iPhone X Teardown: TrueDepth Camera System, Stacked Logic Board With 3GB RAM, and 2,716 mAh Battery

Incredible engineering.

Can you please put the phone back together and send it over to me...? Thanks in advance.

That motherboard-design is pure art. Chapeau Apple Engineers.

Assuming the Plus logic board is the same size as the non-Plus logic board (why would it not be), then saying the iPhone X logic board is 70 percent the size of the iPhone 8 logic board would sound more dramatic. Saying a smaller phone has a smaller logic board than a bigger phone doesn't really sound like a big deal....

It doesn't sound like a big deal because MR left out a key piece of information regarding the logic board. The logic board in the iPhone X is actually 35% larger than the board in the 8+. Larger. The way Apple engineered the X's logic board, essentially folding it in half with components on both sides, allow it to take up 70% of the space of the 8+'s board.

As with a lot of things, it's not what you say but how you say it.
The logic board on the iPhone X is 35% larger than the logic board on the iPhone 8+. Even though the board is larger, Apple managed to fit it into a space that only uses 70% of the space used by the 8+'s logic board. Even if the 8 and 8+ use the same logic board, the 8+ connotes larger board, thus more impressive.

('https://www.macrumors.com/2017/11/03/iphone-x-teardown-ifixit/')


iFixit has completed an iPhone X teardown ('https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/iPhone+X+Teardown/98975'), providing a closer look inside the device, including its new TrueDepth camera system, stacked logic board, L-shaped two-cell battery pack, and Qi-based inductive charging coil.



Like every other model since the iPhone 7 Plus, the iPhone X is a sideways-opening device. A single bracket covers every logic board connector.

iFixit said the miniaturized logic board design is incredibly space efficient, with an unprecedented density of connectors and components. It noted the iPhone X logic board is about 70 percent of the size of the iPhone 8 Plus logic board.

The extra room allows for a new L-shaped two-cell battery pack rated for 2,716 mAh, which is slightly larger than the iPhone 8 Plus battery.



iFixit's teardown includes some high-resolution photos of the iPhone X's new TrueDepth camera system that powers Face ID and Animoji.

To recap, the flood illuminator covers your face with infrared light. Next, the front-facing camera, marked in red, confirms a face. Then the IR dot projector, far right, projects a grid of dots over your face to create a three-dimensional map. Last, the infrared camera on the left reads this map and sends the data to the iPhone X.



Like the iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus, the inside of the iPhone X's rear shell is affixed with an inductive charging coil based on the Qi standard.

Other components in this iPhone X include Apple's custom A11 Bionic chip, 3GB of LPDDR4x RAM from SK Hynix, 64GB of flash storage supplied by Toshiba, Qualcomm's Snapdragon X16 LTE modem, and a Cirrus Logic audio amplifier.



Some minor changes: Apple's Taptic Engine continues to be a linear oscillator vibration motor, the earpiece speaker has been shifted down, and the Lighting connector is said to be more greatly reinforced with a wider bracket that screws into the sidewall of the iPhone X's stainless steel frame.

iFixit gave the iPhone X a so-called repairability score of six out of a possible 10 points. It said a cracked display can be replaced without removing Face ID's biometric hardware, but it added that fussy cables tie unrelated components together into complex assemblies that are expensive and troublesome to replace.

Article Link: iPhone X Teardown: TrueDepth Camera System, Stacked Logic Board With 3GB RAM, and 2,716 mAh Battery ('https://www.macrumors.com/2017/11/03/iphone-x-teardown-ifixit/')

Amazing work. I’m impressed how they get one on the other side of the world, totally tear it down and document the process, before most people in the USA are out of bed! Great job!

man.. apple hardware engineers are wizards non the less

Centuries from now, much like we view the inner workings of antique timepieces and such now, historians will look at the schematics for the various iPhone models and marvel at how sophisticated they were for the era in which they were built.

Maybe.

I have to think even one century from now, people will look back and laugh at today's tech- even this... much as us looking back 100 years to a time when trying to replicate the most basic functions of this thing involved wired telephones, telegraphs, the postal system, artists and/or film-based photography, visits to many libraries, typewriters and so on. In 1917, radio was barely getting going and there was no television. If you wanted to FaceTime, you had to travel to the person with the face with which you wanted some time... and actually speak to each other using the human mouth and ears (without microphones, headphones or speakers).

100 years ago, you probably used the restroom by stepping OUTSIDE to a separate little building. Commercially available toilet paper was still about 3 years away from coming to market (just ponder those possibilities). Or don't: one of the big selling points for Northern TP as late as the 1930s was that it was "splinter free." :eek:

You had probably never seen deodorants, so just about everybody likely smelled pretty bad. You might have traveled in a motorized vehicle, maybe as fast as 20 or 30 miles per hour. You probably used a paper map (likely hand-drawn) to get from place to place. Posting to a board where others might see it (like this) involved writing the message on paper and some kind of tack & physical board somewhere. If you spent much time asking a physical object questions ("Hey Siri"), you'd probably soon be taken to a special home. Etc.

I suspect 100 years from now, our great grandchildren will wonder how we ever survived these times with such primitive technology, including laughing at the idea of having to carry around a slab of metal & glass to be able to communicate in the most basic of ways: "Great-grandpa, how did you ever survive the early 21st century?" Now, if it is true historians, I think you are right. Watch History channel documentaries now and they'll gush for 10 or 15 minutes over the genius in how some rock was shaped into some tool or the genius of how some massive stones were configured to identify the equinoxes. But the mass population will probably look at iPhone X like we look at early typewriters and laugh at what Great-grandpa had to deal with. Consider these time travelers from just a few centuries in the future...

[MEDIA=youtube]hShY6xZWVGE[/MEDIA]

"Grandpa, tell us again, you had to plug this phone thing in to charge a chemical battery?"

"And this battery could only power it for up to maybe 1 day? Oh my gosh!"

"You couldn't render a holographic image?"

"You had to remember some (phone) numbers to be able to contact someone?"

"This huge device had only 3GB of RAM? I think I have an eyelash with more RAM than that."

"These basic functions cost about half of a whole month's pay? And then you paid a monthly rental (service) fee to be able to actually use it for anything? And then the very next year, you felt compelled to buy a slightly newer model- typically for even more money- that barely did anything more than the one you already owned? And then again the next year too?"

"Did you ever see a dinosaur Grandpa?"

"Did you know Abraham Lincoln?"

"Who were these musicians called Elvis and The Beatles?" Speaking of which, here's some historians remembering the latter from the year 3000...

[MEDIA=youtube]3Z2vU8M6CYI[/MEDIA]

The amount of tech packed into it is amazing!

Centuries from now, much like we view the inner workings of antique timepieces and such now, historians will look at the schematics for the various iPhone models and marvel at how sophisticated they were for the era in which they were built.

Kudos to Apple's engineering team.

Made by the hand of man..Overall we're doomed as a species, but boy we are making some fascinating stuff while we're here.