News & Analysis
Teardown: Inside the Samsung Galaxy S3 smartphone
Allan Yogasingam
6/14/2012 2:43 AM EDT
The story of Samsung in the smartphone landscape is an intriguing one. No more than three years ago, Samsung was considered a minor player in the handset industry, lagging in sales and stature behind companies such as Nokia, Motorola and Research in Motion. When Apple entered the fray with the introduction of the iPhone, eventually taking over as the leader in smartphone sales, many industry insiders felt that Samsung would never be able to make up the ground to be considered influential to the market.
Samsung itself understood the uphill climb that it was facing. Instead of waving the white flag and exiting the market, Samsung chose to jettison its approach to design and immediately ceased being complacent with its R&D model. Samsung re-invested heavily into creating a new line of handsets that were not only aesthetically-pleasing, but would feature higher-end technology and features not found in their competition.
The result of this new approach yielded the Galaxy line of handsets. These Android-based smartphones resonated with consumers, especially the first flagship handset, the Samsung Galaxy S, which was released in 2010. With sales approaching 24 million units, it was the beginning of Samsung 's dominance of the smartphone market. By the end of 2011, according to Gartner Inc., Samsung was now the undisputed global leader in handset unit sales, representing 40 percent of all Android smartphone sales alone.
According to Information Week, a UBM partner, unit sales of just the Galaxy line of smartphones by Samsung have totaled close to 60 million units, the bulk of which is the Samsung Galaxy S (24 million), the Galaxy S2 (28 million), and the recently released smartphone/tablet hybrid, the Galaxy Note (7 million).
It should come as no surprise then that Samsung 's latest high-end Galaxy phone, the Galaxy S3, has drawn the interest of consumers, designers, engineers and market analysts. What would Samsung have up its sleeve for its newest smartphone?
UBM TechInsights purchased the first set of Samsung Galaxy S3 handsets from Europe. This is important as we were to later find out that the North American versions of the S3 would not feature a quad-core processor but a dual-core processor instead. At this time, the explanation given by Samsung is that this decision "optimizes" the Galaxy S3 for peak performance on America 's 4G and LTE networks.
Package photo of the Exynos Quad. The device features four ARM A9 cores as well as four Mali 400 GPU cores.
Samsung itself understood the uphill climb that it was facing. Instead of waving the white flag and exiting the market, Samsung chose to jettison its approach to design and immediately ceased being complacent with its R&D model. Samsung re-invested heavily into creating a new line of handsets that were not only aesthetically-pleasing, but would feature higher-end technology and features not found in their competition.
The result of this new approach yielded the Galaxy line of handsets. These Android-based smartphones resonated with consumers, especially the first flagship handset, the Samsung Galaxy S, which was released in 2010. With sales approaching 24 million units, it was the beginning of Samsung 's dominance of the smartphone market. By the end of 2011, according to Gartner Inc., Samsung was now the undisputed global leader in handset unit sales, representing 40 percent of all Android smartphone sales alone.
According to Information Week, a UBM partner, unit sales of just the Galaxy line of smartphones by Samsung have totaled close to 60 million units, the bulk of which is the Samsung Galaxy S (24 million), the Galaxy S2 (28 million), and the recently released smartphone/tablet hybrid, the Galaxy Note (7 million).
It should come as no surprise then that Samsung 's latest high-end Galaxy phone, the Galaxy S3, has drawn the interest of consumers, designers, engineers and market analysts. What would Samsung have up its sleeve for its newest smartphone?
UBM TechInsights purchased the first set of Samsung Galaxy S3 handsets from Europe. This is important as we were to later find out that the North American versions of the S3 would not feature a quad-core processor but a dual-core processor instead. At this time, the explanation given by Samsung is that this decision "optimizes" the Galaxy S3 for peak performance on America 's 4G and LTE networks.
Package photo of the Exynos Quad. The device features four ARM A9 cores as well as four Mali 400 GPU cores.
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pandoran
6/14/2012 6:23 PM EDT
Damn EEtimes!! Do you really think people will scroll through 21 pages of your teardown?
I stopped after going through 9..
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Sanjib.Acharya
6/14/2012 10:40 PM EDT
True...browsing through 21 pages needs lots of patient & time. But I think you have not missed much as the useful information are captured in the first two pages. Other pages show the photos of the teardown step by step.
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naperlou
6/15/2012 11:11 PM EDT
I did!
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vlstefanovic
6/18/2012 9:25 AM EDT
Just press Print button. ;)
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C VanDorne
6/18/2012 3:56 PM EDT
Genius!
