I recently did a teardown of Paytm Pocket Soundbox and in that I saw EC600G-CN modem. This Cellular Modem is not so popular and when I searched online, I did not find much of the details.
And then, I found that it is a EC600E series Quectel Modem.
As mentioned on the Quectel’s website, EC600E-CN is Quectel’s LTE Cat 1 wireless communication module specially designed for the M2M and IoT fields. It supports a maximum downlink rate of 10 Mbps and a maximum uplink rate of 5 Mbps. It has an ultra-small package and is extremely cost-effective. At the same time, EC600E-CN is packaging compatible with Quectel LTE StandardEC600N-CN, EC600M-CN, EC600G-CN and EC600U series modules.
EC600E-CN has a rich built-in network protocol, integrates multiple industry standard interfaces, and supports a variety of drivers and software functions (such as USB transfer under Windows 7*/ 8*/8.1*/ 10/ 11, Linux, Android and other operating systems). serial port driver), greatly expanding its application scope in M2M and IoT fields, such as POS, OTT, CPE, data cards, smart security and industrial-grade PDAs.
EC600-G-CN Quectel Modem Documentation
A lot of documentation is available although it seems the module was launches recently, about an year back.
- EC600E-CN Quectel Modem Series Presentation
- EC600E-CN Hardware Reference Design
- EC600E-CN Module Brochure
- Evaluation board Schematic
- Hardware Design Guide
EC600G-CN Quectel Modem Block Diagram
It uses a UniSoc SOC as the Main Processor UIS88508M, which is a highly integrated Soc with inbuilt PMIC, RAM and even Flash as shown in the block diagram above.
There is a RF Power amplifier chip from RADROCK, model RR88643-21. It is a 4G front-end chip that supports FDD-LTE and TDD LTE, WCDMA and TD-SCDMA network modes.
You will find this RF power amplifier used on many RF devices like one of the board as shown below
Another chip which is used is from Everest Semiconductor, ES8311 Chipset, that is a Low Power Mono Audio CODEC.
System Level Features of ES8311 are:
- High performance and low power multibit delta-sigma audio ADC and DAC
- I2S/PCM master or slave serial data port
- 256/384Fs, USB 12/24 MHz and other
non standard audio system clocks - I2C interface for configuration.
Other than that, a few RF Power Switches and inductors, capacitors for inbuilt PMIC of Unisoc SoC are there on the cellular module.
And, what else a lot of passives and 26Mhz crystal.
For many applications this Modem can act as the main processor for the product like we saw in case of Paytm’s Pocket Soundbox as the Quectel Modem has all the interfaces and capability.
I hope you found this teardown useful and learned something new today. See you with a next teardown blog soon.
I am currently working as an embedded systems design consultant helping companies build custom embedded products and develop test automation solutions for their PCBs.
If you have any feedback about the blog, you can share it in the comments below or contact me directly.
where can I find its driver I want to connect it with my pc and update my software here
Its actually Cool teardown ,can by in chance be modfied or reprogramed as diffrent use of device ?..or this practice of modding could by any chnace could violates company’s company right and usage of device…meaning can it be repurposed without any legal concerns?
And if so what you might repurpose as ..what kinda cool device you could make out of it
Thanks
EC600 supports OpenCPU architecture where one can build a complete application on top of their modem code, so there is no need of external MCU. one such example is Paytm Pocket Sound Box: https://pallavaggarwal.in/2023/12/15/paytm-pocket-soundbox-teardown/