The Deepest Dive into the iPhone 5 - All Parts and Vendors Revealed

We’ve recently provided an estimated bill of materials (BOM) analysis of the iPhone, as well as an overview of the first iPhone tear down to hit the street from iFixit. Now, IHS iSuppli, which finally had a chance to take the deepest possible dive into the iPhone 5, has delivered a thorough and complete analysis – including detailed lists of the iPhone’s parts and their suppliers.

The original estimated BOM report was completely on target: The low-end 16 GB model has a BOM of $199.00 ($207.00, when manufacturing expenses are added in); the 32 GB version increases the BOM to $209.00; the 64 GB version comes in at $230.00.

IHS iSuppli found a great deal of similarity to the iPhone 4S in terms of core component suppliers, along with some key changes to product design and parts that deliver the major iPhone 5 upgrades.. These include the faster applications processor, larger display and the high-speed 4G LTE cellular interface. Every component and subsystem in the iPhone 5 has been updated in numerous little ways as well. Per iSuppli:

• The iPhone 4S suppliers making a return engagement with the iPhone 5 include Samsung (though not for memory), Qualcomm, Murata, Dialog, Texas Instruments, STMicroelectronics, Cirrus Logic, Avago, Skyworks, NXP and AKM. Nevertheless—from the advanced, $17.50 A6 processor manufactured for Apple by Samsung, down to the relatively simple $0.62 electronic compass from AKM Semiconductor—almost every part in the new iPhone has been updated.
• New suppliers include SanDisk Corp., which contributed the NAND flash memory in the specific iPhone 5 dissected by the IHS iSuppli Teardown Analysis Service. This marks the first time that SanDisk NAND has been found in an iPhone examined by the IHS iSuppli Teardown Analysis Service. In the iPhone 4S teardown, the NAND supplier was Samsung.

Apple is clearly making a concerted effort to move away from Samsung as a major semiconductor supplier. Elpida likewise has replaced Samsung as the supplier of the SDRAM in the individual iPhone 5 analyzed by IHS. However, Samsung and Hynix could be supplying this widely available memory part in other iPhone 5s.

As noted in the iFixit teardown, the battery in the iPhone 5 is supplied by Sony Corp.—Amperex Technology provided the battery in the iPhone 4S. The cost of the battery in the iPhone 4S is estimated at $4.99.

A major change to the iPhone 5 is in its baseband processor. While Qualcomm remains the supplier of this critical component, the iPhone 5 integrates the company’s MDM9615M and RTR8600 parts; the 4S, in comparison, employed the Qualcomm MDM6610 and RTR8605 devices. The new Qualcomm parts were utilized to allow support for LTE. The addition of LTE had other implications for the iPhone 5 design.

An interesting thing Apple has done, which iFixit also noted, is the extraordinary level of build quality not only on the exterior of the iPhone 5 but in the interior of the phone as well, where no eyes will ever really go (aside from the teardown pros).

“While most manufacturers make great effort to simplify designs by minimizing the total number of mechanical parts and fasteners in their products, Apple appears to be going in the other direction with the iPhone 5,” said Kevin Keller, senior principal analyst, teardown analysis, for IHS. “The iPhone 5 incorporates even more mechanical parts than previous iPhone designs, resulting in a very complex assembly. But Apple can do this and still produce the iPhone 5 at such low costs due to its capability to leverage its vast army of low-cost labor.”

This brings our physical exploration of the iPhone 5 more or less to a close. Teardowns are certainly available of most of the smartphones that compete with the iPhone 4S and iPhone 5, but we only really note a significant level of interest in the complete set of teardown details when it comes to Apple hardware.

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