Motorola RAZR V3A Mobile Phone Teardown

Overview / Main Features

The Motorola RAZR V3a is one of many RAZR models. The "a suffix denotes CDMA version of the RAZR and is made specifically for Alltel. It is not a very fancy version of the RAZR and only has the most basic features (like a single VGA camera), but is GPS capable (with paid service from provider). The phone is basically a CDMA version of one of the first RAZRs, the V3, introduced in 2004.

The RAZR has been around for several years now in many incarnations and is frankly lackluster at the 3-year mark of arrested product evolution. Nonetheless the RAZR line seems ever-popular and Motorola are content to milk the series. The benefit to Motorola ultimately is that production volumes and manufacturing experience are high allowing for lower materials costs, especially for items unique to the RAZR, such as mechanical components which must get a lot of reuse across multiple versions of the product.

Motorola RAZR V3A Mobile Phone Main Image

Entry-level users - Alltel subscribers, specifically (captive market).

Released

Press releases not found, but first citations of introduction are from end Q2 2007.

Motorola RAZR V3A Mobile Phone - Main PCB Top

Pricing - Available with plan for $49.99 from Alltel online store (after rebates) - available unlocked on Motorola online store for $189.99 USD at the time of writing (Jan 08).

Availability - USA - Via Alltel.

Volume Estimations

For the purposes of this teardown, we estimate unit shipments for the Motorola RAZR V3a over the course of a 2-year production lifetime would be on an order of magnitude around 4.5 million units.

It should be noted, however, as we mentioned above - the RAZR line has so many versions, the commonality of parts should be very high allowing Motorola to leverage components such as custom plastics and metals to the bare minimum, since real production volumes are much higher for these 'shared components' than just the total assumed volume for this model only.

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.

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 volume shipments of 125 million CDMA 1x handsets in the 2008 global market; and we further estimate unit shipments of 141 million VGA camera-equipped phones to ship in the in 2008 global market.

Furhermore, it is interesting to note that Motorola has floundered in terms of worldwide market shares as it struggles to find new products to replace the initially very popular RAZR (which obviously continues to survive here). Between 2006 and 2007, we estimate that Motorola's share dropped from a commanding total of 26.5% market share in 2006, to around 19% in 2007. We forecast that Motorola will regain some of their lost share over the coming years.

Motorola RAZR V3A Mobile Phone Cost Analysis

Main Cost Drivers Representing ~67 of total materials cost as follows :

Qualcomm - MSM6100 - Baseband Processor - Single-Chip, CDMA2000 1X Rev.A, GPS & Bluetooth - Qty(1)

Primary Display Module - 2.2' Diagonal, 65k Color TFT, 176 x 220 Pixels - Qty(1)

Samsung - K5D1212DCM-S075 - MCP - 512Mb NAND Flash + 512 Mb Mobile DRAM - Qty(1)

Motorola - BZ60 - Battery - Li-Ion, 3.7V, 900mAh - Qty(1)

Camera Module - VGA CMOS, 1/6' Format - Qty(1)

ATI - IMAGEON 2240 - Multimedia Co-Processor - Qty(1)

PCB - 3-Layer - Flex Kapton, w/ Metal Stiffener - Qty(1)

Secondary Display Module - 1.0' Diagonal, 80 x 96 Pixels, 65K Color STN - Qty(1)

Qualcomm - RFR6155 - RF Receiver - ZIF, Dual-Band CDMA2000 1X, 800/1900MHz, GPS - Qty(1)

Taiyo Yuden - EWSCBBQXX - Bluetooth Module Line Item Value - Qty(1)

Qualcomm - PM6650 - Power Management IC - Qty(1)

TriQuint Semiconductor - TQM663017A - Transmit Module - PAM - CDMA 1900MHz, w/ Integrated Duplexer - Qty(1)

Skyworks - SKY77408-18 - Transmit Module - PAM - CDMA 800MHz, w/ Integrated Duplexer - Qty(1)

PCB - 2-Layer - Flex Kapton - Qty(1)

Main PCB 8-Layer - FR4/RCF HDI - 2+4+2 - Qty(1)

Qualcomm - RFT6150 - RF Transmitter - ZIF, Dual-Band, CDMA2000 1X - Qty(1)

Materials and Manufacturing $72.30

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)", we estimate that Motorola outsource approximately 40% of their manufacturing of handsets (2006 figure), and that the bulk of this goes to Compal Communications and Foxconn.

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 Bluetooth or certain RF modules), 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

From a total component count perspective, the RAZR V3a (at a total component count of 636) fits somewhere between the original RAZR V3 (574) and the recently analyzed RAZR V3xx (at 799).

As expected, despite the wide range of Motorola RAZR incarnations, the mechanical components and the count of those components is relatively stable, suggesting that Motorola are designing each version to maximize re-use of components, especially mechanical components, which are typically model-unique, and being custom, have significant design and NRE up-front costs that are minimized when volumes are maximized. It would seem that the RAZR therefore benefits from keeping the mechanical design as repeatable as possible. The total mechanical component count is 147, vs 136 in the original RAZR V3, and 137 in the RAZR V3xx.

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.

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 core of the RAZR V3a design is the Qualcomm MSM6100 chipset. The last time we saw this chipset and a phone designed around it was two years ago (2/06), in the Motorola V265. As is typical with designs featuring Qualcomm chipsets, most of the core silicon is Qualcomm. This device uses a Qualcomm power management solution (PM6650) and RF Receiver and Transmitter (RFR6155 and RFT6150).

The other most noteworthy chip in this design is the ATI IMAEGON 2240 multimedia co-processor. We have seen many IMAGEON processors in (and almost exclusively in) many other Motorola phones (HTC and LG being the rare exceptions).

Main PCB

Baseband

Baseband Processor - Single-Chip, CDMA2000 1X Rev.A, GPS & Bluetooth - Qualcomm - MSM6100

Power Management

Power Management IC - Qualcomm - PM6650

Load Management - Controlled Turn-On, 200mA Current Limited, w/ Thermal Shut Down - Fairchild Semiconductor - FPF2174

RF / PA

RF Receiver - ZIF, Dual-Band CDMA2000 1X, 800/1900MHz, GPS - Qualcomm - RFR6155

RF Transmitter - ZIF, Dual-Band, CDMA2000 1X - Qualcomm - RFT6150

Transmit Module - PAM - CDMA 1900MHz, w/ Integrated Duplexer - TriQuint Semiconductor - TQM663017A

Transmit Module - PAM - CDMA 80000MHz, w/ Integrated Duplexer - Skyworks - SKY77408-18

Memory

MCP - 512Mb NAND Flash + 512 Mb Mobile DRAM - Samsung - K5D1212DCM-S075

User Interface

Bluetooth Transceiver - V1.1 & 1.2, for Qualcomm-Based Handset - Broadcom - BCM2004KW8G

Display Area PCB

Multimedia Co-Processor - ATI - IMAGEON 2240

Display

Primary LCD Display Unit - 65K Color TFT, 176 x 220 Pixels, 35.0mm x 43.8mm Viewable Area

Secondary LCD Display Unit - 65k Color STN, 80 x 96 Pixels, 15.9mm x 19.1mm Viewable Area

Camera Module

Image Sensor - Omni Vision - OV7670

VGA, CMOS, 1/6"" Format - Fixed Lens

Motorola RAZR V3A Mobile Phone - Enclosure Disassembly