Sony VAIO SVE15115FXS Notebook Teardown

IHS Insight Perspective

Per IHS iSuppli Compute Platforms research area: Shipments this year of non-ultrathin notebook PCs are forecast to be 196 million units and are expected to fall to 183 million units in 2013. However, overall notebook PCs shipments are actually growing from 216 million units in 2012 to 248 million in 2013 due to the expected increase of ultrathin and ultrabook shipments. And by 2015, the total number of ultrathin and ultrabook shipments is expected to surpass non-ultrathin notebook PCs by 50M.

Ultrathin includes Intel Ultrabook, AMD Ultrathin, other Intel-based Ultrathins such as MacBook Air. The Sony VAIO SVE15115FXS falls into the non-ultrathin category, it is 1.32' thick (~0.54' thicker than the ultrathin category HP ENVY Ultrabook and Sleekbook).

Overall / Feature Significance

The Sony VAIO SVE15115FXS is part of Sony's VAIO E Series consumer-grade laptop line. The VAIO E Series gives consumers many options to choose from like display sizes ranging from 11.6' to 17.3', processors spanning Intel Pentium to 3rd Generation i7 and an assortment of enclosure colors.

The particular version of VAIO E Series laptop in this teardown analysis features an Intel Core i5-3210M processor, 15.6" 1366x768 display, 6GB of SO-DIMM DDR3, 750GB SATA HDD, and a 44Wh lithium-ion battery. It also features a LED backlit keyboard and 1.3MP webcam.

Sony VAIO SVE15115FXS Notebook Main Image

The Sony VAIO SVE15115FXS is a typical laptop design having a motherboard and a few peripheral/interface PCBs connected through various cables. Weighing in at 5.97lbs, it is designed in the conventional laptop fashion compared to the newer light and thin Ultrathins. Because of the relatively large design envelope (comparing to Ultrathins), it does not require sophisticate thoughts on components placement. Mechanically, it utilizes molded plastic and stamped aluminum to form it's enclosure. Overall, the design is a conventional one that helps to keep the cost low.

Target Market

Mass Market

Generic PC for home use - mass market appeal

Sony VAIO SVE15115FXS Notebook - Motherboard Top

Q2 2012

This product appears to have been released in mid 2012.

Pricing and Availability

~$700 USD

The specific configuration in this teardown analysis is no longer available at the time of this analysis on the Sony website (Nov, 2012). The closest configuration with 500GB Hard Drive instead of 750GB Hard Drive is $645. Other online retailers offering this specific model for as low as $700.

North America

Availability assumed to be primarily North America.

Sony VAIO SVE15115FXS Notebook - Motherboard Bottom

2,000,000 Total Units
2 Total Years

For the purposes of this teardown analysis, we have assumed an Annual Production Volume of 2000000 units and a Product Lifetime Volume of 2 year(s).

Teardown volume and 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.

Market Performance

Sony Mobile PC has held a steady ranking of #9 in the global Mobile PC market throughout 2012, and has been consistent in this ranking for the last couple of years. With an estimated 2.0M PC units shipped in the most recent Q3 2012, this puts their Mobile PC division at 3.7% market share and on par with where they have been.

Sony VAIO SVE15115FXS Notebook - Disassembly View 1

No matter what the device is - you can tell a lot about what makes the BOM cost what it does by looking at the following top 10 cost drivers, and each of them is typical for a PC design of any kind. The CPU drives the costs primarily - and in this case the Intel cost is estimated using our IC price evaluator tool which, at 85 points of margin produces an ~$102.56 price to Sony.

