Apple's iPhone Dissected: We did it, so you don't have to
by Anand Lal Shimpi on June 29, 2007 10:17 PM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- Mobile
The iPhone's Motherboard(s)
The motherboard in the iPhone is very compact; it is actually composed of two separate PCBs that are sandwiched together.
The upper left hand corner of the picture is the PCB sandwich that makes the iPhone tick; the black slot you're seeing here is for the SIM card; the cable port on the lower left of the motherboard appears to be the LCD interface.
The topmost PCB appears to have the 802.11b/g wireless controller as well as most of the other microprocessors necessary for the cell phone aspects of the iPhone:
Note that we've removed the EMI shield from the top of this PCB layer in order to show off the individual components.
The lower PCB layer features the 4GB MLC NAND Flash (made by Samsung), as well as the iPhone's main processor. Two of the chips on this board have Apple logos on them, the larger of the two appears to be the iPhone's ARM processor manufactured by Samsung.
We suspect that it may be Samsung's S3C6400 based on the ARM1176 core, however some readers have written us stating that it's more likely to be the S3C2460; judging by the model numbers on the chip itself, the ARM processor may be a part of a multi-chip package that includes 1Gbit of system memory, for running the iPhone's OS. The K4X1G153PC-XGC3 is a Samsung part number, indicating a 1Gbit memory device, but it is placed on the same package as the ARM processor itself.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
39 Comments
View All Comments
Che - Saturday, June 30, 2007 - link
Slice it up!! Great article guys, would love to see a video of the effort used to get in that phone.Oakenfold - Saturday, June 30, 2007 - link
Thanks for the fast scoop!Not sure I need one of those phones yet but I really enjoyed seeing how they are constructed. Perhaps the forthcoming review will tell me the marketing hype is real and that I need one of these devices...
tuteja1986 - Friday, June 29, 2007 - link
Mm... thats an expensive iphone to dissect. $500 + $30 + (60x24) = 1970. so if you killed the iphone through your dissection operation do you still have to pay for the 2 year contract your are signed on or can you get a replacement iphone some how ?LukFilm - Friday, June 29, 2007 - link
They don't pay $60 for 24 months, they can just cancel the service for $175 fee.Devo2007 - Friday, June 29, 2007 - link
Actually, considering the iPhone is activated after purchase (at home), they may not have even signed a contract to begin with. (In other words, the pic at the beginning showing it's activated might be a different iPhone).DerekWilson - Saturday, June 30, 2007 - link
the activated phone was in fact a different one. we never had service for the disassembled one.TA152H - Saturday, June 30, 2007 - link
Have you considered telling Apple that the battery inside exploded? It might work, right after you convince them it was a nuclear battery.All kidding aside, how the heck is someone supposed to change the battery in this thing? I'm not a big fan of cell phones (my fiance wants one, that's the only reason I'm even asking) so I don't know much about them, but the batteries still go bad on them, right? Seems like a lot of money to keep spending if the battery doesn't last so long.
Also, when I see something like this, the first thing that crosses my mind is scratching the screen. It looks like replacing that would be out of the question too. Is the screen made out of glass? If not, is it very scratchable or very resistant to it?
Griswold - Saturday, June 30, 2007 - link
Yes batteries do go bad. And no, you're not supposed to change it by yourself. Of course you can try and void your warranty... but apple really wants you to send it in and have it changed by them, probably for a small fee somewhere around the $200 mark. Sony is/was the same with their PDAs...michael2k - Saturday, June 30, 2007 - link
Why do you think would they charge that much? It only costs $59 for an iPod battery replacement from Apple, $79 for the iPhone:http://www.apple.com/batteries/replacements.html">http://www.apple.com/batteries/replacements.html
There is a $6.95 shipping/handling fee, so that's really $66 and $86, respectively.
PrinceGaz - Saturday, June 30, 2007 - link
I love the ironic/sarcastic (depending on intent) way you used "only" :)