Nokia N95 – Teardown
For full teardown analyses, bill of materials, and pictures, hit up the wiki: http://www.phonewreck.com/wiki/index.php?title=Nokia_N95
As a first teardown (for phoneWreck), we figured cracking open Nokia’s previous flagship device would be a good start. So we went at it full force. It should be noted that this model is the N95-1 with the expandable MicroSD card storage.
The N95 was a tough one to crack open since there were more mechanical parts than a traditional smartphone, with dual-sliding modes. This one was totally worth it though, as we were treated to a bevy of ICs, resistors, and the whole lot of circuitry.
Read on for more teardown analyses.
First thing to note, is that Nokia smartphones typically implement both a baseband processor as well as an applications processor. This particular one runs an unmarked TI baseband processor and a TI OMAP2420 apps processor.
It’s also got three different memory units, one Spansion and two Samsungs, which we’ve made logical guesses as to which processor they served. These are noted in the block diagram below.
The dual processor makes for relatively complex circuitry, but the performance capabilities of the N95 really demonstrate the prowess of having an extra applications processor to do the dirty work.
As you can see, Texas Instruments and STMicroelectronics had the most design wins along with Samsung/Spansion combo for memory, and RF Micro for some of the power amps.
The front and the back of the main PCB is shown below. The interesting thing about the N95 is that since the screen is on a separate mount, both sides of the PCB can be used. This, however, does cause the device to be a little bulkier than its candybar-form-factored friends.
Finally, the camera module. This 5.0MP camera, with the image sensor developed by Micron Technologies, was the leading cameraphone back in the day, and its beastly size definitely attests to that.
For a full bill of materials and even more pictures, visit the Nokia N95 page on the wiki: http://www.phonewreck.com/wiki/index.php?title=Nokia_N95
[...] We’ve gotten the review and teardowns of the: BlackBerry Bold, Motorola Krave ZN4, and the Nokia N95. We’ve also put up the wiki, so you can access any of the content whenever you want at: [...]
[...] be adding to their archive which already includes the Motorola Krave and the venerable Nokia N95. We’ll definitely be watching for their future [...]
How about the GPS function of N95? Is that a Sirf solution?
Can you tell which patents that a phone or device uses?A lot of companies hold patented processes or patented material that are supposedly used in phones.
wow, how long did it take you? pretty impressive.. never saw it like this