The first iPhone SE teardown reveals a lot of similar parts as the iPhone 6s, which is good news for those looking for a premium smartphone on the cheap.
Apple unveiled the iPhone SE at their autumn went last week and it is beginning to reach the hands of customers around the world. As per tradition, new products get torn apart to determine exactly what they are mad of. The peeps over at ChipWorks have already been able to take Apple‘s latest 4-inch phone apart to see what‘s powering it all on the inside.
Read: Watch: Summary of yesterday‘s Apple iPhone SE event
We already know that the iPhone SE is powered by an A9 chip (same as the iPhone 6s). In the case of the iPhone SE obtained by ChipWorks, the processor was made by TSMC, although that could vary on a per-device basis. Furthermore, the device is using the same 2GB LPDDR4 RAM that the iPhone 6s uses. Interestingly, the date of this part according to labelling is around August or September of last year, meaning that it has been sitting around in inventory since then and was likely originally intended for the iPhone 6s. As far as the storage goes, Toshiba handled the 16GB flash chip found in this iPhone, which is a new chip.
The screen however uses parts that are a bit older (iPhone 5s). The touchscreen controller used is the Broadcom BCM5976 and Texas Instruments 343S0645 on the iPhone SE. These parts would have obviously had to be different should Apple have wanted to include 3D-Touch (and drive up the price as well). The 6-axis inertial sensor, for things like the accelerometer and gyroscope, is the same AISC and MEMS sensor used in the iPhone 6s. The Qualcomm MDM9625M modem and 338S00105 and 338S1285 Audio ICs are also the same as the iPhone 6s components.
Even though the SE uses a lot of the 6s’ parts there are some differences. For one, there‘s a new Apple/Dialog power management system and ChipWorks state: “There are several components in the iPhone SE that we have seen before. There are also some components we have never seen before. These new devices include a Skyworks SKY77611 power amplifier module, a Texas Instruments 338S00170 power management IC, the Toshiba THGBX5G7D2KLDXG NAND flash, an EPCOS D5255 antenna switch module, and an AAC Technologies 0DALM1 microphone.”
Source: 9to5Mac (Images from ChipWorks)
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