Microsoft Zune HD 16GB Portable Media Player Teardown

Overview / Main Features

Microsoft updated their Zune line of portable media players (PMP) in 2009 - abandoning the older trackpad input design and adopting the (now ubiquitous) touchscreen based input with the Zune HD. The 16GB (base capacity) Zune HD is, in many ways, is Microsoft's answer to the more popular and market leader - Apple's iPod Touch. With its clearly higher specifications, the Zune HD is powered by a new Nvidia Tegra chip and sports a 3.3 inch AM-OLED display with touchscreen along with HD radio and HD video output. Microsoft intended the Zune HD to be the more capable touchscreen PMP however, without the complete solution as with Apple's iTune service, Zune HD will likely remain a distant niche player in the PMP market.

Target Market

Mainstream consumers

Released

Per press release in May of 2009, ZuneHD was made available in H2 2009

Pricing and Availability

Pricing - The 16GB version of the Zune HD has a list price of $219. However, at the time of writing, the device can be purchased for as low as $169.

Availablility -

Volume Estimations

For the purposes of this teardown analysis, we have assumed a lifetime production volume of 1M units.

As a reminder, teardown volume production assumptions are primarily used for our cost analysis in terms of amortized NRE and tooling costs, especially for custom components specific to the model being analyzed (mechanical components especially). Unless assumed, volumes increment by an order of magnitude. Minor changes in volume (say 1 million vs. 2) rarely have a large net effect on our final analysis.

Cost Notes

Main Cost Drivers (Representing ~60% of total materials cost)

$32 - Toshiba Semiconductor - TH58NVG7D2ELA89 - Flash - MLC NAND, 16GB

$10.44 - Nvidia - APX2600-HM-A3 - Application Processor - ARM11 Core, 600MHz

$5.50 - Taiyo Yuden - WYSBHASX2-1M - WLAN Module - 802.11b/g, Contains Atheros AR6002G Chipset

$5.18 - Siport - SP1010LN - Digital Broadcast Receiver - Multiband Single Chip CMOS Tuner and Baseband

$4 - Hynix - H5MS1G22MFP-J3M - SDRAM - Mobile DDR, 1Gb(8Mb x 4Bank x 32), 1.8V

$2.85 - Amperex Technology - Battery Cell - Li-Ion, 3.7V, 660mAh, 2.45Wh, w/ Power Managemnet Circuit & 2 Discrete Insulated Wires

$2.04 - Wolfson Microelectronics - WM8352GEB - Audio Codec - Stereo, w/ Power Management

$0.85 - Kionix - KXSD9 Series - Accelerometer & Inclinometer - 3-Axis, Selectable 2g/4g/6g/8g, Digital SPI/I2C Output

$0.76 - Phison Electronics - PS8006-C - Memory Controller - SD-to-Flash, w/ Built-in BCH ECC up to 24-bit, Support SPI, eMMC and SD Mode

$0.50 - Wus Printed Circuit Co., Ltd. - 8-Layer - FR4

$0.34 - Maxim - MAX17040G+T - Fuel Gauge Driver

$0.30 - Texas Instruments - TPS73615DRBR - Regulator - LDO, 1.5V, 400mA, Cap-Free, w/ Reverse Current Protection

$0.29 - Foxconn - Main I/O & Power - Right Angle, w/ Metal Housing

Direct Materials$106.86

Total BOM Costs$112.46

What Is Not Included in our Cost Analysis

The total materials and manufacturing costs reported in this analysis reflect ONLY the direct materials cost (from component vendors and assorted EMS providers), AND manufacturing with basic test costs. Not included in this analysis are costs above and beyond the material manufacture of the core device itself - cost of intellectual property, royalties and licensing fees (those not already included into the per component price), software, software loading and test, shipping, logistics marketing and other channel costs including not only EMS provider and the OEM's margin, but that of other resellers. Our cost analysis is meant to focus on those costs incurred in the manufacture of the core device and exceptionally in some circumstances the packaging and literature as well.

