Nokia N95 Mobile Phone Teardown

Overview / Main Features

The Nokia N95 has been one of Nokia's 'hot' high-end phones for a while now, especially in light of all the iPhone hype, basically any phone with a remotely similar media / web capable feature-set has also garnered a lot of attention - and for Nokia it's the N series, but especially the N95 getting this attention. The device itself has several more powerful features than the iPhone: it is HSDPA enabled (vs. the iPhone's trailing EDGE technology), features GPS (a more obvious shortcoming of the iPhone), and a 5MP camera (a first sighting in iSuppli phone teardowns).

In addition to these features. the N95 is a slider form factor phone with HSDPA and quad-band GSM air interface, WiFi, Bluetooth 2.0 (EDR), and features Symbian OS 9.2. From a hardware perspective, this phone is pushing the envelope and features a complete contingent of all the latest features, and spares little expense to achieve it's feature-richness.

But the one thing many other manufacturer's have yet to completely seize upon is that the magic of the iPhone against which they all compete is in the user experience - especially the touschscreen interface and software, not so much the rest of the hardware, but it's hard for us to comment in a fair manner on how the N95 fares in these respects as we did not perform much user testing on the device. Although based on hardware specs alone, it beats the iPhone in many respects, but from a software perspective, from our limited doodling, Nokia has a way to go on the user interface experience.

Nokia N95 Mobile Phone Main Image

High-end mainstream consumer segment - comparable to iPhone market.

Per Nokia: Nokia Nseries is a range of high performance multimedia computers that delivers unparalleled mobile multimedia experiences by combining the latest technologies with stylish design and ease of use. With Nokia Nseries products, consumers can use a single device to enjoy entertainment, access information and to capture and share pictures and videos, on the go at any time

Released

Per Nokia's press release (Sept 2006): The Nokia N95 is expected to start shipping in volumes during the first quarter of 2007.

Pricing and Availability

Per Nokia's press release: "an estimated unsubsidized retail price of 550 euros.

Volume Estimations

For the purposes of this teardown analysis, we have assumed a lifetime production volume of 7.8 million units (2 year production lifetime).

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

ISuppli estimates unit shipments of 32 million HSDPA handsets in the 2007 global market, and we furtherer estimate unit shipments of 158 million units of GPS phones in 2007 global market by Nokia.

Function / Performance

Functional testing was not performed on the Nokia N95.

Nokia N95 Mobile Phone Cost Analysis
Nokia N95 Mobile Phone Cost Analysis

Main Cost Drivers Representing ~65% of total materials cost

Core Chipset

Texas Instruments - NMP #4377454 - DBB - Digital Baseband Processor - Qty(1)

Texas Instruments - OMAP2420 - Applications Processor - OMAP, ARM11 Core, TMS320C55x DSP, Graphics & Imaging Accelerator - Qty(1)

ST Microelectronics - NMP #4380206 - RF Transceiver - Quad-Band GSM/GPRS/EDGE, WCDMA 850/2100 - Qty(1)

ST Microelectronics - NMP #4396299 - ABB - Analog Baseband / Power Management - Qty(1)

RF Micro Devices - NMP #4355951 - PAM - Quad-Band - GSM/GPRS/EDGE - Qty(1)

Texas Instruments - TWL92230CZQE - Power Management IC - Qty(1)

ST Microelectronics - NMP #4376535 - Power Management - Battery Charger IC - Qty(1)

Camera Modules

Primary Camera Module Value Line Item - 5MP CMOS, 1/2.5' Format Auto-Focus - Qty(1)

ST Microelectronics - VS6451 - Camera Module Value Line Item - Secondary, CIF, Fixed Lens - Qty(1)

Display Module

Display Module Value Line Item - 2.6' Diagonal, 16M Color TFT, 240 x 320 Pixels - Qty(1)

User Interface ICs

ST Microelectronics - STLC4550 - RF Transceiver - WLAN, IEEE802.11b/g, w/ Integrated VCO & PMU - Qty(1)

Texas Instruments - GPS5300 - GPS - Single Chip, A-GPS, NaviLink 4.0 - Qty(1)

Texas Instruments - DM290ZWV - Applications Processor - OMAP, Image Processing - Qty(1)

ST Microelectronics - LIS302DLTR - Inertial Sensor - 3-Axis, +-2g/8g Digital Output Linear Accelerometer - Qty(1)

CSR - BC41B141B - BlueCore4 - Single Chip Bluetooth Solution, V2.0+EDR - Qty(1)

Memory

Samsung Semiconductor - K5W2G13ACM-DK60 - MCP - 2Gbit OneNAND Flash, 512Mbit Mobile SDRAM, PoP - Qty(1)

