IHS Markit Analyses iPhone X Depth Camera

BusinessWire: IHS Market tears down iPhone X and analyses the cost of its components. The company says about the Face ID depth camera:

TrueDepth sensing: lots of components, many suppliers

“Apple’s Face ID system is very similar in basic functionality to the old Microsoft Kinect system of sensing, which used a flood illuminator, dot projector and infrared camera,” said Jérémie Bouchaud, senior director for MEMS and sensors at IHS Markit. “It’s a complex assembly that uses components from many suppliers.”

The teardown of the iPhone X revealed that its IR camera is supplied by Sony/Foxconn while the silicon is provided by ST Microelectronics. The flood illuminator is an IR emitter from Texas Instruments that’s assembled on top of an application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) and single-photon avalanche diode (SPAD) detector from ST Microelectronics. Finisar and Philips manufacture the dot projector. IHS Markit puts the rollup BOM cost for the TrueDepth sensor cluster at $16.70.

“The assembly and testing of the TrueDepth system and its individual components is challenging and likely a factor in the production delays,” Bouchaud said. “For instance, the assemblage and test of the Texas Instruments and ST Microelectronics subsystem for the flood illuminator is far from trivial and requires a high number of test equipment pieces.”