Apple’s iPhone X Packs in a Super Dense Logic Board

The iPhone X's logic board is actually stacked like a sandwich on two boards, iFixit finds.

You can't tell from the outside, but Apple pulled off some engineering gymnastics by packing maybe the densest of logic boards inside its iPhone X, according to iFixit's latest teardown.

"This miniaturized logic board is incredibly space efficient," iFixit said. "The density of connectors and components is unprecedented."

Logic boards house a phone's internal circuitry, including the CPU, making them vital to any device. But vendors have had to find ways to keep them small, in order to keep the smartphones thin and compact.

iPhone X iFixit

Examining the logic board in the iPhone X, iFixit found a 30 percent smaller footprint than the one inside the iPhone 8 Plus. "That's a lot more floor space for battery," the repair experts said. The board itself, sits snuggly next to a pair of battery packs inside the phone.

But there's a reason why iPhone X's logic board is so small: it's actually stacked like a sandwich on two boards. Those boards are soldered together, making them difficult to remove. But iFixit managed to pull them apart, and found that the separated layers cover an area 35 percent larger than what's found on the logic board in the iPhone 8 Plus.

iPhone X iFixit 2

Related

Rumors about an iPhone X stacked logic board first emerged in February. KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo wrote at the time Apple had to reduce the board's area to make space for a larger battery. The only other iPhone to use a stacked logic board was the original iPhone, Fixit noted.

Packing a phone's internal circuitry like this has its benefits, but it comes with a cost. The board can be extremely difficult, and in some cases, near impossible to repair, according to iFixit.

Still, iFixit gave the iPhone X a 6 out 10 in terms of repairability, with a score of 10 meaning the device is the easiest to fix. That puts the new iPhone ahead of the Samsung Galaxy S8, which received a score of 4.

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