Teardown: iPhone 5s

iFixit staff - September 23, 2013

Our friends at iFixit have once again graciously given us permission to excerpt the results of its
teardowns. Here's the iPhone 5s.
This time, iFixit literally went the extra mile(s) by traveling to Australia to conduct the teardown.
"An iPhone release means a trip to the future," the team says on its website. "The iFixit teardown
crew has traveled 17 hours forward in time to get the iPhone 5s early."

iFixit conducted its iPhone 5s teardown with the help of Macfixit Australia. (Source: iFixit)

In the past, iFixit has given Apple iPad products bad ratings for built-in obsolescence. The iPhones
have fared better, as did the 5s. The iFixit repairability rating is 6 out of 10 (10 is easiest to repair).
Fighting the good fight against planned obsolescence, iFixit developed the set of tools it uses in its
teardowns (and, of course, offers them for purchase).
Look through these photos and follow the links to iFixit's full teardown to see more detail.

The iPhone 5s prior to teardown. (Source: iFixit)

iFixit:
One Three G Three G again S! Four Four again! And another S! Five! S!
Five?! C?
Thankfully Apple is in the technology business, not the education business. We can only imagine how
jumbled pre-school students' ABCs and 123s would be if they were taught in Cupertino.
Crazy nomenclature aside, we were anxious to bite into this latest piece of phone fruit. So anxious,
in fact, that we sent one of our own to the land down-under to get one. Join us as we dissect the
latest iPhone. Breaking in
Breaking in
The iFixit team uses a suction cup and "some gentle spudgering" to reveal the innards. (There's a
booby trap, but you'll have to check that out in the full teardown.)

iFixit's suction cup and spudger (shown) enabled the team to open the iPhone 5s carefully. (Source:
iFixit)

Once inside, iFixit says:

As we ready ourselves to delve into the delightful innards of the 5s, let's check out some of its tech
specs:

Apple A7 processor with 64-bit architecture

M7 motion co-processor
16, 32, or 64 GB Storage
4-inch retina display with 326 ppi
8 MP iSight camera (with larger 1.5 pixels) and a 1.2MP FaceTime camera.
Fingerprint identity sensor built into the home button
Available in three different colors: space gray, silver, and gooooooold (or as we call them, Not-a-all-the-Color-of-Space, Second Place Medal, and Bling!).

The big reveal: inside the iPhone 5s. (Source: iFixit)

Battery
Battery
As iFixit says, "Perhaps the 's' in 5s stands for 'stuck,' as in 'this battery is stuck in with a lot of glue,'
or 'I hope you didn't want to replace your batteryyou're going to be stuck with this one.'"

Removing the iPhone 5s battery. (Source: iFixit)

More from iFixit:

The 5s has a claimed 10 hours of talk time on 3G, but there are rumbles that iOS 7 isn't doing you

any favors It appears different units sport different battery manufacturers; our "space-gray" spare
comes to us from Simplo Technology Inc.

The iPhone 5s battery. Will it vary depending on the device's color? (Source: iFixit)

Lights, camera, action

Lights, camera, action
iFixit discovers the retinal display and iSight camera:
A few flicks of a spudger to disconnect the FaceTime camera, digitizer, and LCD cables, and the
display is free Despite the trend in almost every other smartphone release, the iPhone 5s display
is no bigger, better, or badder than the 5.

The iPhone 5s retinal display. (Source: iFixit)

The back of the iSight camera is labeled DNL333 41WGRF 4W61W.

Getting to the iPhone 5s camera. (Source: iFixit)

The brains
The brains
With help from Chipworks, iFixit identified the chips, and socket wins for SK Hynix, Qualcomm,
Broadcom, and TI.
Open ses-EMI! Behold, IC treasures identified:

SK Hynix H2JTDG8UD3MBR 128 Gb (16 GB) NAND Flash

Qualcomm PM8018 RF power management IC
TriQuint TQM6M6224
Apple 338S1216
Broadcom BCM5976 touchscreen controller
Texas Instruments 37C64G1
Skyworks 77810
Skyworks 77355
Avago A790720
Avago A7900
Apple 338S120L
Apple A7 APL0698 SoC (based on this MacRumors post, the markings F8164A1PD indicate the
RAM is likely 1GB)
Qualcomm MDM9615M LTE Modem
Qualcomm WTR1605L LTE/HSPA+/CDMA2K/TDSCDMA/EDGE/GPS transceiver.
M7 coprocessor

The iPhone 5s board. (Source: iFixit)

Apple A7 SoC (Source: iFixit)

Final mess and full teardown

Final mess and full teardown
Thanks to iFixit for allowing us to excerpt its full teardown, which you can find here with many more

detailed, high-resolution images of the iPhone 5s. You'll find out why iFixit gave the device a 6 out of
10 repairability rating and you can find iFixit's teardown of the iPhone 5c.

The full disassembled iPhone 5s. (Source: iFixit)

What iFixit liked:

A great example of Apple's iterative design, the 5s shows some streamlining and optimization in its
internal construction. Gone are those silly antenna interconnect cables, leaving one less thing to
break or get accidentally disconnected.
Also see:

iPhone 5s TouchID sensor hacked!

Apple iPhone 5S and 5C - Hits and misses
Teardown: Inside the Apple iPhone 5
Apple teardown and analysis collection