Kenwood KDC-252U In-Dash Receiver Teardown

Overall Significance

While the popularity of aftermarket automotive audio receivers has diminished over the years in the U.S, makers of these products continue to add features in these products to keep them interesting. Audio receiver OEMs are integrating more and more features into these products to keep up with the consumers' insatiable demand for mobile media. With the increased popularity of devices such as the iPhone, iPod and Android mobile platforms, the audio receiver manufacturers find it necessary to include and interface products with these mobile devices. The receiver of this analysis is an example of this in that, while it's an entry level receiver, it includes interface and control functions for some of the most popular mobile devices and applications.

Kenwood KDC-252U In-Dash Receiver Main Image

The KDC-252U is a single DIN CD receiver for the aftermarket automotive audio market. This entry market device integrates USB connectivity. The USB connectivity allows this receiver to interface with iPhone/iPod, external hard drives, and USB Thumb drives. Users can control the attached USB device through this receiver. This receiver also interfaces with the Pandora App for the iPhone. While this receiver does not have wireless connectivity, it allows the user to control Pandora features, such as Thumbs-Up & Bookmark Artist, without the need for doing so using the iPhone's touchscreen. A Kenwood App can be downloaded from Google Play that organizes a user's Android music library. This App prepares the music library for interface with this receiver in such way that makes it easy to control the music library through this receiver.

Target Market

Aftermarket Automotive Audio

Kenwood KDC-252U In-Dash Receiver - Main PCB Top

Nov. 2011 per press release

Pricing and Availability

$120.00 MSRP

Globally - Aftermarket Distributors and Resellers

Kenwood KDC-252U In-Dash Receiver - Main PCB Bottom

1,000,000 Total Units
1 Total Years

For the purposes of this teardown analysis, we have assumed an Annual Production Volume of 1000000 units and a Product Lifetime Volume of 1 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.

Kenwood KDC-252U In-Dash Receiver Cost Analysis

Total BOM: $40.58
Top Cost Drivers below: $21.38
% of Total BOM 53%

Main Cost Drivers below

CD Drive - Slot Load, Internal- (Qty: 1)
JCV8019 CPU - ARM Core- (Qty: 1)
Futaba 3-BT-267N Vacuum Fluorescent Display - Alphanumeric, 11x1 14-segmented Characters, w/ 10 Icons- (Qty: 1)
JCV8022 ASIC - for CD Player- (Qty: 1)
Enclosure, Main, Top - Stamped / Formed Electro-Galvanized Steel- (Qty: 1)
NXP TEF6614T/V1 Radio Tuner - AM/FM, Low IF- (Qty: 1)
Guh Circuit Industry 1-Layer - CEM1, Lead-Free- (Qty: 1)
Remote Control Unit- (Qty: 1)
On Semiconductor LV5680P-E Power Management IC - 4-Channel Linear Voltage Regulator, 4 High Side Switches & Protection Functions, for Car Audio Systems- (Qty: 1)
Toshiba Semiconductor TB2926CHQ Audio Power Amplifier - 4-Channel BTL, 49W- (Qty: 1)

Kenwood KDC-252U In-Dash Receiver - Disassembly View 1

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.

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 - Indonesia
Display - Indonesia
Front Panel PCB - Indonesia
Main PCB - Indonesia
Other - Enclosures / Final Assembly - Indonesia
Storage Device - Indonesia

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 modules and optical drives), 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 pincount 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: 600 - Main PCB
Component Qty: 1 - Storage Device
Component Qty: 56 - Other - Enclosures / Final Assembly
Component Qty: 93 - Front Panel PCB
Component Qty: 23 - Box Contents
Component Qty: 1 - Display
Component Qty: 774 - Grand Total

The total component count of the KDC-252U is 774 components. This is comparable but on the low end when weighed against comparable in-dash receivers. The lower amount of components can be attributed to this model being an entry market device and not having features such as hands-free bluetooth and A2DP bluetooth music streaming.

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

This design has a modest feature set which keeps the design simple. There are not a lot of sub-assemblies in this design and all of the core electronics are on the Main PCB. The core of the design is an ARM-based CPU (JCV8019) of unknown origin and a NXP TEF6614T/V1 radio tuner IC (AM/FM). The audio side is supported by an ST Microelectronics TDA7718N audio processor, and a Toshiba Semiconductor audio power amplifier (TB2926CHQ). One thing of note is the ASIC for the CD player and the motor driver IC are located on the Main PCB where as most times we see them integrated into the CD player itself.

Kenwood KDC-252U In-Dash Receiver - Box Contents