iFixit and Chipworks teardown the iPhone 4's gyroscope

You didn't think the folks at iFixit would simply teardown the iPhone 4 and call it a day, did you? They've now gone the extra mile and done a detailed teardown of the iPhone 4's gyroscope with a little help from Chipworks. That's of course a MEMS (or microelectromechanical system) gyroscope and, according to Chipworks, nearly identical to an off-the-shelf STMicroelectronics L3G4200D gyroscope, which is actually what they used for the teardown. What's more, they also went even further and put another gyroscope (not used in the iPhone 4) under an electron microscope just to illustrate how incredibly complex and minute the structure of MEMS gyroscopes are. Head on past the break for a glimpse of that, and hit up the link below for the complete teardown.

[make Posted Jun 30th 2010 12:36PM]

@MRPysnik
You can contact ChipWorks, and they'll be more than happy to sell you large printouts of the chips they put under an electron microscope. Do know that it will probably cost you quite a bit, as they will be high-resolution photos, intended for reverse engineering purposes.

[MRPysnik Posted Jun 30th 2010 12:36PM]

@Bahumbug Oh man, I totally used to have one of those! Thanks for bringing back some memories!

[pankomputerek Posted Jun 30th 2010 12:28PM]

Every-phone should have one.

[Bahumbug Posted Jun 30th 2010 12:34PM]

@pankomputerek So apple can sue the competition? No thanks!

[Madcat Posted Jun 30th 2010 12:58PM]

The fact that we humans can make and view something so small, and so precisely just blows my mind. I don't care who makes it, that is some awesome technology there.

[tonylukes3 Posted Jun 30th 2010 1:13PM]

These are not the gyros you're looking for...

http://www.cafemed1.com/images/gyro.jpg

[scolen2 Posted Jun 30th 2010 1:20PM]

Its full of stars!

[lnm4444 Posted Jun 30th 2010 1:23PM]

Elmer Sperry and Leon Foucault would be proud.

[peepeeland Posted Jun 30th 2010 1:29PM]

The gyroscopic functionality at such a scale is incredible!

[Bahumbug Posted Jun 30th 2010 1:52PM]

@peepeeland The functionality is not that amazing actually. Remember, its a vibrating gyroscope not a typical spinning one.

[CityZen Posted Jun 30th 2010 2:01PM]

@Bahumbug I'm actually more impressed by a MEMS gyro than a large-scale spinning one. This thing has an electrostatic motor to make it oscillate back and forth perhaps 1 micrometer, and then it can detect deflections along another axis that are a small fraction of a micrometer, and then it needs to cancel out noise and 3rd axis effects to yield a precise measurement of rotational acceleration. It's pretty amazing if you ask me.

[peepeeland Posted Jun 30th 2010 2:03PM]

@Bahumbug Okay: "only partially amazing". Blows my ballz off, still.

[Bahumbug Posted Jun 30th 2010 6:03PM]

@CityZen I suggest looking up some books and articles about micro- and nano-mechanics - puts this stuff into perspective. Its really not that amazing. Its a mass product that was impressive many years ago.

[Abbas64 Posted Jun 30th 2010 1:58PM]

@Abbas64
Oh yeah my phone has an accelerometer but this word was new for me in the current sense.

After checking out the demo video above, i think its frigging cool and best used in that shooting game.

[EngadgetFreak Posted Jun 30th 2010 4:58PM]

This is an engineers wet dream on steroids. Damn those pics look sexy, and when you see the physical chip size the mind boggles at this electronic marvel. This is like some freaky starwars work gone mad. Funny thing is the size of the equipment to make these would be massive overall to the size of the chip.

[Mike V Posted Jun 30th 2010 9:21PM]

Thems pretty small wires.

[MatteoVega Posted Jun 30th 2010 9:54PM]

I think he's holding it wrong!?!

[xxxMDKxxx Posted Jul 1st 2010 2:34AM]

Somebody find me a high rez wallpaper of this!

[austinlee168 Posted Jul 1st 2010 5:42AM]

why do they spend time on the gyroscope when there is a more pressing issue - THE ANTENNA!!

[Sicarius123 Posted Jul 1st 2010 8:38AM]

lol looks like an aerial picture of New Parliament House in Australia.