LG Secret (KF750) Mobile Phone Teardown

Overview / Main Features

The LG KF750 (Secret) is the 3rd in the "Black Label" series of mobile phones from LG Electronics [along with the KE970 (Shine) and KG800 & VX8500 (Chocolate)]. Announced early in 2008, this 11.8mm thick slider carries fashion-forward design cues accented by the use of exotic materials such as textured faux leather and carbon fiber panel as well as tempered glass over the touch screen and primary display.

As a phone, the KF750 is a dual mode GSM/UMTS device featuring HSDPA. It boasts an auto-rotating 2.4 inch display packaged with a 5 mega-pixel camera module with LED flash in a slider mechanical chassis. Along with the pre-requisite suite of multimedia functionalities, LG has also included a "Google Package" featuring Google Search, Gmail, Maps, YouTube and Blogger applications to further distinguish the KF750 offerings. Like other competitive handsets in its class, the KF750 has a fairly generous 100 MB of user accessible internal storage with a maximum of 4GB of external storage via microSD.

A big surprise in this teardown is the fact that this particular LG handset, unlike all other 3G LG handsets previously analyzed by iSuppli, does not contain any Qualcomm parts. LG apparently have opted for the Ericsson U360 platform for this specific HSDPA phone.

Target Market

High-end style-conscious consumer segment

Released

Per press releases, first release in select markets on June 2008.

Pricing and Availability

Pricing - The KF750 is available through various high-end boutique mobile phone e-tailors in the US for as low as $530 at the time of writing (August 2008). However, if the phone is sold through a network carrier in select global markets, the cost may be significantly reduced due to service provider subsidies.

Availability - The LG Secret handset is currently available in through carriers in select global markets such as the European, Latin American and Asian markets that support the 2100MHz UMTS/HSDPA frequency.

Volume Estimations

For the purposes of this teardown analysis, we have assumed a lifetime production volume of 1.3M 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.

iSuppli's Design Forecast Tool (DFT) and Market Shares

As part of iSuppli's Design Forecast Tool (DFT), we forecast handset shipments by major design feature and manufacture, as well as the number of design starts a manufacturer will have by feature set.

iSuppli estimates unit shipments of 168 million HSDPA handsets in 2008 global market. We further estimate 40 million units of 5 megapixel camera phones to ship in the 2008 global market. All estimates are based on a 2 year product life span assumption with an overall global market share of 7% for LG.

Cost Notes

Major Cost Drivers (Representing 64% of Total Direct Materials Costs)

$14.53 - Primary Camera Module - 5MP, CMOS, 1/3.2'" Format, Auto Focus Lens

$11.25 - ST Microelectronics - DB3150 - DBB - Digital Baseband Processor

$11.00 - Touchscreen Assembly - 2-Layer Glass, Painted, w/ Integral Flex PCB, Touch Controller & Board to Board Connector

$7.70 - Display Module - 2.4'" Diagonal, 262K Color TFT, 240 x 320 pixels

$6.97 - Samsung Semiconductor - KAL00900BM-DJ55 - MCP - 2Gb NAND Flash, 1Gb Mobile SDRAM (Assumed)

$5.45 - Zoran - ZR345398BGCF - Applications Processor - ARM9, 270MHz, 90nm, w/ Integral 5MP ISP for CCD and CMOS Sensors

$3.38 - Secondary Camera Module - VGA, CMOS, 1/7.4'" Format, Fixed Lens

$2.90 - LG - LGIP-470A - Battery - Li-ion, 3.7V, 800mAh

$2.50 - ST Microelectronics - E-STLC2593 - Bluetooth / FM Radio - Single Chip, V2.1+EDR, w/ FM Radio Receiver

$2.37 - NXP Semiconductors - RF3100 - RF Transceiver - Single-Band WCDMA/HSDPA 2100MHz

$2.27 - Texas Instruments - TWL93022IZ0W - ABB - Analog Baseband / Power Management

$2.19 - NXP Semiconductors - RF3000 - RF Transceiver - Quad-Band GSM/GPRS/EDGE

$1.70 - Skyworks - SKY77519-11 - PAM - Quad-Band, GSM/GPRS/EDGE w/ Integrated SP7T Antenna Switch

Total Direct Materials$116.35

Materials and Manufacturing $122.12

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/ODM/EMS Relationships / Manufacturing

According to iSuppli's Global OEM Manufacturing and Design Analysis - Mobile Handsets Q1 2008, LG's manufacturing profile is mostly an in-house operation with about 6% of their volume outsourced. This represents a near doubling of outsourced production activity for the company since 2006 which splits fairly even between Arima and Flextronics.Like most of the top handset manufacturers, LG utilizes EMS partners to produce the low end handsets while keeping mid to high tier handset production close to home.

Country of Origin / Volume Assumptions

Based on markings, the unit was assembled in Korea. Furthermore, we have assumed that PCB sub-assemblies and custom mechanicals (plastics, metals, etc.) were also sourced in Korea.

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 LCD), 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 KF750 has a component count of 762 (excluding box contents), of which, 179 are mechanical in nature. This represents a very modest component count with respect to the other 3.5G device analyzed in this comparative teardown analysis. As a point of reference, the previously analyzed 3.5G LG KU990 (high-end 3G camera phone) had an overall complexity of 841 components.

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 China.

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

Here is a summary of the major components used in the KF750 design:

Main PCB

Digital Baseband

DBB - ST Microelectronics - DB3150

Analog Baseband / Power Management

ABB - Texas Instruments - TWL93022IZ0W

Memory

NAND Flash & Mobile SDRAM - Samsung Semiconductor - KAL00900BM-DJ55

User Interface

Application Processor - Zoran - ZR345398BGCF

Bluetooth / FM Radio- ST Microelectronics - E-STLC2593

USB On-the-Go Transceiver - NXP Semiconductors - ISP1508AET

RF Transceiver

RF Transceiver - NXP Semiconductors - RF3100

RF Transceiver - NXP Semiconductors - RF3000

Power Amplifier

PAM - Skyworks - SKY77519-11

PAM - Skyworks - SKY77174-14

Display

Display Module - 2.6'" Diagonal, 262K Color TFT, 240 x 320 pixels

Touch Screen

Synaptics - Touchscreen Assembly - 2-Layer Glass, Painted, w/ Integral Flex PCB, Touch Controller & Board to Board Connector

Touch Sensor Controller - Synaptics

Image Sensor

Aptina - MT9P012D00STCM - (5.0MP, CMOS, 1/3.2" Format)

LG Secret (KF750) Mobile Phone_(iSi) - Box Contents