“Apple’s patent reveals systems and methods for providing a system-on-a-substrate. In particular, this patent relates to systems and methods for reducing the total size of a system’s circuitry by providing all of the components of the system on the same microchip,” Purcher reports. “A microchip that the patent reveals is behind the iPhone and likely to be used in other future Apple products such as Apple TV.”
Purcher reports, “Apple’s patent… states that ‘A system utilizing these components could be included in any suitable electronic device such as, for example, a cellular telephone, a personal data assistant (‘PDA’), a digital media player (e.g., an iPod available from Apple Inc. of Cupertino, Calif.), a computer, or any other suitable electronic device.’ The latter entry of ‘computer’ is both interesting and important considering that Apple’s recent iMac Touch patent basically confirms that possibility in practice. Meaning that an iMac Touch could utilize both a standard CPU from Intel or AMD in addition to an A4 type chip or, as the patent presents it, a ‘system-on-a-substrate’ – for touch related functionality.”
Read more in the full article, which includes patent application illustrations, here.