Calling the machine "gorgeous" when disassembled, iFixit said the device uses more epoxy to secure chips to the board than they've ever seen before.
"This indicates that it is designed to be even more rugged than their laptops," they said. The company noted that taking off the display of the iPad may break off some tabs.
As was revealed in photos release by the FCC on Friday, a majority of the inside of the iPad is taken up by its lithium-ion battery. The battery isn't soldered onto the motherboard, which means replacement is possible if a battery goes bad.
But in a change from the FCC photos, Toshiba does not provide the flash memory for the production units. The model obtained by iFixit has its NAND flash from Samsung.
Also "markedly" different, they said, is the logic board, which reveals that Apple's A4 processor is likely being manufactured by Samsung. The DRAM was created in January while the processor die was created in the first week of February.
The teardown found that the display assembly and rear case each weigh 350 grams, giving the device 50-50 weight distribution. The display includes a marking referencing a patent from Honeywell.
The logic board was made by AT&S, which is noteworthy because the company said they haven't seen Apple's printed circuit board manufacturers brand their boards. Also unique, the main board is secured with T3 Torx screws with a bit smaller than Apple has ever used.
The teardown also found that the Wi-Fi and Bluetooth card, which is the same as is found in the third-generation iPod touch, is integrated into the dock connector cable. The iPad also has a speaker assembly that was found to be larger than expected.
For more details and photos, see the full step-by-step teardown at iFixit.
65 Comments
In yesterdays comments re: A4 chip indicates that Apple can design chips but they do not manufacture them. If they want to make processors for the Mac line they will have to either buy a fab plant or team up with someone like AMD.
http://www.appleinsider.com/articles...processor.html
Question: How much RAM--some people wanted to know.
Pretty sad if you need to make news about symmetry in the logic board... Average Joe never sees it. Would be better if iPad ran flash even with a non symmetric mother board...
Remove all that 'black' processor guts stuff and you're left with the same glass rippled party tray I have in my pantry!
Wait a minute, let me look in my pantry to make sure it is still there!
The peek inside also revealed that both the NAND flash and custom Apple A4 processor were manufactured by Samsung.
Question is of course, how long will it be before we see Samsung iPad knockoffs?
Likely because Apple does not want to be fixing these at all if it can help it.
Must be hard to open the case without damage, that's why I want to know how to do straight off!
Yikes!
Good thing to hear.
T3? Yea that is tiny! If I remember right, my MBP uses T6
In yesterdays comments re: A4 chip indicates that Apple can design chips but they do not manufacture them. If they want to make processors for the Mac line they will have to either buy a fab plant or team up with someone like AMD.
http://www.appleinsider.com/articles...processor.html
Question: How much RAM--some people wanted to know.
Sun Microsystems (now Oracle) also does the design and outsources the manufacturing of their chips and other hardware. Not uncommon....