Introduction
This guide contains a selection of photos and chip identification summary for the main board of Valve's Steam Deck. Check out our Steam Deck Teardown for more info.
Special thanks to community member CChin for his contribution!
-
-
IC Identification, Pt. 1:
-
AMD/Valve 100-000000405 Quad-Core Application Processor w/ GPU
-
Micron MT62F1G32D4DR-031 WT:B 4 GB LPDDR5 SDRAM Memory
-
Winbond W25Q128JW 16 MB Serial NOR FLASH Memory
-
Analogix ANX7580 DisplayPort to Single MIPI Receiver
-
Cirrus Logic CS35L41B Audio Amplifier
-
Maxim Integrated MAX77961 USB Type-C Li-Ion Battery Charger
-
O2Micro OZ536 Backlight LED Driver
-
-
-
IC Identification, Pt. 2:
-
Monolithic Power Systems MP2845Digital 6-Phase Controller
-
Monolithic Power Systems MP86902B 35 A Power Stage
-
Monolithic Power Systems MP86903C Power Stage
-
Likely Monolithic Power Systems NB688C Synchronous Buck Converter
-
Monolithic Power Systems NB691 Synchronous Buck Converter
-
Monolithic Power Systems NB690G Synchronous Buck Converter
-
Possibly Monolithic Power Systems NB591 Synchronous Buck Converter
-
-
-
IC Identification:
-
ITE Tech IT5570VG Embedded Controller (likely)
-
O2Micro OZ711 Card Reader Controller
-
Maxim Integrated MAX77958 USB Type-C & USB Power Delivery Controller
-
Monolithic Power Systems NB691 Synchronous Buck Converter
-
Possibly Monolithic Power Systems NB591 Synchronous Buck Converter
-
Diodes Incorporated PI3USB102 USB 2.0 SPDT Analog Switch
-
Texas Instruments TPS22976 Load Switch
-
21 comments
Interesting how Valve went with a full-custom APU from AMD. I thought they’d use an off-the-shelf chip like the 4500U.
Yeah i know what you mean!
They most likely they where wanting it to not be that thick,
so not like a laptop or desktop CPU for it,
Due to it being kinda thick!
I assume the only major difference between this and an off the shelf APU is that this APU just has everything the steam deck does not utilize disabled or removed for power consumption reasons. I doubt it goes much deeper than that.
Alyx -
Good Point
See what you mean
The 4500u has 6 EC Vega GPU, while the Steameck APU has an 8 ECU RDNA 2 GPU. Plus the custom APU gives them more control than a OTS apu.
I doubt it goes much deeper than that
There are actually some differences, it has many differences than typical off-the-shelf APUs, now I don't know how much is firmware and how much is actually silicon but they had a section with AMD engineers that go into detail, some of my takeaways is that inbetween cycles, if it's done doing what it was it goes into a very low power mode, and the other one being that they really went for consistency and not turbo clocks and stuff
Scribble -
On step 3 there are 3 chips marked with dark blue which should be a USB switch, they look like they might be the TPS2276 load switch. The package does not match with the package from the USB switch datasheet in any case.
CazH -
There’s not much to disable.
And it’s probably not custom APU for them, but something that Dell haven;t bought.
They needed to go to this strange mix of zen2+radeon6xxx mix, because only zen2 was low-power then and starting from radeon 6xxxx it provides RayTracing and is more energy efficient then older chips.
Mobile zen3 wasn’t released then. Now they would go this route.
Microsoft, not Dell. Rumour has it that this was a part originally designed for an MS mobile device that the pandemic killed off: hence the presence of a machine vision IP block on the die that the Deck doesn't use and is most unlikely ever to.