(Accessory) MicroSD Memory Card 1GB w/ SD Adapter in Plastic Case - Qty(1)

Spansion - S72NS128ND0AJW13 - MCP - 128Mbit NOR Flash + 128Mbit DDR DRAM, 110nm - Qty(1)

Samsung Semiconductor - K4M28163PH-KG750 - Mobile SDRAM - 128Mbit (2M x 16Bit x 4 Banks) - Qty(1)

Materials & Manufacturing ~$165

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

Nokia Relationships / Manufacturing

We do not currently know, down to the model, where specific models may be manufactured, or by what EMS/ODM. The only information we have for these teardown analyses is typically limited to what is noted (except for handset country of origin labeling which are still used as the driving assumptions for manufacturing costs).

Having said all of this about relationships - Nokia are assumed to be performing almost all of their own manufacturing work in house at one of 10 plants placed worldwide (about 75%), and furthermore, we estimate that approximately 80% or more of all production takes places in low-cost Nokia facilities, with the remainder in mid and high-cost countries. Major external partners included Elcoteq, Jabil and Foxconn (as of 2005).

Country of Origin / Volume Assumptions

Based on markings, the unit was assembled in Finland. Given the high costs of assembling in Finland, this device seems to follow a business model we often see with other device manufacturers: high end products are produced locally because of the high value add and lower volume production which lends itself to being 'closer to headquarters'. However, we have assumed that custom mechanicals (plastics, metals, etc.) as well as PCBA population were performed at Nokia facilities in E Europe (Hungary).

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 modules or camera 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.

Nokia N95 Mobile Phone - Enclosure Disassembly

Design for Manufacturing / Device Complexity

Nokias, as a general rule, have fewer discrete mechanical and electronic components, for the same amount of functionality than their competitors. Furthermore, Nokia have a very modular approach to designs which make them simpler to manufacture, improving production cycle times and ease of re-work. However, the Nokia N95 is undeniably more complex than the average and has a total component count of 841 components, of which 160 are mechanical components. Overall this puts this model towards the high-end when compared with other models.

The number of mechanical components usually is a direct driver of hand-assembly costs, whereas the electronic component count (and I/O count, density, etc.) are relative metrics for the more automated portion (namely SMT assembly) of manufacturing costs.

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

Although most of the ICs seen in this unit are new to iSuppli from a teardown perspective, based on external source information, it seems that the core baseband platform used in the N95 is very similar to other recent vintage Nokia models, namely the Nokia 6290.

Here is a summary of the major components used in the Nokia N95 design:

Baseband

DBB - Digital Baseband Processor - Texas Instruments - OMAP2420

DBB - Digital Baseband Processor - Texas Instruments - NMP #4377454 - RAPIDOY111E

Baseband - Battery / Power Management

ABB - ASIC - ST Microelectronics - NMP #4376535 - BETTY-V2.1-LF

Power Management IC, for OMAP24xx - Texas Instruments - TWL92230CZQER

ABB - Analog Baseband / Power Management - ST Microelectronics - NMP #4396299

Memory

Mobile SDRAM - 128Mb (2M x 16Bit x 4 Banks) - Samsung Semiconductor - K4M28163PH-KG750

MCP - 2Gb OneNAND Flash + 512Mb Mobile SDRAM - Samsung Semiconductor - K5W2G13ACM-DK60

MCP - 128Mb NOR Flash + 128Mbit DDR DRAM, 110nm - Spansion - S72NS128ND0AJW13

Power Amplifier

Duplexer - WCDMA 850MHz - Murata - SAYZW836MAA0F00

PAM - WCDMA 850/1900MHz - RF Micro Devices

Duplexer - WCDMA - Murata

RF Transceiver

RF Transceiver - ST Microelectronics - NMP #4380206 - AHUS204A

User Interface

Inertial Sensor - 3-Axis, +-2g/8g Digital Output Linear Accelerometer - ST Microelectronics - LIS302DLTR

Piezomotor Driver - for AF, Zoom, 8+1.5ch - Analog Devices - AD5801

BlueCore4ROM - Single Chip Bluetooth Solution, V2.0+EDR - CSR - BC41B143A

GPS - Single Chip, A-GPS, NaviLink 4.0 - Texas Instruments - GPS5300

Imaging Accelerator - Texas Instruments - OMAP - DM290ZWV

FM Radio - NXP Semiconductors - TEA5761UK

WLAN

RF Transceiver - WLAN, IEEE802.11b/g, w/ Integrated VCO & PMU - ST Microelectronics - STLC4550

PAM - WLAN, 2.4GHz, w/ Integrated Balun & RF Switch - RF Micro Devices - RF5924

Nokia N95 Mobile Phone - Box Contents