iPad2 teardown. Video

WorldWideTech % Science. Roberto Gómez.

First off, a change that isn’t for the better. The new tapered edge on the iPad 2 prevents any kind of tabs from being used as was the case with the iPad 1. Instead, Apple engineers have used enthusiastic amounts of adhesive to keep the front glass in place. A downside of this is that the front panel is very difficult to remove. In fact it’s almost impossible to open the iPad 2 without shattering the glass. iFixit will be working hard in the forthcoming weeks to provide a solution to this problem, but for now the advice is simple - don’t open your iPad 2!

Here are some teardown highlights:

• iFixit did a quick glass and LCD thickness comparison:
   - iPad 1: lcd = 3.2 mm glass = .85 mm
   - iPad 2: lcd = 2.4 mm glass = .62 mm
• The thickness of these components — especially that of the glass — could drastically reduce the durability of the device, especially the glass’ resistance to shattering.
• Lifting off the LCD exposes the iPad 2’s battery. iFixit discovered a 3.8V, 25 watt-hour unit. That’s just a hair more than the original iPad’s 24.8 watt-hours, so any improved battery performance should be attributed to software and other hardware improvements.
• It has now been confirmed via software that the iPad 2 indeed has 512 MB of RAM.
• The markings on the 1 GHz Apple A5 dual-core processor appear to be Samsung’s, but Chipworks will investigate in the forthcoming days to find out for sure.
• Other components that power the iPad 2:
   - Toshiba TH58NVG7D2FLA89 16GB NAND Flash
   - Broadcom BCM5973KFBGH Microcontroller
   - Broadcom BCM5974 CKFBGH capacitative touchscreen controller
   - Texas Instruments CD3240B0 11AZ4JT touchscreen line driver
   - Broadcom BCM43291HKUBC Wi-Fi/Bluetooth/FM tuner combo chip
   - S6T2MLC N33C50V Power Management IC
   - ST Micro AGD8 2103 gyroscope
   - ST Micro LIS331DLH accelerometer
• There’s also an Apple-branded 338S0940 A0BZ1101 SGP chip. This looks like the Cirrus audio codec Chipworks found in the Verizon iPhone, but they’ll have to get it off the board to make sure.

The iFixit team has given the iPad 2 a repairability score of 4 out of 10, mainly for the extreme difficulty of accessing anything inside. One inside the iPad 2 all screws are of the Phillips variety, and the LCD can be easily taken out once you separate it from the front panel glass.

Below is the main logic board:

• Blue outline - Texas Instruments (TBD)
• Yellow outline - Apple 343S0542
• Green outline - S6T2MLC N33C50V Power Management IC
• Red outline - Apple 1GHz A5 Processor
• Orange outline - Toshiba TH58NVG7D2FLA89 16GB NAND Flash

Below is the tiny speaker assembly:

Source: ifixit via ZDnet.