As the iPhone SE is slowly beginning to reach the hand’s of customers around the world, the folks at ChipWorks have already been able to take Apple’s latest 4-inch phone apart to see what’s powering it all on the inside. It’s often been said the iPhone SE is an iPhone 6s crammed into the body of an iPhone 5/5s, and for the most part, it looks like that really is the case.
First off, the A9 chip used in the iPhone SE is the same chip used in the iPhone 6s. In the case of the iPhone SE obtained by ChipWorks, the processor was made by TSMC, although that could vary on a per-device basis. Furthermore, the device is using the same 2GB LPDDR4 RAM that the iPhone 6s uses. Interestingly, the date of this part according to labelling is around August or September of last year, meaning that it has been sitting around in inventory since then and was likely originally intended for the iPhone 6s. As far as the storage goes, Toshiba handled the 16GB flash chip found in this iPhone, which is a new chip.
When it comes to the touchscreen controller, Apple is going all the way back to the iPhone 5s days. Apple is using the Broadcom BCM5976 and Texas Instruments 343S0645 in the iPhone SE. This solution has been used in the iPhone 5s and various iPods over the years. These parts would likely differ had Apple chosen to included 3D Touch with the iPhone SE.
As for the NFC solution, there’s the NXP 66VIO, which consists of the Secure Element 008 and NXP PN549. This is the same solution that was first used in the iPhone 6s last year. The 6-axis inertial sensor, for things like the accelerometer and gyroscope, is the same AISC and MEMS sensor used in the iPhone 6s. The Qualcomm MDM9625M modem and 338S00105 and 338S1285 Audio ICs are also the same as the iPhone 6s components.
Despite the way it seems, there are some differences between the iPhone SE and iPhone 6s. For one, there’s a new Apple/Dialog power management system:
You can view the full gallery of teardown images here.