Manufacturing Notes

OEM/ODM/EMS Relationships

Since Microsoft's core competency is within software, they naturally have to outsource all of their manufacturing to EMS partners. According to iSuppli EMS/ODM analysts, we believe Microsoft leverages a division of Toshiba to manufacture the Zune media players.

Country of Origin / Volume Assumptions

According to device markings, the Zune HD was assembled in China. Furthermore, we have assumed that custom mechanicals (plastics, metals, etc.) were also sourced in China, as well. Sub-assemblies may also come from other countries of origin, but for the purposes of this analysis, when there is no proof to the contrary, we have stayed with this assumption (China being the country of origin) for all levels of assembly.

Country of origin assumptions relate directly to the associated cost of manufacturing, where calculated by iSuppli. In the cases of "finished" sub-assemblies (such as the touch sensor, touch assembly PCB, OLED and the integration of these elements), we do not calculate internal manufacturing costs, but rather assess the market price of the finished product in which case country of origin assumptions may or may not have a direct effect on pricing.

Remember also that labor rates are applied directly only to hand inserted components and systems in our bill of materials, and although regional assumptions do, these new rates do not have a direct effect on our modeled calculations of placement costs for automated SMD assembly lines. "Auto" inserted components (such as SMT components) placement costs are calculated by an iSuppli algorithm which allocates a cost per component based on the size and pincount of the device. This calculation is affected by country or region of origin as well.

Design for Manufacturing / Device Complexity

The Zune HD features a total component count of 351 components (not including box contents & accessories), of which 51 components are mechanical in nature. This represents a decrease from the 418 figure of its Zune80 predecessor model.

Component counts have a direct bearing on the overall manufacturing cycle times and costs, and also can increase or decrease overall yields and re-work. Our calculations of manufacturing costs factor counts and more qualitative complexities in the design.

Note that manual labor has a much smaller effect on auto-insertion assembly lines (for the Main PCB, for example), where manufacturing costs are much more capital equipment intensive and driven by these investment costs.

Design Notes

The highlight of the Zune HD media player is the use of the Nvidia applications processor - the first of from the traditionally GPU centric manufacturer and represents a departure from the typical Freescale solutions that we see bundled with Windows Embedded devices.Nvidia's new Tegra system on a chip is designed with tight integration GPU/Northbridge/Southbridge with the ARM core. The use of this design provides a more integrated single chip solution and reduces overall PCB complexity.

The other design highlight of the Zune HD is the use of an AM-OLED display (3.3 inch) from Samsung. To our knowledge, this is the first time we have come across OLED used in a portable media player and Microsoft has made a distinction to include the high performance display in the Zune HD to differentiate from the dominate Apple iPods which uses traditional TFT LCDs.

Interestingly, the capacitive touchscreen solution found in the Zune HD is from Avago (traditionally a power amplifier and optical semiconductor component supplier). The dominate players in this slot usually go to manufacturers such as Synaptics, Cypress and Broadcom

Here's a summary of the Microsoft Zune HD design:

Main PCB

Processing

• Application Processor - Nvidia - APX2600-HM-A3

User Interface

• Audio Codec -Wolfson Microelectronics - WM8352GEB
• Digital Broadcast Receiver - Siport - SP1010LN

Memory

• SDRAM - Hynix - H5MS1G22MFP-J3M
• Flash - Toshiba Semiconductor - TH58NVG7D2ELA89 (MLC, NAND, 16GB)
• Memory Controller - Phison Electronics - PS8006-C

Display

• Display Module - Samsung SDI - AMS326FA05 (3.3" Diagonal 16:9 OLED, Color, 480 x 272 Pixels, 72.0mm x 40.8mm Viewable Area)

Touchscreen

• Touchscreen Controller - Avago Technologies

Microsoft Zune HD 16GB Portable Media Player - Box Contents