SoCs explained- Is it possible to replace the internal components of your smartphone?

SOCs aka System-on-a-chip

I have been asked a lot of times that is it possible to replace the RAM in my phone, or my processor is very slow, can i replace it? The answer is NO. Read further to know why.

Smartphones are becoming powerful everyday and we want them to pack a punch like their larger counterparts; PCs do. All this has happened in nearly a decade where the shift from a small portable calling device to an all-to-do device has taken place. This advancement has been due to the SoCs, i.e, System-on-a-Chip. You may have heard about it, but this is surely in most of your pockets.

So what is SoC?

SoC is a single Silicon chip that packs compactly all the crucial elements of your smartphone ,albeit, processor, storage, memory and I/O controllers. This small component is the master-of-all trades and without this, your phone is basically, a battery with a covering and a display. What it does is integration- of mostly all functions which in contrast, are modular in case of PCs. They are made in this way so that they suck less amount of battery off your device and to save this energy, all components are made low-powered.

So coming to the actual question, you cannot replace an individual component for the obvious reasons above. If you want to replace any component, the only way to do it is replacing it with a powerful SoC itself. SoCs are packed in quite a small area, so you need a more powerful SoC in the same small amount of space which is almost improbable. Furthermore, the back cannot be opened in most of the new smartphones, that's another trouble.

A look at the future of phones.

Will it be possible in the future?

The future is fast approaching, so yes. It will be possible someday. The idea is to make a phone that can be updated, customised and improved, that is, having swappable hardware parts. Unfortunately, the efforts here went quickly out of stream as the most prominent project Google Ara was cancelled. LG G5 rekindled the spark but lost it's luster very early without an impact. Lenovo ,as of yet, is the lone wolf here with it's Moto Mods project.The recently launched Essential phone by Andy Rubin also aims to take modularity to the next level and turn the Apple-Samsung duopoly upside down. Let's just hope this becomes the future very soon.

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