What do Fire & TI have in common?

The Kindle Fire teardown marks an important precedent for us at iFixit: our first in-house chip unmasking. Today, with the guidance from our pals at Chipworks, we fought Fire with heat-gun fire and desoldered the Hynix SoC package to discover that Amazon is making use of Texas Instruments' OMAP 4430 processor. We were equally delighted with the goodies inside the Fire, as we were with our newly acquired skill. Blazing your own trail into the Fire doesn't require much. A Phillips #0 screwdriver, some plastic opening tools, a spudger, and a couple guitar picks will do the trick. By and large, we were blown away with how easy it was to disassemble the Fire. Minimal adhesive, standard screws, and the non-fused display filled us with glee. Although its plain design (no volume buttons, cameras, etc.) meant fewer components, we had no hesitation in rewarding the Fire with a sterling 8 out of 10 for repairability.

Separating the display from the glass was a breeze, which was a nice departure from the usual fused glass ordeals. Thanks, Amazon!
All images © iFixit

Highlights: According to the power specifications listed on the back side of the Kindle Fire, an input power of 5 V DC at 1.8 Amps is suggested. Why is this important? A computer USB port typically puts out no more than .9 Amps (USB 3.0), which means it'll take a looong time to fully charge the tablet through USB. Very little prying and plucking is required to open the Kindle Fire. It's a very nice departure from the iPad 2, which is almost impossible to put back together once taken apart. And all you need are some plastic opening tools and guitar picks to help you along the way. Removing the back case reveals the motherboard and a sizable battery. There are shiny metal plates on the back case that help provide protection for the internal components, as well as heat sinking and EMI shielding. Unfortunately, this mirror-like shielding inevitably results in a narcissistic battery. This battery sure puts out... 16.28 watt-hours, to be exact. However, due to the size of the Fire, its battery's 3.7 V potential and 4400 mAh capacity don't quite stack up to the specs of the larger iPad 2's battery. The good news: two years down the line -- when the battery decides to go kaput -- it will be significantly easier to replace the battery in the Kindle Fire than its Apple competitor.

The chips on board: - Texas Instruments OMAP 4430 Processor - Samsung KLM8G2FEJA 8 GB Flash Memory - Hynix H9TKNNN4K 512 MB of Mobile DDR2 RAM - Texas Instruments 603B107 Fully Integrated Power Management IC with Switch Mode Charger - Texas Instruments LCDS83B FlatLink 10-135 MHz Transmitter - Jorjin WG7310 WLAN/BT/FM Combo Module - Texas Instruments AIC3110 Low-Power Audio Codec With 1.3W Stereo Class-D Speaker Amplifier - Texas Instruments WS245 4-Bit Dual-Supply Bus Transceiver Continuing our IC exploration, we decided to sneak a peak under the Jorjin package's cover. We uncovered a Texas Instruments WL1270B 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi solution. According to Chipworks, the WL1270 is an older chip that was designed to work with the TI OMAP 3530. It's interesting that the Fire has it, given that it's coupled with the newer OMAP 4430. Separating the display from the glass was a breeze, which was a nice departure from the usual fused glass ordeals. Thanks, Amazon! We may be comparing apples and oranges here, but the original Kindle contained roughly 15'999'996 fewer colors. They were as follows: gray-ish, gray, grayer, and grayest. ----- The guys from iFixit have prepared loads more images, which can be found here.