Samsung Solstice SGH-A887 Mobile Phone Teardown

Overview / Main Features

The Samsung Solstice SGH-A887 is dual-band UMTS / quad band GSM touchscreen based feature phone that features a 3 inch color resistive touch display and accelerometer based inputs. The handset also features a 2 MP camera, Bluetooth, GPS and expandable memory via microSD slot.

From a design perspective, the SGH-A887 is primarily a Qualcomm design featuring a MSM6290 baseband processor and RTR6285 RF Transceiver. Memory is not surprisingly provided by Samsung featuring 2Gb of OneNAND flash and 1Gb of SDRAM.

Samsung Solstice SGH-A887 Mobile Phone Main Image

Touch based Feature Phone

Released

Per press release, first release on the AT&T network on July 2009 .

Samsung Solstice SGH-A887 Mobile Phone - Main PCB Bottom

Pricing - At the time of writing (May 2010), the Samsung is offered on AT&T's website for $219 "no commitment or $29 with a 2 year contract.

Availability - North America

Volume Estimations

For the purposes of this teardown analysis, we have assumed a lifetime production volume of 4M 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 Solstice SGH-A887 Mobile Phone Cost Analysis

Main Cost Drivers Representing ~65% of total materials cost

Display Module Value Line Item - 3.0' Diagonal, 262K Color TFT, 400 x 240 Pixels

Qualcomm - MSM6290 - Baseband Processor - Quad-Band GSM/EDGE, WCDMA, 7.2Mbps HSDPA, 5.76Mbps HSUPA, Support 5MP Camera & High-Speed USB, Integrated A-GPS

Samsung Semiconductor - K5R2G1GACC-AL75 - MCP - 2Gb OneNAND Flash + 1Gb Mobile SDRAM (Estimated)

Battery - Li-Ion, 3.7V, 1000mAh, 3.7WAh

Camera Module Value Line Item - 2.0MP CMOS, 1/4' Format, Fixed Lens

Touchscreen Assembly - 4-Wire Resistive, 3.0' Diagonal, ITO Film Over ITO Film, w/ Clear Plastic Faceplate, Clear Polycarbonate Backplate, & Integral Flex PCB

4-Layer - Flex Kapton, Lead-Free, w/ Stiffener

Charger - 4.75V, 550mA, w/ 1.5m Cord

Qualcomm - RTR6285 - RF Transceiver - ZIF, Quad-Band GSM/GPRS/EDGE, Tri-Band UMTS Transceiver, HSDPA, w/ Integrated GPS Receiver & Receive Diversity

Total BOM Cost $75.37

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 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 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 Solstice SGH-A887 Mobile Phone - Main Bottom Enclosure Removed

Design for Manufacturing / Device Complexity

The Samsung SGH-A887 has an overall component count of 671 (excluding box contents), of which 535 components reside on the Main PCB assembly.

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 China.

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 Solstice SGH-A877 design:

Main PCB

Baseband

• Baseband Processor - Qualcomm - MSM6290

Memory

• Samsung Semiconductor - K5R2G1GACC-AL75 - 2Gb OneNAND Flash + 1Gb Mobile SDRAM (Estimated)

RF Transceiver

• RF Transceiver - Qualcomm - RTR6285
• FEM - Murata

Power Management

• Power Management IC - Maxim - MAX8697SEWQ

Bluetooth

• Bluetooth - Broadcom - BCM2070CB0KUFBXG

Power Amplifier

• PAM - TriQuint Semiconductor - TQM7M5012

User Interface

• Accelerometer - Bosch Sensortec - BMA020

Display

• Display Module - 3.0' Diagonal, 262K Color TFT, 400 x 240 Pixels

Samsung Solstice SGH-A887 Mobile Phone - Box Contents