Best of Advanced Features in Unibody Nexus One Cost $174.15, Says iSuppli

The Google Nexus One, manufactured by
HTC Corp., carries a Bill Of Materials (BOM) of $174.15, based on a
preliminary estimate from iSuppli's Teardown Analysis Team. This total
comprises only hardware and component costs for the Nexus One itself
and does not take into consideration other expenses such as
manufacturing, software, box contents, accessories and royalties.

"With the Nexus One, Google has taken the most advanced features
seen in recent smartphone designs and wrapped them up into a single
sleek design," said Kevin Keller, senior analyst, competitive analysis,
for iSuppli. "Items like the durable unibody construction, the
blazingly fast Snapdragon baseband processor and the bright and sharp
Active-Matrix Organic Light Emitting Diode (AM-OLED) display all have
been seen in previous phones, but never before combined into a single
design. This gives the Nexus One the most advanced features of any
smartphone ever dissected by iSuppli's Teardown Analysis Service--a
remarkable feat given the product's BOM is similar to comparable
products introduced during the past year."

At the heart of the Nexus One is Qualcomm Inc.'s Snapdragon baseband processor that sports a blistering 1GHz clock speed.

"The Snapdragon was first noted in a previous smartphone torn down by iSuppli--the Toshiba Corp. TGO1--which
is based on Microsoft Corp.'s Windows Mobile operating system," Keller
said. "However, the Android 2.1 operating system used in the Nexus One
better capitalizes on the Snapdragon's fast performance, making the
user interface and applications run very quickly.

This processing muscle also gives the Nexus One some advanced capabilities, most notably high-definition 720p video playback."

iSuppli estimates the cost of the Snapdragon at $30.50, making it
the most expensive single component in the Nexus One. With the
inclusion of the Snapdragon and the associated power-management and
Radio Frequency (RF) transceiver chips, Qualcomm commands 20.4 percent
of the Nexus One's BOM, giving it the biggest dollar share of any
component supplier in the design.

One of the Nexus One's signature features is its 3.7-inch AM-OLED display,
which is superior to the conventional LCDs used in most smartphone
designs in a variety of ways. Compared to LCDs, AM-OLEDs deliver a
larger color gamut, a faster response time, a thinner form factor and
reduced power consumption.

Prior to the Nexus One, AM-OLED technology appeared in another smartphone, Samsung's I7500, which features a 3.2-inch display. However, the
Nexus One uses a larger display, marking the first use of a 3.7-inch
OLED that iSuppli's Teardown Analysis Service has seen.

"The 3.7-inch AM-OLED display on the Nexus One delivers a stunning picture," Keller said.

With an estimated cost of $23.70, the AM-OLED display is supplied by Samsung Mobile Display Co Ltd.

The Nexus One also sports a unibody
design, which means that the smartphone's enclosure comprises a single
part. Such a design approach provides greater structural rigidity,
providing more protection to the internal electronics in case the phone
is dropped. On the other hand, a unibody tends to drive up
manufacturing costs. Besides Apple Inc.'s iPhone, this marks the first
unibody smartphone design that iSuppli's teardown analysis team has
noted.

With the Nexus One, HTC has taken a major cue from Apple in
the enclosure design, making it the most "Apple-like" product yet seen
from any in the competition, and others are likely to
The Nexus One also features a dual microphone design used for cancellation of background noise. This feature also was noted in Motorola's Droid..
To implement the noise cancellation function, the Nexus One employs a
specialized audio voice processor chip from Audience Semiconductor, the
first time iSuppli's Teardown Analysis service has observed a part from
this manufacturer in any electronic product.

The Nexus One includes a large quantity of DRAM,
employing 4Gbit (512MByte) of Samsung Semiconductor's Double Data Rate
(DDR) DRAM. This compares to 1Gbit or 2Gbit for comparable smartphones. The large quantity of DRAM is required to store executable code
to support the fast performance of the Snapdragon processor, and allows
for better application performance.

While the Nexus One features 4Gbit of internal NAND flash memory,
the same amount as the Droid and the Toshiba TG01, it is bundled with a
comparatively small MicroSD card of 4Gbyte. NAND flash is used for
storage of user content and media on the smartphone. The Droid and
TG01 are supplied with 16Gbyte and 8Gbyte, respectively. This allows
Google to keep its overall BOM costs down, yet still allows the user to
upgrade as needed. And while the 4Gbyte of internal flash pales against
the iPhone's whopping 16Gbyte, it has the advantage of expandability
afforded by the MicroSD card slot where the iPhone has no external
storage facility.

Samsung Semiconductor is the supplier of all the memory in the Nexus
One, giving it $20.40, or 11.7 percent, of the product's total BOM.

Synaptics Gets in Touch
Other notable design winners in
the Nexus One include Synaptics Inc., which supplies the phone's
capacitive touch-screen assembly. iSuppli estimates the cost of the
assembly at $17.50, or 10 percent of the total BOM. While the module
and the Android operating system support multitouch input, the
capability is deactivated on the Nexus One.

About iSuppli's Teardown Analysis Service
Why do the world's top technology companies rely on iSuppli for their teardown needs? Because iSuppli's Teardown Analysis
team is the most experienced in the industry and can draw upon a vast
library of data and expertise that only a broad-line market-research
firm can provide.

iSuppli's Teardown Analysis team leverages the expertise of more
than 25 experts in various fields, all of whom have extensive
electronics industry backgrounds and far-reaching expertise in
equipment and component analysis, to develop a comprehensive
understanding of electronic designs and costs.

iSuppli's team has been conducting teardowns for eight years, but
the company's background in this area goes back much further, with
members of our management team having established and participated in
teardown programs at another research firm starting in the mid 1990s.

The iSuppli Teardown Analysis service has dissected more than 1,500
electronic products, from mobile phones of every variety, to personal
computers, to set-top boxes, to video-game consoles, to high-definition
televisions. The team engages in rigorous teardowns that enable a
complete identification and accounting of all components found in
electronic equipment.

The teardown team's extensive experience in dissecting electronic
equipment allows it to make sophisticated observations regarding
product design and component selection based on manufacturer, region of
production, design approach and other factors.

Pricing for components found inside of equipment is determined using iSuppli's Component Price Tracker (CPT) service,
which provides detailed information on costs for more than 350
components commonly found in electronic equipment, allowing iSuppli to
develop highly accurate BOM estimates.

Component prices are subject to significant changes over time due to
manufacturing learning-curve processes, as well as inventory and
supply-and-demand issues. The CPT provides forecasts and updates of
pricing movements that have unparalleled accuracy.

iSuppli's Teardown Analysis team also consults with iSuppli analysts
covering various areas of the electronics industry to develop a
comprehensive understanding of electronic equipment. iSuppli's analyst
team covers every segment of the worldwide electronics industry,
offering industry-leading expertise in equipment, components and supply
chains.

Google Nexus One Teardown Photo Analysis
The following
represents a sample of the photographs of the Google Nexus One teardown
analysis. These images are annotated to include suppliers and
functional areas.