Samsung SGH-T939 Behold II Mobile Phone Teardown

Overview / Main Features

The Samsung SGH-T939 "Behold II is a dual-band UMTS/quad-band GSM smartphone based on the open Android operating system - one of the few that features an AM-OLED display. Samsung has made an effort to distinguish their model using a customized 3D cube navigation UI skin on top of the Android 1.5 core OS. Internally, the SGH-T939 is based on a now common Qualcomm MSM7200A chipset - a platform which we have seen in nearly all pre-Android 2.x handsets we have analyzed.

Samsung SGH-T939 Behold II Mobile Phone Main Image

Smartphone Consumers

Released

Per press releases, first release in Q4 of 2009.

Samsung SGH-T939 Behold II Mobile Phone - Main PCB Top

Pricing - $149.99 with two-year contract at the time of writing (March 2010) / ~$310 retail price (per T-Mobile)

Availability - currently limited to T-Mobile (North American)

Volume Estimations

For the purposes of this teardown analysis, we have assumed a lifetime production volume of 300K 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 SGH-T939 Behold II Mobile Phone - Main PCB Bottom

Main Cost Drivers Representing ~80% of total materials cost

Qualcomm - MSM7200A - Baseband Processor - Single Chip, Quad-Band GSM/GPRS/EDGE, UMTS, HSDPA 7.2Mbps, HSUPA 5.76Mbps, GPS, Integrated 528MHz ARM11 Applications Processor & 256MHz ARM9 Microprocessor

Samsung - AMS320FS01-0 - Display Module Value Line Item - 3.2' Diagonal, 16.7M Color AMOLED, 320 x 480 Pixels

Camera Module Value Line Item - 5.0MP, CMOS, 1/3.2' Format, Auto Focus Lens

Melfas Inc. - Touchscreen Assembly - Capacitive, ITO Film on Glass, Painted, Printed

Murata - Bluetooth / WLAN Module - IEEE802.11b/g, Bluetooth V2.1+EDR, Contains Broadcom BCM4325FKWBG

Samsung Semiconductor - KBN00300HA-A439 - MCP - 2Gb OneNAND + 1Gb Mobile SDRAM (Estimated)

Samsung - MicroSD Memory Card - 2GB

Samsung - AB653850CA - Battery - Li-Ion, 3.7V, 1470mAh

Samsung Electro-Mechanics - 10-Layer - FR4/RCF HDI, 2+6+2, Lead-Free

Qualcomm - PM7540 - Power Management IC - w/ Integrated USB Transceiver

Toshiba Semiconductor - TC358723XBG - LCD Controller - VESA MDDI Version 1 Compliant, Supports 16/18/24-Bit Synchronous WVGA Main Display & 8/16/24-Bit Asynchronous QCIF+ Sub-Display

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

Total BOM Cost $159.27

Samsung SGH-T939 Behold II Mobile Phone Cost Analysis

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

According to iSuppli's ""Global OEM Manufacturing and Design Analysis - Q1 2009", Samsung's manufacturing profile in 2008 is entirely vertically integrated. Samsung still engages with Foxconn for finished PCB and sub-assemblies but operates all final assembly work within a Samsung manufacturing facility.

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 AM-OLED 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.

Design for Manufacturing / Device Complexity

The Samsung SGH-T939 Behold II has an overall component count of 776 (excluding box contents), of which, 127 are mechanical in nature. Smartphones can reach complexities of beyond 1000 component counts and this Samsung represents the lower end of the spectrum in terms of smartphones we have analyzed.

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.

Samsung SGH-T939 Behold II Mobile Phone - Exploded View