Overview / Main Features
The HTC Aria is essentially a US market version of the affordable Android smartphone that HTC pioneered with the Wildfire. The 3.2 inch touchscreen handset does pack a higher resolution screen that the one found in the Wildfire, but aside from that improvement, the Aria essentially sticks to the low cost component design script of using Qualcomm MSM72xx baseband processor, capacitive touch, a near identical 5MP camera module, GPS, BT/WLAN, accelerometer and even HTC's much lauded Sense UI overlay.
Overall, the dual-band UMTS / quad-band GSM handset is HSDPA capable on 900 and 2100 MHz frequencies making the device a European and Asian centric 3G handset. Just like the Wildfire, the Aria has approximately 4Gb of onboard NAND which is partitioned and shared with the OS image. Also, a 2GB microSD card is made available to off load additional storage needs.
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Affordable smartphone segment
Released
June 2010
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Pricing - A "no-commitment price for the Aira (according to AT&T's website) is $379. Otherwise, the Aria is offered for free with 2 year contract.
Availability - US (AT&T Wireless)
Volume Estimations
For the purposes of this teardown analysis, we have applied a lifetime production volume of approximately 1.5M 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.
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Main Cost Drivers ~90% of Total Materials Cost
Qualcomm - MSM7227 - Baseband Processor - Quad-Band GSM/EDGE, UMTS, HSDPA 7.2Mbps, HSUPA 5.76Mbps, Bluetooth 2.1, GPS, 600MHz ARM Core CPU w/ 320MHz Application DSP, 400MHz Modem Processor & Hardware-Accelerated 3D Graphics, 65nm
Display Module Value Line Item - 3.2' Diagonal, 262K Color TFT, 320x480 Pixels
Display Window / Touchscreen Assembly - 3.2' Diagonal, Capacitive, ITO Film Over Glass Faceplate, Painted, Printed, Contains Synaptics T1021A Touchscreen Controller, w/ Integral Flex PCB, & Board to Board Connector
Samsung Semiconductor - KA1000012M-BJTT - MCP - 4Gb NAND Flash + 3Gb Mobile DDR (Estimated)
Camera Module Value Line Item - 5.1MP, CMOS, 1/4' Format, Auto Focus Lens
Broadcom - BCM4329EKUBG - Bluetooth/FM/WLAN - Single Chip, WLAN IEEE802.11a/b/g/n, Bluetooth V2.1+EDR, FM Radio Receiver & Transmitter, 65nm
Panasonic - 10-Layer - FR4/RCF, Stacked Via (ALIVH), Lead-Free
SanDisk - MicroSD Memory Card - 2GB
TWS - BB92100 - Battery - Li-Ion, 3.7V, 1200mAh
Unitech - 7-Layer - Rigid/Flex Hybrid, FR4/Kapton, 2+3+2, Lead-Free, Halogen-Free
Emerson Network Power - TC U250 - Charger - AC to USB, 5V, 1A
Qualcomm - PM7540 - Power Management IC - w/ Integrated USB Transceiver
Qualcomm - RTR6285 - RF Transceiver - ZIF, Quad-Band GSM/EDGE, Tri-Band UMTS Transceiver, HSDPA, w/ Integrated GPS Receiver & Receive Diversity
Enclosure, Main, Top - Die-Cast Magnesium, in Injection Molded Plastic Frame, w/ 2 Threaded Brass Inserts, Painted
Handsfree Accessory - Stereo, w/ 3 Handsfree Control Buttons, Spring Loaded Plastic Clip
Skyworks - SKY77336-21 - PAM - Quad-Band GSM / GPRS / EDGE, w/ Integrated Power Control
Direct Materials + Manufacturing $124.26
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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 Taiwan. Furthermore, we have assumed that custom mechanicals (plastics, metals, etc.) were also sourced in Taiwan.
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.
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Design for Manufacturing / Device Complexity
The HTC Aria under analysis here has an overall component count of 970 (excluding box contents), of which, 667 reside on the main PCB. HTC typically occupy the extreme ends of our complexity chart. Even for a purported low-end smartphone, the Aria comes in at higher than most other OEMs like Nokia and Samsung for the same level of functionality.
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 Taiwan.
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 Aria features a MSM7227 baseband processor which we have seen in previous HTC Android handsets such as the Legend as well as other purported low cost smartphones such as the Sony Ericsson X10 Mini and Samsung GT-I5500. As with most other Qualcomm based handsets from HTC, the Aria draws heavily from other Qualcomm design solutions such as the PM7540 power management IC and RTR6285 RF Transceiver.
Just as in the Wildfire, the Aria uses the same Broadcom BCM4329 Bluetooth / FM / WLAN solution. On the user interface front, HTC maintains the manufacturer slots for acceleromenter (Bosch), e-compass (AKM) and capacitive touch controller (Atmel).
Here is a summary of the major components used in the HTC Aria design:
Display
- Display Module Value Line Item - 3.2' Diagonal, 262K Color TFT, 320x480 Pixels
Camera
- Camera Module Value Line Item - 5.1MP, CMOS, 1/4' Format, Auto Focus Lens
Main PCB
Apps Processing / Baseband
- Baseband Processor - Qualcomm - MSM7227
BT / FM / GPS / WLAN
- Bluetooth/FM/WLAN - Broadcom - BCM4329EKUBG, Single Chip, WLAN IEEE802.11a/b/g/n, Bluetooth V2.1+EDR, FM Radio Receiver & Transmitter, 65nm
Memory
MCP - Samsung Semiconductor - KA1000012M-BJTT, 4Gb NAND Flash + 3Gb Mobile DDR (Estimated)
RF / PA
- Transceiver - Qualcomm - RTR6285, RF ZIF, Quad-Band GSM/EDGE, Tri-Band UMTS Transceiver, HSDPA, w/ Integrated GPS Receiver & Receive Diversity
- PAM - Skyworks - SKY77336-21, Quad-Band GSM / GPRS / EDGE, w/ Integrated Power Control
- PAM - Avago Technologies - ACPM-5405, WCDMA/HSDPA 850, 836.5MHz
- PAM - Skyworks - SKY77187, WCDMA/HSDPA 1900, 1880MHz
User Interface
Microcontroller - Atmel - ATmega88PA-MMH, 8-bit AVR, 20MHz, w/ 8K Bytes In-System Programmable Flash & 1K Bytes SRAM & 512 Bytes EEPROM
Accelerometer - Bosch Sensortec - BMA150, MEMS 3-Axis, +-2g/4g/8g, Digital Output
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