3 ms·

> It has been found that during assembly units that do not pass QA often has this chip fail, and thus making it easily swappable increases the production yield

by nikau 5y ago

> It has been found that during assembly units that do not pass QA often has this chip fail, and thus making it easily swappable increases the production yield during assembly instead of PCBA. Yet its on the second most expensive part of the BOM, so nope. > To create a security boundary for biometric data, as a rule the assembly that captures the data and authenticates it has to be separate from the application processor assembly. Swapping either then cannot be done surreptitiously. That makes the chip's job part of the screen assembly and not something else. The chip can be unsoldered, so nope > cost reducing measure between the sensor and the data processing chip over a high-speed serial connection turned out to be removal of buffers or transceivers but this meant that the signal lines had to be shorter and sandwiched against a large ground plane to ensure signal integrity and prevent frequent retransmissions. Its on a mylar flex cable, so nope Its just apple being pricks, much like requiring custom SCSI drive strings on generic hard disks back in the classic mac era, nothing has changed.

oneplane 5y ago
It seems you have missed the point so hard it's almost pointless to reply. The cases are theoretical cases, not direct one-on-one practical reasons why this specific chip on this specific assembly was built in this specific way. We don't have the data and we never will. We can't read minds, and all there seems to be is speculation and anthropomorphisation of corporations which is pointless beyond reason. Unless you have some design-for-manufacture experience, taking part in this discussion is moot anyway. It doesn't matter if the specific part has a special BOM cost, what matters is that the production flow is not interrupted. Assemblies that do not pass QA aren't tossed, but the final product needs to come off the line anyway, so swapping out the assembly in that phase while returning it to some other process for inspection is the normal thing to do. You can't do that thing if the assembly is a flip-chip or BGA on a PCBA without swapping the entire board which while still possible to cover in a separate process is much more expensive in validation and repair than re-attaching a flat-flex with a new BGA or flip-chip part on it using what is essentially a glorified hotbar machine. If Apple was a person and the person wanted to be a prick, there are far cheaper and easier ways to do that. Fill the entire phone with epoxy, problem solved. Would be instantly water-proof, shock-resistant, and if you cover it in a fine wire mesh and connect some SRAM with ephemeral keys to it you can make it super secure by never being able to extract any data from it. But Apple isn't a person, it's a company. It's not your friend or your enemy, it's just a machine designed to make money. Real-world requirements apply, and they trump pettiness for the sake of pettiness. Inducing friction to their own customers is just a liability factor, and if you think that is new you got a whole world of pain to explore.
- nikau 5y ago
  > It seems you have missed the point so hard it's almost pointless to reply. As are you - you are bringing up all these hypothetical production line theories, where in practise the screen is the most common repair, and Apple have now restricted it to their official repair centres or repair centres with very skilled technicians to remove, re-ball, and re-solder a tiny chip. > If Apple was a person and the person wanted to be a prick, there are far cheaper and easier ways to do that. Fill the entire phone with epoxy, problem solved. Would be instantly water-proof, shock-resistant, Except apple still need to repair phones under warranty, so filling with epoxy isn't viable, so here we are with pentalobe screws and device locked screens.
  - oneplane 5y ago
    You assume 'repairing under warranty' isn't done with simply replacing the entire device. You are aware that this is standard practise anyway right? Right now you are most likely to get an identical refurbished version of your phone while your own hardware is queued for repair, mostly off-site. As for the hypothetical cases: that is indeed what I wrote they were as well as why I was writing them. They are real world cases that apply to any consumer goods manufacturing pipeline. (albeit anecdotal as I'm not in the mood to dox myself) You do not know the details of Apple's pipeline and are speculating about it, as am I. Your speculation, however, is a plain anthropomorphisation of a for-profit company that really has no merit. There is no money in 'being bad to customers at scale'. Every reply of yours has either been some irrelevant detail that doesn't match with what is happening in the real world, or it's some bigger picture that doesn't relate back to any multinational global consumer goods lifecycle. Besides the fact that being able to repair consumer goods is a good thing, we're not getting anywhere.
    - nikau 5y ago
      > You assume 'repairing under warranty' isn't done with simply replacing the entire device. You are aware that this is standard practise anyway right? No its not standard practise. If my battery is degraded they replace it. If my screen is broken they replace it. If a camera is bad they replace the camera module. If the charging port is bad they replace it as its on a seperate field replaceable unit. Pretty much everything bar a failed mainboard is repaired. > They are real world cases that apply to any consumer goods manufacturing pipeline. Yep and in this case its bad engineering, and that's why Apple are being called out on it. Its similar to some German cars with rear facing timing chains and turbos mounted in the V engine valley and other stupid ideas, they get called out for being the shit engineering that they are. This doesn't stop people buying them. With that said, it looks like the bad pr has done it's job and suddenly Apple has find a solution, amazing huh... https://www.theverge.com/platform/amp/2021/11/9/22772433/apple-iphone-13-screen-replacements-face-id-software-update https://www.theverge.com/platform/amp/2021/11/9/22772433/app...