Total BOM: $414.31
Top Cost Drivers below: $318.10
% of Total BOM 77%

Main Cost Drivers below

Intel AW8063801032301SR0MZ CPU - Intel Core i5-3210M, Dual Core, 2.5GHz, 3MB Cache, 22nm- (Qty: 1)
Hitachi HTS547575A9E384 Hard Drive - 750GB, 2.5', SATA 3Gb/s, 5400RPM, 8MB Buffer- (Qty: 1)
LG Display LP156WH3-TLE1 Display Module - 15.6' Diagonal, 262K Color TFT, 1366 x 768 Pixels, 200cd/m^2 Brightness, 16ms Response Time, 344.2mm x 193.5mm Active Area, LED Backlight- (Qty: 1)
Sanyo VGP-BPS26 Battery Pack - Li-Ion, 6-Cell, 10.8V, 4000mAh, 44Wh- (Qty: 1)
Intel BD82HM76SLJ8E Platform Controller Hub - HM76 Express Chipset, Support Dual Display, 8 PCI-E 2.0 Lanes, USB 3.0, 12 USB Ports, 6 SATA Ports, 4.1W- (Qty: 1)
Panasonic UJ8C0 CD/DVD RW Drive - Slim Internal Type, Tray Load, SATA- (Qty: 1)
Kingston SNY1600S11-4G-EDEG SO-DIMM DDR3-1600 - 4GB, 1.5V- (Qty: 1)
Hannstar 6-Layer - FR4, Lead-Free, Halogen-Free- (Qty: 3)
Nanya NT2GC64B88G0NS-DI SO-DIMM DDR3-1600 - 2GB, 1.5V- (Qty: 1)
Keyboard Assembly - Injection Molded Plastic Keys, Mounted on Metal Backing Plate, LED Backlit, w/ Interconnect Flex PCB- (Qty: 1)

Sony VAIO SVE15115FXS Notebook Cost Analysis

Not Included in 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.

We do provide an Excel tab 'Overall Costs' where a user can enter their known pre and post production costs to build a per unit cost reflective of theirs actual expenditures.

Manufacturing Notes

According to IHS iSuppli's Global OEM Manufacturing & Design (GOMDA™) Q2 2012 - Compute Platforms report:

Approximately 88% of Sony's Mobile PC business is outsourced for manufacturing. They have 3 major partners, Hon Hai, Quanta and Wistron, which manufacture over 99% of the outsourced products.

Country of Origin

For the purposes of this analysis, we are assuming the following country(ies) of origin for each level of assembly, based on a combination of 'Made In' markings, and/or assumptions based on our knowledge of such equipment.

Box Contents - China
BT / WLAN Half Mini PCIe Module - China
Display Module - China
Misc Interface PCBs - China
Motherboard - China
Other - Enclosures / Final Assembly - 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, HDD, CD/DVD Drive), 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.

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 pin count of the device. This calculation is affected by country or region of origin as well.

Design Complexity

Component counts by assembly and the number of assembly are indicators of design complexity and efficiency.

Component Qty: 1406 - Motherboard
Component Qty: 224 - Other - Enclosures / Final Assembly
Component Qty: 2 - Storage Device
Component Qty: 1 - Display Module
Component Qty: 14 - Box Contents
Component Qty: 109 - BT / WLAN Half Mini PCIe Module
Component Qty: 56 - Webcam Module PCB
Component Qty: 41 - Misc Interface PCBs
Component Qty: 1853 - Grand Total

At a component count of 1853 components (grand total with box contents), this design is inline with recent notebooks, such as those from HP and Apple.

Design Notes

The core of the Sony VAIO SVE15115FXS is the Intel 3rd Generation i5-3210M Dual-Core processor which integrates Intel HD Graphics 4000. The design is typical for Intel with a CPU and a Platform Controller Hub architecture. Intel has moved away from traditional discrete 'Northbridge and Southbridge' chips flanking Intel CPUs and combined their functions into the CPU and Platform Controller Hub. The rest of the design is pretty common to other Intel-based devices.

The storage devices are a conventional 750GB HDD from Hitachi and a Panasonic CD/DVD combo drive. The display is a 15.6", 1366x768 panel supplied by LG Display. The unit also includes a Half Mini PCIe Bluetooth/WLAN combo card featuring Qualcomm Atheros WLAN IC (AR9485-BL3A) and Qualcomm Atheros Bluetooth IC (AR3012-AL3D) and 1.3MP webcam module.