HTC PTV350 Mobile FLOTV Viewer Teardown

Overview / Main Features

What is Flo TV? - Flo TV, is, as it's advertised, "live mobile TV". The Flo TV device torn down in this analysis is therefore designed to primarily receive broadcasted mobile television content using MediaFLO technology (terrestrial digital broadcasting using spectrum that was formerly allocated to UHF television). MediaFLO, Flo TV, and the US spectrum used to distribute the content are all owned by Qualcomm. Like 1 seg in Japan, and DVB-H in Europe, it's just another digital TV standard.

Why Flo TV?/Why this device? - MediaFLO support is a feature of some Qualcomm chipsets, and does not really require a stand alone device to receive and process MediaFLO content, because of the relative reluctance of handset manufacturers and phone service providers to offer smartphones and other portable devices MediaFLO, it seems Qualcomm was motivated to stimulate demand, and sponsor some flagship devices with the intent to market the service in an accelerated manner, and run around the obstacles or resistance to adopting Flo TV.

Mobile TV - Who cares? - That is the question - mobile TV has seen very limited success in countries where people are very much "outside the home" AND "outside the car", such as Japan, and use their mobile devices as possibly their primary means of receiving TV, news, and other media. However, in the US, it has always seemed a little frivolous, not just because of lifestyle differences, but because consumers now are looking more towards the Apple iPhone business model of paying for the content you actually want to watch, and using the existing 3G(+) network to download such content for viewing when desired.

The Hardware - HTC PTV-350 - Though there are several devices featuring MediaFLO support, the device in this teardown is an HTC built "console" with a 3.5" diagonal 320 x 240 pixel TFT LCD with touchscreen, and is built around the Qualcomm MSM6171 chip at it's core, as well as the Qualcomm MBP1610 dedicated FLO TV receiver chip. Overall, the design, beyond these items, consists largely of off common the shelf discrete semiconductor components, and the device does pack 4GB of iNAND from SanDisk for storage. As the goal of the device is primarily to showcase Flo TV and incentivize consumers to try it (as well as incentivize OEMs to design in the functionality), this particular device does not go overboard on the hardware budget, and sticks to the core goal of making a product that delivers MediaFLO content.

Target Market

Mass market consumer

Released

November 2009.

Pricing and Availability

Pricing - ~$170 - $200 USD without subscription, which, it is worth noting, would make the device useless (pricing as of June 2010).

Availability - North America

Volume Estimations

For the purposes of this teardown analysis, we have assumed a lifetime production volume of 250K 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 are different by an order of magnitude, minor changes in volume (say 1 million vs. 2) rarely have a large net effect on our final analysis because of this.

Cost Notes

Main Cost Drivers (Representing ~80% of total materials cost)

$11.14 - Qualcomm - MSM6171 - Baseband Processor - Single Chip, CDMA 1xEV-DO

$11 - Display Module Value Line Item - 3.5" Diagonal, 65K Color TFT LCD, 320 x 240 Pixels

$8.25 - SanDisk - SDIN2C2-4G - Flash - iNAND, 4GB, 2.7-3.6V

$5.30 - Atmel - Touchscreen Assembly / Display Window - 3.5" Diagonal, Capative, Glass Window, w/ Integral Flex PCB, Metal Stiffener & 10-Position Board to Board Plug Connector

$5.15 - Qualcomm - MBP1610 - DTV Receiver - FLO TV

$4.60 - Battery - Li-Ion, 3.7V, 1500mAh, 5.55Wh

$3.20 - Hynix - H8ACS0QJ0MCR-46M - MCP - 512Mb NAND Flash + 512Mb Mobile DDR (Content estimated)

$2.68 - 6-Layer - FR4/RCF HDI, 1+4+1

$2.14 - AC-USB Adapter - 5V, 1A, w/ Clear Polycarbonate Protect Cover

$1.76 - Qualcomm - PM6650 - Power Management IC - w/ USB-OTG Transceiver

$1.07 - Epson - S1R72V17B05Q - USB 2.0 Host / Device Controller

$1.06 - Enclosure, Main, Top - Injection Molded Glass-Filled Polycarbonate, Painted, w/ Insert Moded Stainless Steel, 7 Threaded Inserts & ESD/EMI Coating

$1.02 - Enclosure, Main, Bottom - Injection Molded ABS Polycarbonate, Silver Painted, w/ ESD/EMI Coating

$1 - Atmel - AT42QT4160 - Touchsreen Controller

$0.94 - Viewing Stand - Die-Cast Aluminum, w/ Soft Touch Paint, Printed

Direct Materials $75.02

Total BOM Cost $81.02

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. 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/EMS/ODM Relationships

Unknown - assumed to be built in-house by HTC.

Country of Origin / Volume Assumptions

Based on markings, the unit was assembled in Taiwan (with some components clearly coming from China). Furthermore, we have assumed that custom mechanicals (plastics, metals, etc.) were sourced in China.

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 display module), 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 HTC PTV-350 has an overall component count of 490 excluding box contents. This is roughly half the count of typical high-end smartphones such as the iPhone and similar HTC models - with counts close to 1000. In a nustshell, this is a simple device from a raw component-count point of view.

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. The cost of manufacturing is also, to some extent, decreased in this case because of assumed labor rate applied for Mexico.

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

HTC's PTV-350 is, as mentioned before a dedicated device designed strictly to showcase MediaFLO mobile TV, and, logically, as a result, is a fairly straightforward design, and well integrated, that features two core Qualcomm devices at the center of the design: the Qualcomm MSM6171 Baseband Processor, and the Qualcomm MBP1610 Flo TV (DTV) receiver chip. Obviously, the user-facing 3.5" TFT screen with a Apple-like touchscreen (complete with oleophobic coating, as with the iPhone), is also a noteworthy feature, but aside from that, most of the components beyond this triad are rather banal, and mostly off the shelf discrete solutions from well known manufacturers.

Major Components Include:

Touchscreen / Display

• Display Module- 3.5" Diagonal, TBD Color TFT LCD, 320 x 240 Pixels

• Touchscreen Assembly - 3.5" Diagonal, Capative, Glass Window, w/ Integral Flex PCB, Metal Stiffener & 10-Position Board to Board Plug Connector

Main PCB

Baseband

• Baseband - Qualcomm - MSM6171 - Baseband Processor - Single Chip, CDMA 1xEV-DO

• DTV Receiver - Qualcomm - MBP1610 - DTV Receiver - FLO TV

Memory

• Flash - SanDisk - SDIN2C2-4G - iNAND, 4GB, 2.7-3.6V
• MCP - Hynix - H8ACS0QJ0MCR-46M - NAND Flash + Mobile DDR

Battery / Power Management

• Qualcomm - PM6650 - Power Management IC - w/ USB-OTG Transceiver

User Interface

• USB 2.0 Host / Device Controller - Epson - S1R72V17B05Q
• Touchsreen Controller - Atmel - AT42QT4160
• Microcontroller - Atmel - ATmega88PA-MMH - 8-bit AVR, 20MHz, 23 Programmable I/O Lines, w/ 8K Bytes In-System Programmable Flash & 1K Bytes SRAM