SonyEricsson k610i Mobile Phone Teardown

Main Features

Mid to high-end 3G UMTS 2100 / tri-band GSM/GPRS candybar camera phone with dual camera modules (2 MP and VGA), and also features a 1.9 inch 262K color 176 x 220 resolution screen. This phone also features Bluetooth 2.0, USB, a 'fair' amount of internal memory in an MCP - 512Mb Flash, 128Mb SDRAM and expandable Memory Stick Micro™ (M2™) expansion slot. This phone is promoted as an affordable 3G phone in the size and weight of a 2G phone.

SonyEricsson k610i Mobile Phone Main Image

Primarily the focus feature of this phone is it's 3G feature-set and the fact that it is packed into a fairly traditional size (17mm thickness) and weight (92g) early WCDMA phones analyzed here weighed nearly double this (as much as 168g!) and were much clunkier.

We have only recently begun to see SonyEricsson UMTS/WCDMA 3G phones. Nonetheless we recently analyzed the V630i, and Sharp 770SH which both share much core silicon commonality with this phone (the Sharp phone is entirely based on Ericsson design.)

Target Market

Previously we had commented on other 3G+ models (especially HSDPA) that such phones specifically would have to focus primarily on those users who intend to leverage the media and high speed 3G data transfer speeds in conjunction with speical subscription services from service providers. While early adopters may still be the prime target for HSPDA phones, 3G UMTS/WCDMA phones are, in those markets where the network is well deployed (Europe, Japan and a few other markets) quickly becoming the new mid-range - and this phone, as well as the Nokia 6151 seem to be focusing on making 3G accessible to the mainstream.

Nonetheless this product will primarily be focused on those regional markets with broad WCDMA/UMTS network coverage (Europe).

SonyEricsson k610i Mobile Phone (iSi) - Main PCB - Top

Per press releases - announced 13th Feb 2006.

Pricing and Availability

Per SonyEricsson - regional availability will be: Europe, Asia Pacific, Middle East, Africa

SonyEricsson k610i Mobile Phone (iSi) - Main PCB - Bottom

UMTS/3G phones are not as new as HSDPA/3.5G phones on the market and have ramped significantly recently, based on our overall market assumptions, and SonyEricsson's market shares, model introductions, etc., we estimate a relatively healthy lifetime production volume of 3.5 million units for this model.

As a reminder, volume production assumptions are not meant to be necessarily 'market accurate', and our meant primarily to be 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).

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. From our most recent revision of this tool iSuppli estimates shipments of 5.2M WCDMA 2100 tri-band GPRS (900/1800/1900) handsets in 2006 by SonyEricsson; with the introduction of 9 WCDMA 2100 GPRS tri-band (900/1800/1900) handsets in 2006 by SonyEricsson.

Function / Performance

Functional testing was not performed on the SonyEricsson k610i.

Manufacturing Notes

Country of Origin / Volume Assumptions

This product is labeled as Made in China, furthermore, we have assumed that for the k610i, the PCB was also populated in China, and that custom mechanicals (plastics and metals) were also sourced domestically 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 chargers), 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.

The issue of labor rates was revisited in Q2 2006 as we began to apply some research by one the major worldwide EMS suppliers and are now applying some of their research on total loaded costs by country and region to arrive at these new rates which are pronouncedly higher on the low end in China. Remember 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.

Design for Manufacturing / Device Complexity

When comparing this WCDMA phone to all of the other WCDMA phones analyzed in the last year this phone, along with the 4 other units analyzed in parallel are basically 5 of the phones with the lowest component counts seen to date. Part of this is due to the fact that this phone and the others against which it was simultaneously analyzed are candybar form factor (vs sliders or clamshell) designs. This factor primarily affects the mechanical component count and final assembly complexity.

Nonetheless, at a component count of 764 components, of which 107 components are discrete mechanical components, puts this phone at the average point of those WCDMA phones seen in the last year or so. However, the absolute winner seen thus far, and a far cry from this phone in this air interface standard in terms of component counts, is the Nokia 6151. (see 6151 analysis for details.

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

The SonyEricsson k610i shares a fair amount in common with the recently analyzed SonyEricsson V630i and Sharp770SH designs (which uses Ericsson's 3G mobile platform). Major component selections are all nearly identical with these 3 models.

Here is a summary of the major components used in the SonyEricsson k610i design:

Main PCB

Baseband

• DBB - Ericsson (Texas Instruments) - D761761A1Z (B1Z in v630i) - Digital Baseband
• DBB - Ericsson (Texas Instruments) - D751980CIZ (same as v630i) - Applications Processor
• ABB - Texas Instruments - TWL93016FZQW (same as v630i) - Analog Baseband / Power Management

Memory

• MCP - 512Mb Flash, 128Mb SDRAM, 1.8V - Intel - xx38F5060M0Y0 (same config used in v630i, but ST Micro).

PAM

• PAM - WCDMA, 1920MHz - 1980MHz - Skyworks - SKY77412 (same in v630i)
• PAM - Tri-Band, GSM900/DCS1800/PCS1900 - Skyworks - SKY77334 (same in v630i)

RF Transceiver (all same as v630i)

• RF Transceiver (GSM) - Philips - RF2001 - ZIF, Tri-Band GSM
• RF Receiver - Philips - RF2111 - WCDMA
• RF Transmitter - Philips - RF2101 - WCDMA

User Interface

• ST Microelectronics - STLC2500A - Bluetooth - Single Chip, V1.1 & V1.2, 0.13um (same in v630i)

Camera Module

Primary Camera Module

• Image sensor - Micron (Due to die damage positive ID not possible). Assumed to be MT9D112. (v630i featured and OmniVision OV2640 2MP image sensor)

Secondary Camera Module

• Image Sensor - Micron Technology - MT9V112 - VGA, CMOS, 1/6' Format - 3.60um x 3.60um Pixel Size, 2.30mm x 1.73mm Active Image Area (same as v630i)

Display Module

• 1.9' Diagonal, 262K Color TFT, 176 x 220 Pixels

SonyEricsson k610i Mobile Phone (iSi) - Box Contents