LG KU990 Mobile Phone Teardown

Main Features / Overview

The LG KU990, at first glance, looks pretty nice. This is one of very few models we have seen, that, depending on how it's held, really looks like a digital still camera when used in camera mode, and pretty much looks like a Prada-style touchscreen phone when in PDA / phone mode. The product was packaged in a way that conspicuously made it emerge from the box with it's camera side-up. Also, the packaging looked like someone has been taking lessons from Apple - and very iPhone-like packaging materials (high-end black box with graphic 'pop-up' graphics as box is opened - like a pop-up children's book).

LG KU990 Mobile Phone Main Image

As a phone, the KU 990, also known as "Viewty (clearly this phone would not pass the muster of an English-speaking focus group), is a monoblock, PDA-style Tri-band GSM (900/1800/1900), WCMDA/UMTS with HSDPA (3.6Mbps)/EDGE phone, and is therefore no slouch as a phone (HSDPA, by definition blows the iPhone's EDGE away). Furthermore, the LG KU990 features a 3 inch diagonal touchscreen (resistive - no capacitive multi-touch here) with virtual keyboard features, however the LGKU990 is not, believe it or not, a smartphone, however, and will not run 3rd party apps with, for example, Symbian or Windows Mobile.

When used as a camera, the camera 'side' of the device looks more like a camera because it has several features that up until now we have only really seen on digital still cameras - a xenon flash unit (vs the woefully inadequate 'bright' white LEDs), a photographic light sensor, and beefier-looking optics (Schneider-Kreuznach), as well as an intentional cosmetic design choice to highlight the lens / optics assembly. And, of course, it has a 5 megapixel camera which begins to beg the question why have two devices if the photos are good. The rub is that despite the specs, most camera phones usually are no replacement for a good digital still camera - and a disassembly of the camera module re-affirms - what is 'very good optics' for a phone (and they are), still fall short of those used in digital still cameras. As a side note - the xenon flash on this unit would not fire at all, under any circumstances, including under direct orders from the user, and was therefore DOA. One other important 'camera' note - the LG KU990 also features an 'image stabilizer' feature which may be partially hardware implemented as the KU990's camera moduel contained an unidentified ASIC from NEC as part of the camera module. This device is undoubtedly a form of image processor, but may also integrate this functionality.

High-end consumer - per LG press release the LG KU990 is a ""professional-level camera phone".

Released

Press releases found of varying dates - earliest from LG: August 23, 2007. It appears the product was launched at the 2007 IFA Consumer Electronics trade show (Sept 2007).

LG KU990 Mobile Phone - Main PCB Top

Pricing - unlocked from multiple internet vendors, at the time of writing (Dec 2007), was found for as low as $539 USD and up. Launched first in late October in Europe.

Volume Estimations

For the purposes of this teardown analysis, we are assuming a total production volume for this model of 1.1 Million units over a 2-year lifetime. ISuppli lifetime production volume estimates are based on the assumption of 2-year life span and the company's current market position in the phone 'segment' (per DFT excerpt below).

As a reminder, teardown volume production assumptions are meant primarily to be 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 a total of 168 million units of HSDPA to ship in the 2008 global market, and further that 40 million handsets will ship with greater than 4Mpx camera capability in the total 2008 global handset market.

Function / Performance

Only the most basic functional testing was performed on the LG KU990, just enough to discover the xenon flash for the camera would fire under no circumstances, even when in 'always on' mode. No other testing was performed on the LG KU990.

LG KU990 Mobile Phone Cost Analysis

Main Cost Drivers Representing ~ 75% of total materials cost as follows :

Core Chipset

Qualcomm - MSM6280 - Baseband Processor - Single Chip, Quad-Band GSM/GPRS, GPS, UMTS, HSDPA up to 7.2Mbps & Bluetooth - 65nm

Qualcomm - RTR6275 - RF Transceiver - ZIF, Quad-Band GSM/GPRS Transceiver, Tri-Band UMTS 850/1900/2100MHz Transmitter, Single Band UMTS Receiver

Qualcomm - PM6650 - Power Management IC

TriQuint Semiconductor - TQM7M5003 - PAM - Quad-Band - GSM/GPRS/EDGE

FEM - Tri-Band GaAs pHEMT Antenna Switch w/ 1 Murata Dual-Band RX SAW & 1 Single-Band RX SAW Filter

Applications Processor

Zoran - Approach-5C - ZR345398BGCF - Application Processor - ARM9, 270MHz, 90nm, w/ Integral 5MP ISP for CCD and CMOS Sensors

Memory

Toshiba Semiconductor - TYA000BC00H0GG - MCP - 2Gb NAND Flash + 1Gb Mobile SDRAM

User Interface Items

Bluetooth Radio - Contains Broadcom BCM2004 Bluetooth Radio V1.2 for Qualcom Chipset

Wolfson Microelectronics - WM8983GEFL/V - Codec - Audio, Stereo, w/ 1W Speaker Driver

Display

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

Touchscreen Overlay - 4-Wire Resistive

Camera Modules

Primary Camera Module - 5MP CMOS, 1/2.8' Format

Secondary Camera Module - VGA, CMOS, 1/7.4' Format

Batter(ies)

LGIP-580A - Battery - Li-Ion, 3.7V, 1000mAh

Materials & Manufacturing $145.25

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 and 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

LG is still experimenting with its outsourcing strategies. So far, LG has retained the majority (over 80%) of its design and 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 / Volume Assumptions

This product is labeled as Made in Korea, furthermore, we have assumed that for this model that PCB was populated in China, and that custom mechanicals (plastics and metals) were also sourced domestically in China. It ios possible, given the high-end nature of the phone, that more of the assembly steps took place in Korea (a phenomena we see with many manufacturers - their low-end products being all made in China, but the highest end products being made in Finland, Taiwan, Japan, Etc. - or 'close to HQ' - depending on manufacturer).

