eMMC NAND flash reminiscence module. FORESEE is likely one of the model names of a Chinese language firm referred to as Longsys, who had additionally acquired the Lexar model from Micron Know-how again in 2017. And talking of “see”, I believe that’s all to see right now, not less than from me. Let me know what I may need neglected within the feedback!
—Brian Dipert is the Editor-in-Chief of the Edge AI and Imaginative and prescient Alliance, and a Senior Analyst at BDTI and Editor-in-Chief of InsideDSP, the corporate’s on-line e-newsletter.
Associated Content material
- Walmart’s onn. UHD streaming gadget: Android TV at a compelling value
- Walmart’s onn. FHD streaming stick: Nonetheless Android TV, however much less thick
- Walmart’s onn. 4K streaming field: A Google TV improve doesn’t clobber its price
- The Google Chromecast Gen 3: Gluey and screwy
- The Google Chromecast Gen 2 (2015): A kind issue redesign with beefier Wi-Fi, too
- Google’s Chromecast with Google TV: Dissecting the HD version
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