Samsung Wave GT-S8500 Mobile Phone Teardown

Overview / Main Features

The Wave S8500 smartphone from Samsung represents very much a technology showcase device for two of their most prominent mobile phone technologies: (1) Bada operating system and (2) Super AMOLED display. The Wave GT-S8500 features a 3.3 inch Super AMOLED display with in-cell capacitive touch (essentially, integrated capacitive touch ITO layers on AMOLED display) which helps to create a very thin overall design. Powering the new Bada OS is the latest generation of Samsung's application processor (S5PC110A01) that features ARM Cortex A8 core and clock speeds of 1GHz.

Overall, the dual band UMTS / quad band GSM smartphone is a HSDPA data capable device with both a primary 5MP camera and a VGA resolution front facing camera. On the radio portion of the device, Samsung Wave uses a Qualcomm QSC6270 single chip solution integrated baseband and RF transceiver. Also, the Wave features a 2GB MoviNAND MLC memory package for on board storage. Bluetooth and WLAN solutions are provide by a Broadcom BCM4329.

Samsung Wave GT-S8500 Mobile Phone Main Image

Smartphone Users

Released

Per press release, first announce on Feb. 2010 and subsequently released Q2/Q3 of the same year.

Samsung Wave GT-S8500 Mobile Phone - Main PCB Top

Pricing - Typically, mobile phones are heavily subsidized by carrier partners and the price [offered] with service does not represent the value of the device. With that said, an unlocked / unsubsidized version of the Wave can be purchased for as low as $390 (at the time of writing - Aug. 2010)

Availability - assumed global

Volume Estimations

For the purposes of this teardown analysis, we have assumed a lifetime production volume of 2.5M 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.

Samsung Wave GT-S8500 Mobile Phone Cost Analysis

Main Cost Drivers Representing ~80% of total materials cost

Samsung Mobile Display - AMS331FY01 - Display Module Value Line Item - 3.3' Diagonal, 16.7M Color Super AMOLED, 480 x 800 Pixels, w/ Capacitive Touchscreen Overlay, Painted

Primary Camera Module Value Line Item - 5MP, 1/4' Format, Auto Focus Lens

Samsung Semiconductor - KAC007021M-AET7 - MCP - 4Gb OneNAND + 3Gb Mobile SDRAM + 1Gb OneDRAM, PoP (Estimated)

Qualcomm - QSC6270 - Baseband Processor / RF Transceiver - Single Chip, ARM926EJ-S Core, Tri-Band WCDMA, Quad-Band GSM/EDGE, A-GPS & Bluetooth 2.1+EDR, 3.6Mbps HSDPA, w/ Power Management, 65nm

Samsung Semiconductor - S5PC110A01 - Multimedia Application Processor - 1GHz ARM Cortex A8 45nm Core, PoP

Samsung Semiconductor - SWB-B23 - Bluetooth/FM/WLAN Module Value Line Item - IEEE802.11b/g/n, Bluetooth V3.0, w/ FM Radio Transceiver

Samsung Semiconductor - KLM2G1DEDD-A101 - Flash - MoviNAND, 16Gb, MLC

Battery - Li-Ion, 3.7V, 1500mAh

Daeduck Electronics - 8-Layer - FR4/RCF HDI, 2+4+2, Lead-Free, Halogen-Free

Secondary Camera Module Value Line Item - VGA 0.3MP, 1/10' Format, Fixed Lens

Maxim - MAX8998 - Power Management IC.

Total BOM Cost $163.01

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 markings, the unit was assembled in Korea. Furthermore, we have assumed that custom mechanicals (plastics, metals, etc.) were also sourced in Korea.

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 module), 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.

Samsung Wave GT-S8500 Mobile Phone - Disassembly View 1

Design for Manufacturing / Device Complexity

The Samsung Wave GT-S8500 has an overall component count of 801 (excluding box contents), of which 600 components reside on the Main PCB assembly. Compared to other smartphones we've analyzed in the past, the Wave occupies the lower end of the complexity curve (sub-1000 parts).

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 Korea.

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

Here is a summary of the major components used in the Samsung Wave GT-S8500 design:

Main PCB

MPU / Memory

• Multimedia Application Processor - Samsung Semiconductor - S5PC110A01
• Memory - Samsung Semiconductor - KAC007021M-AET7
• Memory - Samsung Semiconductor - KLM2G1DEDD-A101

Baseband / RF Transceiver

• Baseband Processor / RF Transceiver IC - Qualcomm - QSC6270
• Front End Module - Murata

Bluetooth / FM / WLAN

• Bluetooth/FM/WLAN IC - Broadcom - BCM4329GKUBG

Battery / Power Management

• Power Management IC - Maxim - MAX8998

User Interface

• Audio Codec - Wolfson Microelectronics - WM8994ECS/R

Display

• Display Module - 3.3' Diagonal, 16.7M Color Super AMOLED, 480 x 800 Pixels, w/ Capacitive Touchscreen Overlay, Painted

Samsung Wave GT-S8500 Mobile Phone - Box Contents