BOM and Cost of Typical Cell Phone

Implications: BOM and Cost of Typical Cell Phone Bill Of Materials (BOM) for cell phone is constantly falling. This is especially true for gsm/gprs/edge phones built in high volumes. I summarize the BOM cost of typical and mature phone based on Nokia 7820. Nokia 7820 is the mid/high end phone that has been introduced about a year ago. The BOM and price has already considerably fallen down. The phone is comparable to iPhone by Apple. 1. Samsung stacked memory is $2.00 to $3.00 2. TI OMAP – VOX $6 to $12. 3. Infineon Low Noise Amplifier-$0.15 4. RFMD GaAs Power Amplifier-$1 5. National Semi regulator-$0.35 6. The camera module $3 7. GSM transceiver $2 8. Analog ASIC $3 9. Bluetooth -$2. STM 10. Philips FM radio -$1 11. National Semi LED charge pump $0.5 12. SRAM-$1 Total IC BOM $20 to $26. Additional parts $24.

Analysis: RFMD and SKWS will have very tough times ahead of them. Phone prices keep falling and both companies are solely focus on supplying chips to cell phone industry. Infineon, STM, NXP, TI, Broadcom and even Qualcomm’s cellular groups will be in no better shape.  If Apple can sell, as they announced, its iPhone for $399 for this holiday season and still sell over 1 mln phones before the end of September they will make incredible profits unheard of in the cell phone industry.