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analogsemiguy
12/9/2012 8:06 AM EST
Abe Lincoln once apologized in a five- page letter to a friend that he did not have the time to write a one- page letter. Anyway, if you don't like 21 pages, don't read them. I think it's great that EET is providing so much detail. HOWEVER, the lead- in to the article states that three years ago, SS was a minor player. On which planet? I have been supplying chips to them since 1995 and the entire time they have been creative and aggressive and climbed steadily without a single setback and in every phone category to the top. No other maker has done that.
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Francois R
12/10/2012 1:14 PM EST
Even better if you take the time to "click on image to enlarge" in each of them... d:-)
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dmassetti
12/10/2012 5:20 PM EST
Dufus - hit the print button and it is all on one page to browse.
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david.may
6/14/2012 8:23 PM EDT
missing info
"memory package. This package consists of (enter information here). Samsung also turns to their own semiconductor business to "
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dylan.mcgrath
6/16/2012 12:54 PM EDT
Thanks for catching this error, which we have now corrected. We apologize for the oversight.
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tb1
6/14/2012 10:47 PM EDT
"I stopped after going through 9.."
The article is only 2 pages. The rest are just pictures. It is fascinating how they fit it all together into such a small package.
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Sanjib.Acharya
6/14/2012 11:43 PM EDT
"...this decision "optimizes" the Galaxy S3 for peak performance on America 's 4G and LTE networks."
A dual-core processor would work better than a quad-core on 4G? Some more information on 2-core vs. 4-core processors might help in understanding what makes a dual-core to work better than a quad-core on 4G.
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DeepakShankarV
6/15/2012 1:46 AM EDT
Cool.
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Cherry89
6/15/2012 2:16 AM EDT
damn...21 pages to read... omg
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elctrnx_lyf
6/15/2012 3:53 AM EDT
Samsung is coming into the market with very strong products again n again. Will this be followed by s4 in the future.
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kinnar
6/15/2012 4:43 AM EDT
It is not good to sell the same Brand and same Model device with different specifications in two different countries, this will reduce the trust on the companies when people come to know about differences.
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yalanand
7/4/2012 11:58 PM EDT
@kinnar, I am not sure if the end user cares whether its a quad-core processor or not, I think it hardly matters to them. So I dont think it would affect the sales of Samsung mobile.
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R0ckstar
6/15/2012 3:54 PM EDT
Just to put this out there - I'm not going to load 21 pages of advertisements to look at a few pictures. Had the article extended beyond a few pages, I wouldn't have read it at all. These are the kinds of things that have caused me to permanently abandon other websites in the past. Something to keep in mind for the future.
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selinz
6/15/2012 5:47 PM EDT
They seem to have done a pretty good job of creating relatively few sub assemblies. And I like the relatively large 2100 mAh battery.
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hm
6/15/2012 9:12 PM EDT
Not good approach for 21 pages. But when Junko writes, it is always single long page!
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Derek Lin
6/17/2012 11:14 PM EDT
My understanding is:
- Exynos4212 dual core
- Exynos4412 Quad core
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Singar
6/18/2012 2:09 AM EDT
If you want to review the entire article in one go, hit the print button. there is a pop up with the entire article. no need to print.
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Luis Sanchez
6/18/2012 3:26 AM EDT
One question, do you have to request permission to Samsung or any of the phone's manufacturer to make a Teardown? How about the BOM you present... how do you get it? is it just by identifying the found chips in the boards through the teardown?
It's good to see a teardown since this way we can know who are the chips more common in the phones nowadays.
And guys, why such a big fuzz about the 21 pages. Seeing 19 pictures isn't that big of a deal.
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http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/poconoarmchairreview
6/18/2012 3:39 AM EDT
It is an honor and a privilege just to be given permission to buy such products. Therefore, there is a special request form that must be filled out in triplicate, and delivered while avoiding all eye contact.
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http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/poconoarmchairreview
6/18/2012 3:40 AM EDT
It is an honor and a privilege just to be given permission to buy such products. Therefore, there is a special request form that must be filled out in triplicate, and delivered while avoiding all eye contact.
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dylan.mcgrath
6/18/2012 11:46 AM EDT
You don't need any permission to do a teardown. I believe you are correct about the way the analysts arrive at the BoM, but I invite TechInsights to weigh in here with more info if they so desire.
