SonyEricsson Vivaz Pro Mobile Handset Teardown

Overview / Main Features

The Sony Ericsson Vivaz Pro (along with the non-sliding Vivaz variant) is Sony Ericsson's latest media-centric smartphone that headlines full HD (720p) video recording capability. In fact, the Vivaz was one of the first smartphones on the market with 720p video capabilities - beating Apple's iPhone 4 by nearly 6 months.

As a smartphone on the Symbian platform, the Vivaz Pro hails from a long lineage of devices that began with the UIQ flavor P800 in 2002. The last time we've encountered a Symbian smartphone from Sony Ericsson was the P1i in late 2007 which was also the last of the UIQ variants. Since that time, Sony Ericsson has moved over to the S60 version of Symbian and the Vivaz Pro is officially the 3rd and final Symbian smartphone on S60 UI conventions - all of which have been marketed as a media centric device [with the Satio being the one of the first 12MP imaging smartphones].

Unlike previous Symbian based handsets designs we've seen [and especially a stark contrast to the Nokia N8], the Vivaz Pro employs a separate apps and baseband processor design we have come to known over the past few years in the post-iPhone era. At the core of the Vivaz Pro is a Texas Instruments OMAP3430 ARM processor with Cortex A-8 core which we have previously come across on the Palm Pre, Motorola Droid, Nokia N900 as well as an Android PMP by Archos (model 7501). Designers favor this separation of apps and baseband processing due to the performance increase of offered when computing and telecommunication process threads can be separately processed in parallel fashion. [Otherwise, user side processes like video recording has to take 2nd priority to wireless call/data handling.]

Overall, this specific U8i model is a tri-band UMTS / quad-band GSM handset tune to European and Asian UMTS frequencies (the U8a variant is also available for the North American market). The full QWERTY slider comes with a 3.2 inch resistive touchscreen displaying in 16.7M colors.

SonyEricsson Vivaz Pro Mobile Handset Main Image

High end smartphones

Released

Per press release, Feb. 2010

SonyEricsson Vivaz Pro Mobile Handset - Main PCB Top

Pricing - The Sony Ericsson Vivaz Pro is available unlocked for as low as $355 from various online sources in the US. Outside of the US, the U8i specific model would likely be subsidized along with a service contract through major wireless carriers.

Availability - Global (assumed)

Volume Estimations

For the purposes of this teardown analysis, we have applied a lifetime production volume of approximately 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 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.

SonyEricsson Vivaz Pro Mobile Handset - Main PCB Bottom

Main Cost Drivers ~75% of Total Materials Cost

Display Module Value Line Item - 3.2' Diagonal, 16.7M Color TFT, 360x640 Pixels

Texas Instruments - OMAP3430 - Applications Processor - ARM Cortex A-8 Core, 65nm, PoP

Camera Module Value Line Item - 5.15MP, CMOS, 1/4' Format, Auto Focus Lens

Samsung Semiconductor - K5W2G2GACM-AL54 - MCP - 2Gb OneNAND Flash + 2Gb Mobile DDR, PoP

ST-Ericsson - DB3210 - DBB - Digital Baseband Processor, ARM926 Core, PoP

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

Texas Instruments - WL1271A - Bluetooth/FM/WLAN - Single Chip, IEEE802.11b/g/n, Bluetooth V3.0, 65nm, w/ FM Radio Transceiver

Samsung Semiconductor - K511F57ACA-A075 - MCP - 1Gb NAND Flash + 256Mb Mobile SDRAM, PoP

EP500 - Battery - Li-Polymer, 3.7V, 1200mAh

Touchscreen Assembly - 3.2' Diagonal, 4-Wire Resistive, PET Film over ITO Glass, w/ Clear Polycarbonate Faceplate, & Integral Flex PCB

Texas Instruments - TWL5030B - Power Management / Audio Codec

Dialog Semiconductor - D1705BD - ABB - Analog Baseband / Power Management

ST-Ericsson - RF3300 - RF Transceiver - Quad-Band GSM/GPRS/EDGE & Tri-Band WCDMA/HSDPA

Texas Instruments - GPS5350 - GPS - Single Chip, A-GPS, NaviLink 5.0

Direct Materials + Manufacturing $112.48

SonyEricsson Vivaz Pro Mobile Handset Cost Analysis

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

Country of Origin / Volume Assumptions

Based on the level of sophistication and function of the device, we made the assumption that 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 display), 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 SonyEricsson Vivaz Pro U8i under analysis here has an overall component count of 938 (excluding box contents), of which, 674 reside on the main PCB. This complexity level is on par with most smartphones and quite acceptable for a slider device (mechanical complexity).

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

As mentioned earlier, the most notable design feature of the Vivaz Pro is the use of a discrete apps processor and discrete baseband - an approach that ensures better performance but one that adds to the overall cost given integrated baseband processors available for the Symbian platform. In this case, the TI OMAP3430 is topped off with a Samsung PoP with 2Gb of OneNAND flash and 2Gb of Mobile DDR. On the radio side, we see that the ST-Ericsson DB3210 baseband which we've seen before in Sony Ericsson handsets comes topped off with another Samsung PoP filled with 1Gb NAND flash and 256gb of Mobile SDRAM. Aside from this design - clearly to give the handset more processing power to handle the HD video recording and file manipulation - we continue to see similar component manufacturers such as TI, Dialog (power management), ST-Micro (accelerometer), Skyworks and TriQuint (PAM)

Here is a summary of the major components used in the Sony Ericsson Vivaz Pro Handset design:

Display

• Display Module - 3.2' Diagonal, 16.7M Color TFT, 360x640 Pixels

Main PCB

Apps Processing

• Applications Processor - Texas Instruments - OMAP3430

Baseband

• Digital Baseband Processor - ST-Ericsson - DB3210

Baseband / Power Management

• Power Management / Audio Codec - Texas Instruments - TWL5030B
• Analog Baseband / Power Management - Dialog Semiconductor - D1705BD

Memory

• MCP - Samsung Semiconductor - K5W2G2GACM-AL54, 2Gb OneNAND Flash + 2Gb Mobile DDR, PoP (over Apps Processor)
• MCP -amsung Semiconductor - K511F57ACA-A075, 1Gb NAND Flash + 256Mb Mobile SDRAM, PoP (over Baseband)

BT / FM / GPS / WLAN

• Bluetooth/FM/WLAN IC - Texas Instruments - WL1271A
• GPS - Texas Instruments - GPS5350
• Transmit Module - TriQuint Semiconductor - TQM679002

RF / PA

• RF Transceiver - ST-Ericsson - RF3300
• Transmit Module - Skyworks - SKY77521-21
• PAM - Skyworks - SKY77175-4

Camera

• Camera Module - 5.15MP, CMOS, 1/4' Format, Auto Focus Lens

SonyEricsson Vivaz Pro Mobile Handset - Disassembly View 1