US Galaxy S3 missing the FM radio hardware

Search This thread

Don_Perrignon

Senior Member
Jan 13, 2011
932
134
San Antonio, Texas, USA
Good stuff. Thanks.

On a side note. I know everyone agrees about the superiority of the Wolfson implementation, but I don't find the audio in the T999 to be bad at all. Of course, I haven't directly compared the two, and I am certainly no audiophile. Is there a way to do simple tests (besides how loud it is) to find out how good/bad one's audio is?

I can't really follow all of this on the audio in high detail, but having come from another device, I can say the S3 is lacking in headphone audio quality and power.

I can only really tell when using my FM adaptor in the car from the headphone jack. With this phone, I have to make sure that the MP3s are in 320 otherwise the audio comes in distorted. That didn't happen on the MyTouch 4G. Even at the highest bitrate the audio still isn't as crisp.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using xda premium
 

Top Liked Posts

  • There are no posts matching your filters.
  • 7
    Well, I started trying to figure out what the max clock speed is for
    mmc1 (external SDHC) and why the audio is such crap in SGH-T999.
    I thought I would share the differences with US and the i9300 I found.

    Starting with the Service Manuals for i535 and i9300 and the
    teardowns of the T999 and i9300....
    We can figure out enough making some assumptions and also
    lacking high quality zooms of all the US board...

    First a system overview:
    DVd57.png


    In the i9300, the FM radio is sent directly from a Silicon Labs
    CMOS FM radio receiver chip to an audio line in on the Wolfson
    WM1811 audio codec and speaker driver chip. The schematics
    don't provide the part numbers, but through the teardowns people
    already know about the Wolfson chip. The SiLabs part hasn't been
    mentioned anywhere I have seen. The schematics, pin out, and
    part number match the unidentified part in the teardowns as the
    SiLabs part:
    sYFz7.png


    We can see this extra SiLabs radio chip with is on the thin side of the
    board and this chip is missing from the US versions:
    uIyhi.png


    All Galaxy S3 boards appear to use the same Murata SoC module
    that incorporates the Broadcom BCM4334
    . From the service manuals,
    we see the exact same Murata part and schematics: (top one is i9300)
    i6JDi.png


    This might be where the confusion is for people trying to use the i9300
    firmware to enable FM radio. Yes, the BCM4334 has FM capabilities and
    could have been used for maybe FM radio, but it isn't used in any of the boards.
    This is the same WLAN/bluetooth hardware, but an unpopulated pin and a deadend.
    There isn't even an external pin you could add a wire to.


    Now the audio differences:
    7oM8D.png


    What is also of interest is that (sadly) the US Galaxy S3 use the
    Qualcomm WCD9310 Audio Codec which drives the headphones.
    There aren't any datasheets for what this is capable of. In (at least)
    the i535 the speaker is driven with a Texas Instruments TPA2039D1
    Audio Power Amplifier. And I suspect it is the same for all the US versions.
    Whereas, the i9300 uses the Wolfson WM1811 which both drives the
    headset and a speaker driver with many other features.

    Code:
    TPA2039D1 Class-D, 12-dB fixed-gain audio power amplifier 
      3.24 W (4 Ω, 5 V, 10% THDN)
      2.57 W (4 Ω, 5 V, 1% THDN)
      1.80 W (8 Ω, 5 V, 10% THDN)
      1.46 W (8 Ω, 5 V, 1% THDN)

    Code:
    Wolfson WM1811
      2W stereo (2 x 2W) class D speaker driver
      Capless Class W headphone drivers
      (5.3mW total power for DAC playback to headphones)
      ReTune™ Mobile 5-band, 4-channel parametric EQ

    In both cases we don't really know much about the headphone
    driver except that you would rather have the Wolfson chip.
    I did find this interesting blog post with some
    hints about tailoring the WCD9310. Now if only someone had a Qualcomm datasheet.
    1
    So we have the chip that can be used for FM radio, but the antenna isn't there? Am I understanding this right?

    Yes, but it's more complicated than that. :)

    None of the Galaxy S/S2/S3/Note class devices use the Broadcom chip for FM. The International versions that have FM use a Silicon Labs chip.

    Many cheaper Samsung devices use Broadcom for FM.

    There are over 200 posts on the subject of FM on the US GS3 here: http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=1732685 The last 20-50 posts or so might give a more complete idea of the findings made.
    1
    So we have the chip that can be used for FM radio, but the antenna isn't there? Am I understanding this right?

    I would say that they would need the resistors, and inductors inside the SoC module, and an antenna. And then some was to get the data out of the broadcom chip, and then can it handle FM while using bluetooth and WLAN? So I'm guessing based on the cost and module specs, they abandoned it. For the flagship i9300 international design they just threw in another chip. The respin US version they want to save money and the Wolfson and SiLabs volume and cost makes more sense to use the Qcom part and abandon an extra audio input. Also US cell companies go out of their way to disable FM radio even when it is "free". They would rather you pay for data or some crazy nonsense.
    1
    Yes and no. You can directly modify the tabla register for the qcom codec, but I don't have and darasheet to know what 00 is versus c4 or whatever in the register. I have to write it up still

    Sent from my SGH-T999 using xda app-developers app