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timbo_test
6/18/2012 5:48 AM EDT
Interesting tear-down! If you don't want to scroll through 21 pages - and even on a moderately fast link this gets really tedious, click on the [=|print] icon at the bottom of any page, and you get it all on one page - scroll to read or print this to read afterwards!
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DanyD
6/18/2012 5:57 AM EDT
I have heard that S3 would include a wireless charging function, but on the pictures I do not see any clue about a receiver coil embedded behind the battery(or maybe in the battery itself). Any confirmation of such function?
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jeremybirch
6/18/2012 8:16 AM EDT
May I suggest removing the battery in future BEFORE applying the hot air gun - some of those babies do not like getting hot and we would not want anyone getting hurt in the search for truth ;)
Surely the "64Gb of mobile DRAM" must be a misprint? Even if that is only 8Gbytes that is a serious amount of ram and would make it a bit pointless strapping 1GB to the top of the processor, surely?
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DrLAL
6/19/2012 5:10 PM EDT
Samsung selected the quad-core Exynos 4212 (which was at one point named the Exynos 4412 and then finally renamed the Exynos Quad). According to Samsung, this processor was manufactured at the 32-nm node, similar to that of the latest version of the Apple A5 processor found in the 3rd generation Apple TV or 2nd generation iPad 2. This new Exynos processor uses power gating across all four cores, which apparently reduces power consumption when not in use.
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OLMN
6/20/2012 8:54 AM EDT
Hello, among the smart-sensors you forgot to mention the AK9875, a 3-axis compass from ASAHI KASEI.
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OLMN
6/20/2012 8:55 AM EDT
oops... AK8975, sorry :-)
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JAK620
6/20/2012 3:06 PM EDT
"6Gb of mobile flash and 64Gb of Mobile DRAM"
That would be 2GB for storage and then 8GB of DRAM.
It should be the opposite way, right?
8GB would be too much for a lightly used desktop at home. No mention to a mobile phone.
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wilber_xbox
6/21/2012 10:50 AM EDT
I smell a rat with Samsung's success. How can Samsung build better smartphones than others and so close in specifications and feel to Apple's is difficult to absorb. That too in just 3 years while others are still struggling to match up with Apple.
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yalanand
7/5/2012 12:00 AM EDT
@wilber_xbox, what exactly is your point ? Are you saying Samsung used Apple's technology ?
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DynamicLogic.US
12/28/2012 11:34 PM EST
The key is the soc and inegrating latest ip from fast evolving ecosystem partners: quad or dual ARM A9 apps processor each with 2 GBytes of RAM and highdef multi core ARM GPUs, Linux based Android for ARM A9, and evolving OS and app features specific to samsung since galaxy initiated 3 years ago. When Samsung made a portable media player around my Sigmatel soc they sent four Linux developers to Austin who worked on the OS in one room and knocked it out with agile software engineering on Linux, leveraging ecosystem software quickly. my site www.dynamiclogic.us
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DynamicLogic.US
12/28/2012 11:53 PM EST
Wait for samsung exynos 5 soc, its ARM A15 cpu and Mali T604 GPU are a big leap over ARM A9 with mali400. ARM A15 eagle apps processor consumes 1Watt with very high processing power. Google/samsung nexus notebook has these in its exynos5. ARM's big little strategy adds an instruction compatible smaller companion cpu for power savings on smaller processing loads when present.
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jrkang
12/13/2012 3:08 AM EST
I just bought one yesterday. Who can tell me how the Galaxy S3 implement the 'Smart stay' function. Only rely on the camera in Hardware, no other senor?
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AliNS
3/5/2013 4:19 PM EST
Great, but are you going to be able to put it back together!?
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PacoBell
3/7/2013 5:32 PM EST
So...no mention about which chip solution Samsung chose for their Qi wireless charging component? I'm guessing some IDT product, but I'd like some confirmation.
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varzucu
3/28/2013 11:10 AM EDT
You've put a lot of effort to tear this piece of work, which is Samsung S3 down for us to see in great detail, maybe greater than some of us, including me, is capable to processs with our not so technological brain.
I would be also interested to know how exactly is a quadcore better than a quad core. For the moment, I was having great fun rooting S3, which gave me the liberty to overclock the processor, to see how much faster it could be, using XDA members' overclocking method: http://www.searchforsoft.com/reviews/How-To/Overclock-your-Samsung-Galaxy-S3-using-Ninphetamin3-custom-kernel-step-by-step-tutorial-53.htm . The phone was better in multitasking, but I renounced at this quite soon, as some of my friends warned me that it would make my phone hotter and as I saw with my own eyes that the battery lasted lesser.
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