How Apple iPhone is made

Component Costs

Within 48 hours of its launch, a market research firm dissected Apple's iPhone to break down the cost of the hardware components inside. The sleek iPhone is dominated by its 3.5-inch, 480-by-320 pixel multitouch display. The display is among the most costly elements in the iPhone, besides the memory and the touchscreen module; its price is pegged at $24.50. The glass display itself is sourced by Epson, Sharp, and Toshiba Matsushita Display Technology.

Touchscreen module

Analysis reveals the total cost of the hardware components is $225.85 for the 4GB version, and $249.85 for the 8GB version. The only difference between the two versions lies in the flash memory. At right, you can see the back plate covering the display. The $27 touchscreen module that enables the iPhone's cool touch navigation is from Balda and TPK Solutions.

SIM Card

This image shows the bottom of the iPhone's applications circuit board. The open slot (1) houses the AT&T SIM card; the iPhone not only is locked to AT&T service, but it's also locked to the specific AT&T SIM card that comes with it. On inserting a non-iPhone AT&T SIM card, the phone wouldn't recognize it. Hidden under (2) is 8MB of multipurpose flash memory, which is in addition to the iPhone's 4GB or 8GB of primary flash storage.

Circuit Board

The iPhone is slim, measuring just 12 mm thick. The components packed inside the iPhone's stylish chassis are cleverly sandwiched together. To reveal the individual components that together comprise the iPhone's brains, the boards have to be pried apart.

Internal Components

Here, you can see the top of the applications circuit board (1) and the top of the wireless interface board (3). In the middle, is the inside of the iPhone's back surface. The 3.5mm stereo headphone minijack and related circuitry (2) is crammed into the upper left corner. Although the jack itself is standard, when the chassis is assembled, the jack is actually inset a bit, making it difficult for most ordinary headphones to fit into the tight space. If you want to use your current headphones on the iPhone, you'll need to buy a $10 adapter.

Wireless Interface Components

The board shown here is crammed with the components that are the heart and the soul of any wireless device. Shown here are: The quad-band GSM (850-, 900-, 1800-, and 1900-MHz)/EDGE transceiver (A); power amplifier (B); Bluetooth 2.0 chip set (C); the wireless 802.11 a/b/g chip set (D); the baseband chip set (E); and power management chip set (F).

Fixed Battery

The iPhone's lithium ion battery cannot be replaced by users. The battery is built into the unit, and soldered to the wireless interface board, as shown here. Apple says the battery should be able to be charged 300 to 400 times. To replace the battery, you'll have to send the phone in to Apple, and it will cost you $79 plus $6.95 for return shipping. Apple will replace the battery in warranty if it drops below 50 percent of its original capacity; but the iPhone only gives you a visual, not a numeric, reporting of battery life.

Core components

This view shows the top of the applications circuit board, home of the iPhone's core components. The flash memory is among the most expensive elements in the iPhone. The 4GB Samsung NAND memory costs $24 (seen here), while the 8GB costs $48. The Samsung memory uses multi-level cell (MLC) technology, which stores more bits per cell than single-level cell (SLC) technology, but it also means higher power consumption.

Other core components

Other core components on the applications circuit board include the motion sensor/accelerometer that enables the iPhone's ability to auto-rotate the display's orientation (A), the 24-bit RGB display interface from National (B), and Wolfson Microelectronics' audio codec (C). In the upper left, is the iPhone's camera. The Apple-branded processor (D), the 620-MHz ARM1176JZF application processor with 1Gb of DDR SDRAM memory from Samsung, is one of the largest components. (the processor's source is either Samsung or Marvell).

Camera

The phone has a 2-megapixel, fixed-lens camera module with a CMOS sensor. The cost of the camera is $9.50.

Software

Aside from the multi-touch display and motion sensor/accelerometer, the iPhone turns out to have little else in terms of revolutionary components. But the integration of the software with the hardware is entirely different. The level of thought put into interface design and software has been unseen in a cell phone, prior to this.