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Video Overview

Step 1 iPhone 5 Teardown

The iPhone 5 is here, and it brought along the big guns.

• 4" 1136x640 pixel (326 ppi) Retina display

• Apple A6 system on a chip (SoC)

• 8 megapixel iSight camera

• 8-pin Lightning connector

• 4G LTE connectivity

• iOS 6

Step 2

• There won't be any mistaking an iPhone 5 for an iPhone 4 or 4S. A lot has changed on the outside of the iPhone.

• The most obvious alteration to the bottom of the phone is the exchange of the large 30-pin dock connector for the diminutive Lightning connector.

• The headphone jack is now on the bottom of the iPhone, right next to the updated speakermicrophone grille—a series of holes rather than a mesh-covered slot.

• Other notable differences are the slate bezel, as opposed to the stainless steel that wrapped around the 4S, and the chamfered edges between the bezel and the front/rear cases.

Step 3

• Pesky pentalobe screws! Good thing our 5-Point Drivers still work on them.

• It's incredibly convenient that Apple used the same pentalobe screwhead that they've been using for the past two years on the iPhone 4 and 4S. The screw shafts are slightly different from the screws in our iPhone 4/4S Liberation Kit, so we made a new iPhone 5 Liberation Kit!

• The unibody back case is reminiscent of the iPhone 3GS, while still retaining the square (though now chamfered) edges of the iPhone 4.

Step 4

• What's this? A suction cup? We haven't needed a suction cup to get into an iPhone since the 3GS!

• Because the iPhone 5 is opened front-to-back, replacing a cracked screen is going to be easier than ever. Thank you, Apple!

  
  

Step 5

• The display connector is held firmly to the logic board by a few simple Phillips screws.

• Our spudger makes quick work of prying up the display connector, and poof! the display is free.

• We're having iPhone 3GS flashbacks with the easily accessible display assembly.

Step 6

• The iPhone 5 ditches its lid to show us all of the juicy bits inside.

• So, what can we see from here? A bigger battery? Antenna connections? A single speaker? Cameras? Vibrators? Home buttons?

• Never fear, our faithful iPhone delivers; we'll be sure to take a closer look at each of these components as we remove them.

Step 7

• As always, we disconnect the battery first to prevent electrifying anything, including ourselves, as we dig deeper.

• Three Phillips #000 screws and a metal bracket hold the battery connector to the logic board.

• Hmm, this is beginning to feel very familiar.

• In the 3GS, the display assembly was easy to take out, but the battery was a pain. In the 4 and 4S, the display assembly took 38 steps to remove, while the battery was a breeze. We like to think that Apple has started tailoring to our preferences in allowing us to remove both the display assembly and the battery in only a couple of steps.

Step 8

• We use the Battery removal tab to pull up the battery. Never try to pry soft pack batteries as this could lead to a thermal event!

• For the iPhone 5, Apple has switched to a different battery chemistry, with a higher voltage and slightly larger capacity than the iPhone 4S. Let's see how the battery specs stack up.

• iPhone 5 Battery: 3.8V - 5.45Wh - 1440mAh. Talk time: Up to 8 hours on 3G. Standby time: Up to 225 hours.

• iPhone 4S Battery: 3.7V - 5.3Wh - 1432mAh. Talk time: Up to 8 hours on 3G. Standby time: Up to 200 hours.

• Samsung Galaxy S III Battery: 3.8V - 7.98Wh - 2100mAh. Talk time: Up to 11 hours 40 minutes on 3G. Standby time: Up to 790 hours.

• On the back of the battery we notice "MFR Sony," and "Cell made in Singapore." A bit of googling and it looks very likely that Sony is manufacturing this battery.

Step 9

• There are all kinds of metal-to-metal contacts inside the iPhone 5.

• Spring contacts make for easy repairs, but mandate careful attention to cleaning all the parts before reassembly. Finger oils can get in the way of these metal contacts and cause frustrating component failures.

• This contact connects the metal frame around the front-facing camera to the frame around the rear-facing camera. Maybe this frame is some kind of an antenna? Only time will tell.

• Speaking of antennas, a spudger easily pries one end of an antenna connector off of the logic board near the battery.

• In the iPhone 4S, this antenna location was reserved for the cellular antenna. We won't know for sure what this antenna's purpose is until we uncover more.

Step 10

• Near the top of the case, we find a few antenna connectors firmly screwed to the inside of the case.

• Finally free of its constraints, we lift the logic board up out of the rear case.

• The logic board and 8 megapixel iSight camera come out together, leaving several components behind in the rear case—another win for modularity.

Step 11

Many of the components that came out with the logic board are held in place with screws and brackets.

