SonyEricsson C902 Mobile Phone Teardown

Overview / Main Features

The SonyEricsson C902 is a high-end "Cyber-shot feature phone model from the Japanese-Swedish firm. The slim C902 has a candy-bar form with a short-travel slide mechanism to both uncover and activate the 5 mega-pixel imager. The C902 was launched in the GSMA Mobile World Congress in February of 2008 as the top-of-the-line HSDPA camera phone with a design philosophy of ""ease-of-use" and ""best-in-class". In fact, SonyEricsson describes the C902 as an ""image and style statement" with innovations such as face detection and auto focus capabilities along with a fashionable yet simple design.

Overall, the C902 offers single-band UMTS/HSPDA (2100MHz) and quad-band GSM/EDGE network support. The handset sports an auto-rotating 2 inch QVGA display with 262K colors and a pair of illuminated touch panels on either sides of the main screen to support camera functionalities. To round out the package, SonyEricsson has included a secondary CIF camera for video conferencing, Bluetooth connectivity, FM radio and memory expansion (beyond the on-board 160MB available to users) via Memory Stick Micro removable media.

SonyEricsson C902 Mobile Phone Main Image

High-end camera-phone consumer segment

Released

Per press releases, first announced in February 2008 and subsequently released in the following quarter.

SonyEricsson C902 Mobile Phone - Main PCB Top

Pricing - The C902 is available through various high-end boutique mobile phone e-tailors in the US for as low as $470 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 SonyEricsson C902 handset is currently available in through carriers in select global markets such as Europe that support the 2100MHz UMTS/HSDPA frequency. SonyEricsson will likely also make available the handset to other GSM coverage markets such as the US (according to literature on their website).

Volume Estimations

For the purposes of this teardown analysis, we have assumed a lifetime production volume of 2.8M 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.

SonyEricsson C902 Mobile Phone - Main PCB Bottom

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 9% for SonyEricsson.

SonyEricsson C902 Mobile Phone Cost Analysis

Major Cost Drivers (Representing 61% of Direct Materials Costs)

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

ST Microelectronics - DB3150 - DBB - Digital Baseband Processor, PoP

Display Module - 2.0'' Diagonal, 262K Color TFT, 240 x 320 Pixels

Samsung Semiconductor - KAL00900MM-AJ55 - MCP - 2Gb NAND Flash, 1Gb Mobile SDRAM, 1.8V, PoP (Assumed)

NEC - Applications Processor - ARM Core

Sony Ericsson - BST-38 - Battery - Li-Polymer, 3.6V, 930mAh

Dialog Semiconductor - AB3100 - ABB - Analog Baseband / Power Management

ST Microelectronics - STLC2592 - Bluetooth / FM Radio - Single Chip, V2.1+EDR, w/ FM Radio Receiver

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

UniMicron Technology - 10-Layer - FR4/RCF HDI, 3+4+3, Lead-Free, Halogen-Free

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

Secondary Camera Module - SGA, CMOS, 1/9'' Format, Fixed Lens

Epson - S1D13771B01B20B - Video/Image Driver - TV-Out Graphics Engine, 8bit I/F Indirect Addressing, 228KB SRAM, Parallel Host Interface, DAC & PAL/NTSC Output

Materials and Manufacturing $112.89

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

Per iSuppli's ""Global OEM Manufacturing and Design Analysis (GOMDA) - Mobile Handsets Q1 2008", we estimate that SonyEricsson outsources approximately 65% of its production to EMS providers such as Flextronics and Foxconn, as well as ODMs like Arima and Chi Mei Communications.

Country of Origin / Volume Assumptions

Based on markings, the unit was assembled in China. Furthermore, we have assumed that custom mechanicals (plastics, metals, etc.) were also 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 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.

SonyEricsson C902 Mobile Phone - Enclosure Disassembly

Design for Manufacturing / Device Complexity

The C902 has a component count of 950 (excluding box contents), of which, 131 were mechanical in nature. This is a higher-than-usual component count with respect to other 3.5G handsets within its competitive set. In fact, the C902 has the highest parts count of the 6 participating phones in this comparative teardown analysis mainly driven by the higher number of passive electronic components. As a reference, the previously analyzed SonyEricsson Z750 (US HSDPA) flip phone had a device complexity of 791 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 SonyEricsson C902 design:

Main PCB

Digital Baseband / Memory

DBB (Digital Baseband Processor) - ST Microelectronics - B3150

2Gb NAND & 1Gb Mobile SDRAM (MCP) - KAL00900MM-AJ55 - Samsung Semiconductor

Analog Baseband / Power Management

ABB (Analog Baseband / Power Management) - AB3100 - Dialog Semiconductor

User Interface

Applications Processor - ARM Core - NEC

Bluetooth / FM Radio - STLC2592 - ST Microelectronics

USB On-the-Go Transceiver - SP1508AET - NXP Semiconductors

Video/Image Driver - S1D13771B01B20B - Epson

RF Transceiver

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

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

Power Amplifier

PAM (Quad-Band, GSM/GPRS/EDGE) - SKY77329-15 - Skyworks

PAM (WCDMA/HSDPA) - SKY77174-14 - Skyworks

Display

2.0'' Diagonal, 262K Color TFT with 240 x 320 Pixels

Camera

Image Sensor (5.0MP) - Sony

"

SonyEricsson C902 Mobile Phone - Box Contents