iPhone 3G Disassembly |

iPhone 3G Disassembly

Posted by Usman on July 11, 2008

Every that that has a start comes has an end, lolz …iFixit guys did it again,,, They disassembled the new Iphone 3G same day of iPhone 3G release… Milllions of people are dying for it standing in lines to get it, But iFixit guys did it the different way.

They performed this disassembly immediately following the iPhone launch at 12:01 July 11, 2008, New Zealand time. That’s 5:01 AM, July 10, Pacific time for those of us who aren’t islanders.

It’s open!

For comparison, here’s a link to last-year’s iPhone disassembly.
Our predictions:
- Apple-labeled Samsung processor - correct
- Either some kind of GPS chip, or none at all. If there isn’t a GPS chip, then it could be built into the processor. - unconfirmed
- Lots of chips with only Apple markings on them. Sometimes we can tell what they are, but most of the time you have to take the chip itself apart first. - correct, but this one’s cheating
Removing the display!

CLICK ON READ MORE FOR FULL STORY!

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Rotating the display up.
Apple used orange stickers to number the connectors to the logic board 1 through 6.
A little birdy has told me that TechOnline will be decapping the chips we can’t identify tomorrow, after the US release. They soak the chip in an acid bath to eat away the ceramic coating, then use x-rays and other fancy equipment to examine it.

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The display assembly separated from the unit.
In a significant departure from the first iPhone, it appears that the LCD and glass covering are separate components– just like the iPod Touch. They were glued together before, making replacement screens very expensive. The glass breaks more than anything else, so this is great news for repairing the iPhone 3G!

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We had to remove 6 Phillips #00 screws to separate the glass from the LCD.
The glass (with integrated touch sensors and chips) is underneath, while the LCD is being removed.
In the previous iPhone, the display was fairly monolithic. A number of components were connected together via the display assembly– now the display just connects to the main board. Hopefully this will make obtaining replacement parts easier– we’ve had trouble getting quality supplies of iPhone displays to sell.

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Behold, the iPhone! Can you see the 3G bits inside?
The two boards (logic and communications) are now one. Rather than stacking them, as in the last model, they laid it out along the entire length. We’re guessing this allowed them to make the battery longer.
We’re not used to taking photos outside our studio, but these pictures are turning out great because of our awesome friends in NZ.
Props to Andrei Smirnov of Mac Solutions for helping us out. They are a Macintosh sales and support company established in 1998 and based on the North Shore, Auckland. Do us a favor and use his services the next time you’re in Auckland!

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Do not remove

Uh oh.
Let’s try removing that.
And the iPhone explodes!

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Just kidding. Look, the battery isn’t soldered on!
Apple actually listens to us! Or something.

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Dock and headphone connector.
Once we get the phone completely apart, we’ll start posting chip numbers. We’d love help identifying chips from all of you, send us any inside information to iphone3g@ifixit.com. We’ll keep it anonymous.

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Logic Board

This is where we get excited. We’ll be doing our best to identify each of these chips. See our uber-high res shots of the front and back (1.2MB)
Intel NOR flash in the middle left of the shot: 3050M0Y0CE 5818A456
The largest chip in the top left corner is an Infineon 337S3394 WEDGE baseband.
Skyworks power amplifier SKY77340 (Power Amplifier Module Quad) on the top right: Octopart datasheet
The chip in the top middle is SMP 3i 6820, Infineon SM-Power3i. From Infineon: the part is “optimized to support modem and data card applications based upon X-GOLD208 and X-GOLD 608, with features ranging from EDGE up to 3G and HSDPA.”
The three chips along the bottom are TriQuint Tritium PA-duplexers: TQM616035 TQM676031 TQM666032. Presumably each one works on a different frequency band: “Each highly-integrated module contains a Tx input filter, a linear Power Amplifier, Duplexer, and Coupler.”
Small chip to the right of the NOR: Infineon BGA736 (Tri-Band HSDPA LNA)
Chips we need to identify: SP836175 G0822 337S3394 (rumored to be an Infineon baseband), Marvell 6475 (rumored to be IF SAW Filter), 338S03532Z 60814 (rumored to be an Infineon RF transceiver)

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The entire board (the EMI shield is removed from the right side).
The previous shot is the top right portion of this picture.
Removing the EMI shielding is tricky, so we’re taking our time.
If you’d like to comment publicly, use the Gizmodo forums or reply via twitter to ifixitlive, and Summize will pull it up.

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The other half of the board. Note the Apple-branded ARM on the left and the SIM card holder at bottom center.
Big news: Samsung memory markers on the processor again. Looks like they win on the processor front again (not that we were expecting anything different).
- Markers: 339S0036 ARM EMC567DB 819 8900B N182F0A3 0825 7511.101 ZPD8163Y, 5974V CKUFBG HE0819 870628 P12 N3
- Samsung memory on the chip (K4X1G163PC-DGC3) is slightly different from the first iPhone, which was K4X1G153PC
SST SST25VF040B 4Mbit SPI Serial Flash to the right of the SIM card
Chips we need to identify: APPLE 338S0512, more (incomplete)

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The rear panel remains. Looks like that leaked shot was reasonably accurate.
Unlike the metal rear panel on the original iPhone, the rear panel appears to be made from ABS plastic. The coat on the back feels nice and is very reflective, hopefully it’s durable as well.
There doesn’t appear to be a serial number on the back panel of our phone. We don’t know if that’s unique to our phone, or true with all 3G iPhones.

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The battery. Put your soldering irons away, they won’t be needed! Apple part #616-0372
The recycle marker on the battery is blacked out with a sharpie. Suspicious…
We were all expecting a bigger battery, and I can’t verify this, but this page references the part number on the battery and lists a capacity of 1150 mAh, not the 1400 mAh in the original. Can anyone dig up more information?

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At last!

From top left to bottom right: Display glass, LCD, Main board and EMI shield, Antenna and battery, Back panel.
That’s it! We’ll keep updating the chips above, so keep checking back. We’ll post more photos as requested, but we’re going to snag some sleep after waiting in line for two nights.
We’d like to thank some gracious Auckland residents for making this happen:
- Grant Virtue of brochuresunlimited for the facility in downtown Auckland.
- Oleg Boukhvalov of Weblab for his electronics expertise and help with the disassembly
- Andrei Smirnov of MacSolutions for coordinating everything.
By the way, you can use the coupon IPHONE3GLAUNCH for $5 off any of the Mac & iPod parts that we sell. And even if you don’t want to give us money, check out our free Fixit Guides if you need to take apart (and hopefully fix) any Mac portable or iPod.