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 chargers), 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. It is understood that modern manufacturing processes, specifically for SMT manufacturing lines are far more influenced by capital equipment cost drivers, than local labor rate influences.

LG KU990 Mobile Phone - Enclosure Disassembly

Design for Manufacturing / Device Complexity

The LG KU990 features a surprisingly modest component count, considering the high-end nature of the device. The total component count of the LG KU990 is 841 (not including box contents) of which 111 are mechanical in nature. This compares favorably t the Samsung SGH-i620.

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

The LG KU990 bears little resemblance to other LG phones (or other phones seen, period), although we have seen the core baseband chip (Qualcomm MSM6280) in other devices (Sharp S01SHW ultra mobile PC, and HSDPA data cards). The MSM6280 from Qualcomm provides much of the core 'phone' features and is part of Qualcomm's 'enhanced multimedia' platform of chips. While the MSM6280 provides HSDPA up to 7.2Mbps data rates though, Qualcomm's latest and greatest MSM7200 chipset featuresit the highest data rate possible on the market right now (HSDPA 7.2Mbps downlink, and HSUPA (w/ uplink speeds of 5.76Mbps).

Also in the baseband section is a first-time sighting: an applications from Zoran, the "Approach-5C" chip which basically offers the kitchen-sink for all functionality beyond core phone and data transmission functions in the MSM6280 - the Zoran Approach-5C chip interfaces with the camera and provides all the support / processing functions such as AWB, AE, AF, lens shading and bad pixel correction and cpntrols optical zoom, shutter, flash, etc. But also, the Approach chip has hawrdare based codecs for 'DVD quality video', audio codecs (MIDI player, MP3, etc.), 2D/3D HW accelerator, Mobile Digital TV support, peripheral interface support (USB 2.0, Etc.), and memory interface.

Beyond these two core devices which provide most of the LG KU990's functionality, there is also a Wolfson Micro WM8983G Mobile Multimedia CODEC w/ 1W Speaker Driver, and an NXP FM Radio Tuner Chip (TEA5767UK) which are very popular in many Nokia models.

Interestingly, the camera module, despite the Schneider-Kreuznach lens kit, and 5MP image sensor, was not a lot larger or optically complex than other modules - most of the sophistication were in the additional mechanisms for auto-focus, but even these seem fairly conventional. The entire camera module was self-contained (as all are), and mounted on a single rigid PCB as an assembly, but admittedly a little larger than usual. The PCBA also had two die directly mounted to the PCB and covered by a black potting compound, one of which is an NEC die (Image Processor ASIC) and the other an Elpida part assumed to be Mobile SDRAM.

Here is a summary of the major components used in the LG KU990 design:

Main PCB

Baseband

• Baseband Processor - Qualcomm - MSM6280 - Single Chip, Quad-Band GSM/GPRS, GPS, UMTS, HSDPA up to 7.2Mbps & Bluetooth - 65nm
• Applications processor - Zoran - Approach-5C - ARM9, 90nm, w/ Integral 5MP ISP for CCD and CMOS Sensors

Baseband / Power Management

• Power Management IC - Qualcomm - PM6650

Memory

• MCP - Toshiba Semiconductor - TYA000BC00H0GG - 2Gb NAND Flash + 1Gb Mobile SDRAM

RF Transceiver / Power Amp

• RF Transceiver - Qualcomm - RTR6275 - ZIF, Quad-Band GSM/GPRS Transceiver, Tri-Band UMTS 850/1900/2100MHz Transmitter, Single Band UMTS Receiver
• PAM (GSM) - TriQuint Semiconductor - TQM7M5003 - Quad-Band, GSM/GPRS/EDGE
• PAM (WCDMA) - Anadigics - AWT6277RM20P8 - WCDMA, 1920MHz - 1980MHz

User Interface

• Audio Codec - Wolfson Microelectronics - WM8983G - Mobile Multimedia CODEC w/ 1W Speaker Driver
• FM Radio Tuner - NXP Semiconductor - TEA5766UK

Display

• 3' Diagonal, 262K Color TFT, 240 x 400 Pixels (with conventional 4-wire resistive touchscreen overlay)

Camera Modules

Camera Module (Primary)

• Image Sensor - Sony - IMX020
• 5MP, CMOS, 1/2.8' Format - Auto-Focus
• Light source (Flash) - Conventional Xenon

Camera Module (Secondary)

• Image Sensor - SiliconFile - NOON030PC20
• VGA, CMOS, 1/7.4' Format - Fixed Lens
• No light source (flash)

LG KU990 Mobile Phone - Box Contents