by nikau 5y ago

oneplane 5y ago

It seems you have missed the point so hard it's almost pointless to reply. The cases are theoretical cases, not direct one-on-one practical reasons why this specific chip on this specific assembly was built in this specific way. We don't have the data and we never will. We can't read minds, and all there seems to be is speculation and anthropomorphisation of corporations which is pointless beyond reason. Unless you have some design-for-manufacture experience, taking part in this discussion is moot anyway. It doesn't matter if the specific part has a special BOM cost, what matters is that the production flow is not interrupted. Assemblies that do not pass QA aren't tossed, but the final product needs to come off the line anyway, so swapping out the assembly in that phase while returning it to some other process for inspection is the normal thing to do. You can't do that thing if the assembly is a flip-chip or BGA on a PCBA without swapping the entire board which while still possible to cover in a separate process is much more expensive in validation and repair than re-attaching a flat-flex with a new BGA or flip-chip part on it using what is essentially a glorified hotbar machine. If Apple was a person and the person wanted to be a prick, there are far cheaper and easier ways to do that. Fill the entire phone with epoxy, problem solved. Would be instantly water-proof, shock-resistant, and if you cover it in a fine wire mesh and connect some SRAM with ephemeral keys to it you can make it super secure by never being able to extract any data from it. But Apple isn't a person, it's a company. It's not your friend or your enemy, it's just a machine designed to make money. Real-world requirements apply, and they trump pettiness for the sake of pettiness. Inducing friction to their own customers is just a liability factor, and if you think that is new you got a whole world of pain to explore.

nikau 5y ago
> It seems you have missed the point so hard it's almost pointless to reply. As are you - you are bringing up all these hypothetical production line theories, where in practise the screen is the most common repair, and Apple have now restricted it to their official repair centres or repair centres with very skilled technicians to remove, re-ball, and re-solder a tiny chip. > If Apple was a person and the person wanted to be a prick, there are far cheaper and easier ways to do that. Fill the entire phone with epoxy, problem solved. Would be instantly water-proof, shock-resistant, Except apple still need to repair phones under warranty, so filling with epoxy isn't viable, so here we are with pentalobe screws and device locked screens.
- oneplane 5y ago
  You assume 'repairing under warranty' isn't done with simply replacing the entire device. You are aware that this is standard practise anyway right? Right now you are most likely to get an identical refurbished version of your phone while your own hardware is queued for repair, mostly off-site. As for the hypothetical cases: that is indeed what I wrote they were as well as why I was writing them. They are real world cases that apply to any consumer goods manufacturing pipeline. (albeit anecdotal as I'm not in the mood to dox myself) You do not know the details of Apple's pipeline and are speculating about it, as am I. Your speculation, however, is a plain anthropomorphisation of a for-profit company that really has no merit. There is no money in 'being bad to customers at scale'. Every reply of yours has either been some irrelevant detail that doesn't match with what is happening in the real world, or it's some bigger picture that doesn't relate back to any multinational global consumer goods lifecycle. Besides the fact that being able to repair consumer goods is a good thing, we're not getting anywhere.
  - nikau 5y ago
    > You assume 'repairing under warranty' isn't done with simply replacing the entire device. You are aware that this is standard practise anyway right? No its not standard practise. If my battery is degraded they replace it. If my screen is broken they replace it. If a camera is bad they replace the camera module. If the charging port is bad they replace it as its on a seperate field replaceable unit. Pretty much everything bar a failed mainboard is repaired. > They are real world cases that apply to any consumer goods manufacturing pipeline. Yep and in this case its bad engineering, and that's why Apple are being called out on it. Its similar to some German cars with rear facing timing chains and turbos mounted in the V engine valley and other stupid ideas, they get called out for being the shit engineering that they are. This doesn't stop people buying them. With that said, it looks like the bad pr has done it's job and suddenly Apple has find a solution, amazing huh... https://www.theverge.com/platform/amp/2021/11/9/22772433/apple-iphone-13-screen-replacements-face-id-software-update https://www.theverge.com/platform/amp/2021/11/9/22772433/app...