• Apparently, Apple is very concerned with making sure that all the connectors are firmly seated and won't rattle loose over time. Good on you, Apple.

Step 12

The underside of the logic board is teeming with components.

• Skyworks 77352-15 GSM/GPRS/EDGE power amplifier module

• SWUA 147 228 is an RF antenna switch module

• Triquint 666083-1229 WCDMA / HSUPA power amplifier / duplexer module for the UMTS band

• Avago AFEM-7813 dual-band LTE B1/B3 PA+FBAR duplexer module

• Skyworks 77491-158 CDMA power amplifier module

• Avago A5613 ACPM-5613 LTE band 13 power amplifier

Step 13

More chips on the underside of the logic board:

• Qualcomm PM8018 RF power management IC

• Hynix H2JTDG2MBR 128 Gb (16 GB) NAND flash

• Apple 338S1131 dialog power management IC*

• Apple 338S1117 Cirrus Logic Class D Amplifiers. The die inside is a Cirrus Logic device (second image) but it does not look like the audio codec.

• STMicroelectronics L3G4200D (AGD5/2235/G8SBI ) low-power three-axis gyroscope—same as seen in the iPhone 4S, iPad 2, and other leading smart phones

• Murata 339S0171 (based on Broadcom BCM4334) Wi-Fi module

Step 14

• Now for the plat de résistance: the A6 application processor.

• The A6 processor is the first Apple System-on-Chip (SoC) to use a custom design, based off the ARMv7 instruction set.

• Because the A6 is not an ARM-specific CPU design, this gives Apple the ability to tailor the A6 towards their needs.

• According to Chipworks, the B8164B3PM silkscreen label denotes 1GB Elpida LP DDR2 SDRAM.

• Contrarily, the infographic presented during Apple's Keynote clearly showed SamsungRAM (K3PE7E700F) in the A6.

• Not too long ago, Apple decided to reduce the number of RAM chip orders from Samsung. Time to invest in Elpida? Or is Samsung lurking in the next phone on the shelf? That's for you to decide.

Step 15

• Did someone ask for a close-up of the Apple 338S1077 Cirrus audio codec?

• What exactly does an audio codec do? In short, it's a single device that acts as both a digital-to-analog and analog-to-digital converter to properly encode and decode audio in and out signals.

Step 16

Chips on a board. Kinda like ants on a log.

• STMicroelectronics LIS331DLH (2233/DSH/GFGHA) ultra low-power, high performance, three-axis linear accelerometer

• Texas Instruments 343S0628 touch screen SoC

• Broadcom BCM5976 touchscreen controller

• Rather than a single touchscreen controller, Apple went with a multi-chip solution to handle the larger screen size, à la iPad.

• Apple A6 application processor

• Qualcomm MDM9615M LTE modem

• Qualcomm RTR8600 Multi-band/mode RF transceiver, the same one found in the Samsung Galaxy S III

Step 17

• An iPhone with 4G connectivity? It's more likely than you think.

• We can now confirm that the Qualcomm MDM9615M is the 4G LTE modem powering this new feature.

• After being teased for over a year by Android bullies, the iPhone faithful finally have 4G LTE on their side. What will they do with this newfound power? Only time will tell.

• The Qualcomm MDM9615M is a 28 nm LTE (FDD and TDD), HSPA+, EV-DO Rev B, TD-SCDMA modem.

• The MDM9615 allows for multi-spectrums, multi-mode LTE support. It is responsible for transmitting simultaneous voice and data transfer on LTE (provided the carrier has the infrastructure to allow simultaneous voice and data transfer.)

• We also find the Qualcomm RTR8600 multi-band/mode RF transceiver. The RTR8600 is paired alongside the MDM9615 to support various bands, including 5 UMTS bands, and over 5 LTE and 4 EDGE bands.

Step 18

• Here's a closer look at the Broadcom BCM5976 trackpad controller.

• Apple used this same chip in the MacBook Air to control the trackpad. Here, it's working together with the Texas Instruments touchscreen controller to take care of touch inputs on the Retina display.

Step 19

• After completely dissecting the logic board, we turn our attention back to the rear case.

• Not even a healthy heap of adhesive can stand up to our mighty spudger!

• The Lightning connector assembly, which includes the headphone jack, loudspeaker, and lower microphone, comes out next.

• It appears that the Wi-Fi antenna is also embedded into the assembly. The iPhone 5 now includes support for 2.4 GHz and 5 Ghz.

• Antennas are sized to be fractions of full wavelengths, so the 1.23" of a quarter 2.4 GHz wave is close enough to the 1.18" of a half 5 GHz wave that a single antenna can serve both frequencies.

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