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制造商零件编号 MX25L1606EM1I-12G
IC FLASH 16MBIT SPI 86MHZ 8SOP
Macronix
Teardown - GoPro Camera
2016-11-22 | By All About Circuits
License: None
In recent years, there has been a surge in action cameras that can sit on cars, helmets, or even on drones and take incredible wide-angle shots.
In this teardown, we will rip apart an action camera to get an idea of the inner workings of the cameras driving this craze. Many of the ICs in this camera do not have markings that match any known devices, bringing the overall quality into question.
Camera Model : SJ7000 WIFI 2.0" 1080P HD Action Camera Sport DV Pro Camcorder Car DVR
Outside Appearance
The camera is just under 2.75 inches (7cm) long with a 2 inch (5.08cm) display on the back. It has a single button on the front (ON / Mode), two buttons on the side (up / down), and a single button on the top (play / record). According to the product details, this can record up to 1080dpi at 30FPS and can connect to a Wi-Fi network.
The camera is shockingly small and light!
The connectors on the side include a USB connector (Type-C), a micro HDMI port, and a micro SD slot. This did not come with an SD card, so I had to dig around and find a 2GB flash for testing purposes. The construction of the camera feels rather sturdy, especially the waterproof casing.
The camera IO ports - HDMI, USB charger and Micro SD port
The tiny 2 inch screen
Cameras Peel Away Like Onions!
Taking off the first face reveals the ON Mode button and is simply stuck down with a very small dab of glue. The second face layer is held down by four really small screws, but these were easy to remove.
The front cover off showing the small push button
With the face removed (via four screws), we can start to see the internal electronics. At this point, the battery is also exposed (this can also be removed externally via a bottom hatch). The battery weighs next to nothing and mostly feels empty.
The battery, lens, and some of the PCB
The Camera’s Innards
The motherboard popped out, revealing the display at the bottom. The identification of the LCD is ZH020S4020A but this does not bring up any datasheets on Google or even Baidu (China’s primary search engine). What we can tell is that this LCD uses a large number of IO pins. Because there are no touchscreen features, we can assume that this display is just a screen with no internal memory. Whatever is driving this display is having to constantly send screen data.
The back of the display (ZH020S4020A)
The motherboard is a double sided FR4 PCB with components on both sides (to save as much space as possible). The underside shows the micro SD slot, many surface mount components, and the connector for the display.
The underside of the PCB in all its glory
The top side shows the camera module connecting to the motherboard via a PCB flex connector. Connected to the PCB on the left side via wires is microphone and the front ON / Mode button. On the bottom middle of the PCB, you can see an IC that is on its own PCB which is then soldered to the motherboard. This is most likely a generic Wi-Fi module as it has a crystal oscillator stuck right next to it and there is a rather large trace going around the bottom right of the PCB that ends up at the module.
The top side of the PCB
The Wi-Fi Module
Getting a close up on this “Wi-Fi” module reveals an IC ident of SV6030P. Just like the display, this reveals no datasheets online. Neither does the second line which says TUB1549, but this could be a production number or location because the text says TUB followed by a number. The crystal oscillator shows the number 26.000MHz and many bypass capacitors can be seen around the IC. If you look closely, you will notice many stitching vias around the module and on the module itself. This is a classic sign of some kind of high frequency switching which makes me think this is definitely the Wi-Fi Module.
The SV6030P (top middle) appears to be a module that is soldered onto the main PCB
The large white area is where the camera sat (before it was removed). It was held in place via two screws from the other side of the PCB.
The large white silkscreen that shows the camera position
The Main Processor and Memory
The bottom side of the PCB holds what appears to be the main processor. The ident on this chip is MP4GX09.00; like the other chips and screen, this reveals nothing online. With the large number of pins on this IC, it is most likely the device that controls the LCD and other graphical operations. It is also most likely to be the main processor of the whole device but there is always a chance that this chip is just an LCD driver with the Wi-Fi module performing most of the OS tasks. It is not uncommon to find devices using the Wi-Fi module as the processor since they consist of fully equipped microcontrollers with generic IO pins and plenty of programming space.
The suspected main processor (MP4GX09.00)
But not all is lost with this camera because we actually found an identifiable chip! The memory chip (the 8-pin surface mount device just below the processor) is a 25L1606E 16MB NOR flash memory. Due to its close proximity to the large IC (MP4GX09.00), it would suggest that the large IC is in fact the controller of this camera.
The NOR flash chip (25L1606E). The only identifiable IC!
The micro SD card slot - Just happens to be on the same side as the large IC
Summary
It was really strange to find so many unidentifiable parts in this camera. Maybe these are generic microcontrollers that the production company had ordered directly from a supply (such as Microchip) and got custom labelling to prevent reverse engineering. The chip with the TUB identifier would also suggest this if the production house had a TUB system for parts and thought if they are going to get personalized idents that they might as well make them useful for the production line.
Considering the price of this camera ($55) the camera module is most likely a basic webcam module that fakes 1080DPI resolution by just increasing the number of pixels. Another possibility is that it actually records 1080DPI but the CMOS chip is of really poor quality.
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