HTC's "Nexus Two" sees $163.35 Bill of Materials

HTC Droid Incredible as possible followup to Google phone

HTC’s new Droid Incredible smart phone carries a Bill of Materials (BOM) of $163.35, according to a dissection conducted by iSuppli’s Teardown Analysis Service.

“The Droid Incredible could have been dubbed the ‘Nexus Two’ given its similarity to HTC’s Nexus One introduced early this year,” said Andrew Rassweiler, director and principal analyst and teardown services manager for iSuppli. “Indeed, the phones are very similar in terms of costs and features, with the main difference being the Incredible’s support for the CDMA air standard used by carrier Verizon in the United States.”

The Nexus One’s BOM amounted to $174.15, based on iSuppli’s January pricing estimate, very close to the current materials cost for the Incredible. The centerpiece of both phones is an advanced Active Matrix Organic Light Emitting Diode (AMOLED) display. Both phones also share a common electronic design based on Qualcomm Inc.’s 1GHz Snapdragon baseband processor. Finally, the Incredible and Nexus One both integrate a class-leading density, at 4Gbit, of Mobile Double Data Rate (DDR) DRAM to support the processor.

Beyond the use of CDMA in the Incredible, only a few other differences distinguish the phone from the Nexus One. The Incredible, for one, uses an optical track pad, as opposed to the trackball on the Nexus One. Furthermore, the Incredible employs HTC’s Sense User Interface (UI) overlay, whereas the Nexus uses the generic Android UI. When the $8.90 manufacturing cost is added in, the combined BOM and production expense for the Incredible amounts to $172.25.

Qualcomm, Samsung and Hynix lead the BOM parade

The most expensive section of the Incredible is the baseband/applications processor, at a cost of $31.40, and accounting for 19.2 percent of the smart phone’s total BOM. This section is dominated by Qualcomm’s baseband Integrated Circuit (IC), which includes the Snapdragon processor.

Coming in at a close second in terms of expense is the display and touch screen section at a cost of $31.20, or 19.1 percent of the BOM. The AMOLED display portion of this subsystem is supplied by Samsung Mobile Display.

Next in the ranking is the memory section, at a cost of $29.80 and accounting for 18.2 percent of the BOM. In the individual Incredible phone unit torn down by iSuppli, this section consists of NAND flash memory and mobile Double Data Rate (DDR) DRAM from Samsung Electronics and more NAND from Hynix Semiconductor. However, iSuppli believes that HTC is likely using additional sources of supply for these commodity memory parts.

Broadcom, Texas Instruments and Atmel get Incredible wins

Other major functional sections and suppliers include:

• The Bluetooth/WLAN section, at a cost of $8.45 or 5.2 percent of the BOM, featuring a Broadcom chip that combines Bluetooth, FM and WLAN support.
• The power management section, with an expense of $7.25 and amounting to 4.4 percent of the BOM, including semiconductors from Qualcomm and Texas Instruments 
•  The user interface functions, costing $5.55 and accounting for 3.4 percent of the BOM, featuring an Atmel touch screen controller, an Asahi Kasei Microdevices (AKM) electronic compass and a Bosch Sensortec accelerometer (see ST's and freescales bid inthis area)
• The Radio Frequency (RF) transceiver section, with a cost of $5 and representing 3.1 percent of the BOM, centered on a single-chip RF device from Qualcomm.
•  The power amplifier section, at a cost of $2.60 and BOM share of 1.6 percent, featuring two transmit modules from Avago Technologies and TriQuint Semiconductor

For more information on iSuppli’s Droid Incredible Teardown, please visit: http://www.isuppli.com/Teardowns-Manufacturing-and-Pricing/Pages/It-s-Incredible-HTC-Incredible-Teardown.aspx?PRX

Related articles

• HTC Droid Incredible Almost Identical To Nexus One (informationweek.com)
• HTC Droid Incredible is the Nexus Two? Not so fast. (intomobile.com)
• iPhone 4 components cost $187.51 say iSuppli (slashgear.com)
• Droid Incredible Review (ubergizmo.com)

SiGe Semiconductor launches integrated Wi-Fi Front End IC for mobile devices

Single-chip CMOS boosts converged Bluetooth/Wi-Fi  chipsets  

SiGe Semiconductor has launched a silicon RF switch/LNA Front End IC (FEIC) designed to enhance the performance and functionality of converged Bluetooth/Wi-Fi chipsets for embedded applications. The new device addresses the increasing convergence of Wi-Fi and Bluetooth for the new generations of smartphones, netbooks, personal media players and digital cameras.
“With the SE2601T we are providing our customers with a single-chip solution integrating a SP3T RF switch and Wi-Fi receive path low noise amplifier (LNA),” said  Sanjiv Shah, Marketing Director Embedded Products at SiGe. “The SE2601T, which integrates features that until now have been discrete on the device motherboard or inside of a module solution, occupies less board space and offers significant advantages for designers of today’s cool, feature-rich mobile devices”.

SiGe developed the SE2601T to enhance the performance and functionality of Bluetooth/Wi-Fi chipset solutions using an integrated CMOS power amplifier (PA).

The 2601T leverages the performance and functional integration strengths of silicon-based RF solutions.  The 2601T improves the connectivity range of the Wi-Fi solution by placing a high-performance LNA between the antenna and the RF receiver that is part of chipsets from leading vendors such as CSR, Marvell, Broadcom and Atheros. Often the LNA function is omitted in embedded applications such as smartphones due to physical space constraints on the Wi-Fi solution, thus degrading connectivity performance.  This LNA significantly increases the sensitivity of the Wi-Fi receiving system – critical in embedded applications where physically small antennas are limited in their contribution to signal quality. The RF switch function – supporting antenna sharing between Bluetooth and 802.11bgn functions – is typically a discrete device requiring additional passives and consuming more space than the integrated 2601T solution.  Thus the 2601T significantly decreases the footprint required for enhancing Wi-Fi performance while supporting a shared antenna for Bluetooth and Wi-Fi functions.
From a competitive standpoint, the 2601T integrates the required DC blocking capacitors through the use of a silicon-based IC process.  The GaAs-based competition for the 2601T requires external capacitors consuming additional circuit board space and causing incremental increase in bill of materials cost for the Wi-Fi solution.
In a 2x2mm QFN package, the 2601T is best suited to direct placement on the embedded device’s motherboard.

“The SE2601T provides our customers with an integrated solution for their designs, addressing some of the industry’s fastest growing market segments,” said Shah. “The reduced design time it supports, with the smallest footprint for its functionality as well as the reduction of the number of components required ."
 
Pricing and availability: The SE2601T is priced at $0.35 in quantities of 10,000 units.
It is sampling now and is offered with product and evaluation board datasheets and extensive application notes surrounding the use and implementation of the device 

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