The teardowns and cost benchmarking team at IHS Markit has completed its preliminary physical review of the new Apple iPhone XS Max. The A1921 model of the smartphone sold in North America comes with 64GB of NAND memory and carries a bill of materials (BOM) of $390, which is just $20 higher than the BOM for last year’s smaller iPhone X.
With a starting price of $1,099, this year’s 6.5″ iPhone XS Max costs consumers $100 more than last year’s 5.8″ iPhone X. As another point of comparison, the Samsung Galaxy S9+ equipped with 64GB of NAND flash memory carries a BOM cost of $375.80 and retails at around $840. Principal analyst Wayne Lam commented:
“Overall,
the iPhone XS Max represents an ‘S-year upgrade’, whereby the physical smartphone design remains relatively unchanged from the previous version released in 2017 but most of the core components have been upgraded.
For example, SDRAM increased from 3GB last year to 4GB this year, the A12 applications processor features the latest 7-nanometer manufacturing by TSMC and additional LTE band support has been added to the gigabit LTE radio-frequency front-end design”.
The iPhone XS Max includes a new 6.5″ OLED display supplied by Samsung Display. LG Display is a secondary supplier to Apple for this particular display, according to the latest IHS intelligence. The overall touchscreen display cost of $120 is similar to last year’s iPhone X 5.8″ display pricing. This price point indicates that there has been significant price erosion of OLED displays between last year and this year, which Apple apparently did not pass on to consumers.
Also new this year is the 120Hz refresh rate for the touch overlay in both OLED display models, which is twice as fast as the refresh rates on all previous iPhones. Lam continued:
“Higher touchscreen refresh rate is a new display improvement that all three new iPhones share. Faster refresh rates ultimately improve the user experience, as interactions with the display appear snappier and smoother”.
As expected, Intel took the sole modem slot for the iPhone XS Max and XS update. There is only one SKU for the modem, which supports gigabit LTE, with 4×4 multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) and support for all four major carriers in the US.
Exploded video of the iPhone XS Max
In order to support all global RF bands, Apple has implemented modular stacked printed circuit boards (PCBs) that can be swapped out to support other localised LTE frequencies. These modular PCBs are another design change that helps with Apple’s SKU management between the five global iPhone XS Max models. Lam added:
“The move to gigabit LTE is an important one, as it brings Apple into parity with Android flagship devices. Moving to a single modem supplier simplifies SKU management, and the addition of eSIM will make switching between carriers easier”.
Compared to previous Intel modem designs dating back to the iPhone 7, this latest iteration does not have any visible Qorvo radio-frequency front-end (RFFE) components like LTE envelope trackers (ET), since the Intel XMM7560 already contains an integrated ET. Both Skyworks and Broadcom were prominent in the increasingly complex RFFE.
Clearly visible on the stainless-steel frame are antenna segmentations forming four discrete antennae, which serve as the basis of the 4×4 MIMO LTE radio. The two smaller antenna segments correspond to the mid-to-high LTE frequencies and they are situated at opposite corners of the smartphone, in order to maximise spatial diversity.
For low-anchor LTE frequency use, the primary Rx/Tx antenna on the bottom and the diversity antenna arranged in a 2×2 formation on the top are the same as in previous iPhone designs.
This dual-use of the stainless-steel antenna structure is unique to Apple, as most other gigabit LTE phones rely on patch antennas behind the rear glass to add additional LTE antennas. By virtue of this design, Apple was able to simplify the RFFE complexity and cut down on extra antenna components needed to support gigabit LTE.
Apple has created more iPhone options this year, while moving its whole portfolio further up into the premium segment. Research and analysis director Jusy Hong remarked:
“T
he company has completed its hardware design refresh that started with iPhone X and has moved to an all-notch display line-up. Features like high refresh rate, HDR, computational photography, enhanced audio recording and improved performance for artificial reality games and other offerings reinforce Apple’s focus on the user experience”.
The premium smartphone market segment increased drastically after Apple released the iPhone 8, iPhone 8 Plus and iPhone X last year. Shipment volume increased to 30.1 million and 69.8 million units in the third and fourth quarters of 2017 respectively, up from 16.5 million and 32.9 million in the same quarters a year earlier.
As a result, global share of premium smartphone shipments increased to 18% in the fourth quarter of 2017, up from 8% in the fourth quarter of 2016.
