LG AX565 Mobile Phone Teardown

Overview / Main Features

The LG AX565 is a dual-band CDMA 2000 1X with EVDO (800 / 1900MHz) clamshell mediaphone with features that focus on music playing ability. It has a touch pad on the top of the clamshell for interacting with music features of the phone. It also has an FM radio, stereo Bluetooth, 1.3MP camera, and a microSD card slot supporting up to 4GB cards. These features are relatively standard on mid-end phones nowadays and do not differentiate this phone from the market besides the touch pad function and is GPS capable (with paid service from provider).

The LG AX565 is similar to the LG LX570, aka LG Muziq, in appearance and features; thus unsurprisingly, also shares many identical chips. All of the major chips in the LG AX565 are identical to the LG LX570 and appear to be the same design being reused.

LG AX565 Mobile Phone Main Image

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

Released

No official release date found, but first seen at LG booth in CES 2008 during Q1 2008.

LG AX565 Mobile Phone - Main PCB Top

Pricing - The LG AX565 was announced at CES 2008 but no word of pricing was released.

Availability - USA - Via Alltel

Volume Estimations

For the purposes of this teardown, we estimate unit shipments for the LG Muziq over the course of a 2-year production lifetime would be on an order of magnitude around 1.3 million 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.

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 unit shipments of 125 million CDMA 1x handsets in the 2008 global market; we further estimate shipments of 303 million 1Megapixel camera phones in the 2008 global market.

Furthermore, iSuppli, as of H2 2007, estimates LG's total 2008 market share at approximately 7% of the total market in terms of unit shipments.

LG AX565 Mobile Phone Cost Analysis

Main Cost Drivers Representing ~62% of total materials cost as follows :

Qualcomm - MSM6500 - Baseband Processor - Single-Chip, CDMA2000 1X, GPS & Bluetooth - Qty(1)

Display Module - 2.2' Diagonal, 262K Color TFT LCD, 220 x 176 pixels - Qty(1)

Hynix - HYG0SEG0AF1P-6SH0E - MCP - 512Mb NAND Flash + 512Mb Mobile SDRAM, Pb Free - Qty(1)

Display Module - 1.3' Diagonal, 65K Color TFT LCD, 160 x 128 pixels - Qty(1)

Camera Module - 1.3MP CMOS, 1/3.8' Format - Fixed Lens - Qty(1)

LG - LGIP-470A - Battery - Li-Ion, 3.7V, 800mAh - Qty(1)

Qualcomm - RFR6500 - RF Receiver - ZIF, Dual-Band CDMA2000 1X, 800/1900MHz, GPS - Qty(1)

Anapass - ANA5551BG - LCD/Camera Interface Serializer / Deserializer - Qty(2)

PCB - 3-Layer - Flex Kapton, w/2 Metal Stiffeners - Qty(1)

LG Innotek - LBRQ-2B43A - Bluetooth Radio - V1.1 & V1.2, Class II - Qty(1)

Main PCB - 10-Layer - FR4/RCF HDI - 3+4+3 - Qty(1)

Maxim - MAX8676E - Power Management IC - Qty(1)

Avago - ACFM-7102 - Antenna Switch - Quintplexer, 5-Ports - Qty(1)

Niigata Seimitsu - NS740 - FM Transmitter - Qty(1)

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

Materials and Manufacturing $90.60

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

LG Relationships / Manufacturing

Per iSuppli's "Global OEM Manufacturing and Design Analysis (GOMDA), we estimate that retained the majority (nearly 97% in 2006) of its handset manufacturing in-house.

Only in recent years did LG start to use a number of Taiwanese ODMs for smart phones and low-cost GMS and CDMA phones.

Country of Origin / EMS provider

This product, as is typically the case from our experience, was labeled as made in Korea. Furthermore, we have assumed that for this model, that the PCB was also populated in Korea, and that custom mechanicals (plastics and metals) were sourced locally as well.

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.

Design for Manufacturing / Device Complexity

Overall, the LG AX565 has a total component count of 752 components, of which 149 are mechanical in nature. This places this LG model in the above average complexity range when compared with other LG phones analyzed by iSuppli - the average being just under 640 components. It is almost identical in component count to the LG KX570 (Muziq).

Having said that, the average may be changing as phones inevitably become more feature-rich, however this phenomena is usually offset by integration over time with the two trends negating each other in total component count terms.

This is partly because of the form factor - with clamshells always inherently more complex both mechanically and electro-mechanically. The 'splitting' of the phone design into two 'hemispheres' always adds to the count and therefore cycle times for manufacturing.

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

This design is, from an electronic perspective, a clone of the recently analyzed LX570 (Muziq). Both are based on the same core chips - primarily the Qualcomm MSM6500 which is also applied in the original Motorola Q phone.

Also - and this is interesting to note, until the LG LX570 and this analysis we had never seen phones previously based on Qualcomm a core MSM baseband device that did not use a Qualcomm power management (PM) solution. In nearly all other designs based around a Qualcommm core solution, Qualcomm power management solutions are also applied. It is questionable as to whether this produces any gains for the handset OEM, however it seems to demonstrate a desire on the behalf of some OEMs to avoid getting overleveraged with a single major supplier such as Qualcomm.

Main PCB

Baseband

Baseband Processor - Single-Chip, CDMA2000 1X, GPS & Bluetooth - Qualcomm - MSM6500

RF / PA

RF Receiver - ZIF, Dual-Band CDMA2000 1X, 800/1900MHz, GPS - Qualcomm - RFR6500

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

Transmit Module - PAM - CDMA2000 1X, 824-849 MHz - Anadigics - AWT6307R

Transmit Module - PAM - CDMA2000 1X, 1850-1910 MHz - Anadigics - AWT6308R

Memory

MCP - 512Mb NAND Flash, 512MB Mobile SDRAM, Pb Free - Hynix - HYG0SEG0AF1P-6SH0E

Power Management

Power Management IC - Maxim - MAX8676E

User Interface

LCD/Camera Interface Serializer / Deserializer - Anapass - ANA5551BG

FM Transmitter - Niigata Seimitsu - NS740

Keypad PCB

User Interface

Amplifier - Audio Power Amp, 500mW, w/ Digital Volume Control - National Semiconudctor - LM4846TL

Navigation Button PCB

User Interface

Capacitive Sensing Interface IC - 8 Capacitive Buttons, I2C Interface - Synaptics - SO2810

Displays

Primary Display - 2.2 "" Diagonal, 262K Color TFT, 220 x 176 Pixels, 35.0mm x 43.8mm Viewable Area

Secondary Display - 1.3" Diagonal, 65K Color TFT, 160 x 128 Pixels, 20.8mm x 26.8mm Viewable Area

Camera Module

Image Sensor - Silicon File / NOON130PC20

1.3MP, CMOS, 1/3.8"" Format - Fixed Lens

Light source (Flash) - LED"

LG AX565 Mobile Phone - Enclosure Disassembly