PCMag.Com - A teardown of the HTC Thunderbolt reveals one of the highest bill of materials (BOM) ever seen on a cell phone: $262.Components for the popular 4G LTE smartphone cost $262, the highest seen in a smartphone disassembled by folks at IHS iSuppli Teardown Analysis Service. It is significantly higher than the $171.35 cost of Verizon iPhone elements and comparable to media tablets, IHS said in a post.
The most expensive element of the Thunderbolt was its 4G LTE wireless standard, which made up $39.75 of the tab. Most of this expense come from a first-generation LTE baseband chip, Qualcomm MDM9600.
Because of the high cost of a 4G LTE standard, IHS concludes that next iPhone, rumored to support 4G LTE, will cost Apple 23 percent more – $211.10 – to make if Apple decides to use the same first-generation LTE chipsets as the Thunderbolt does. Recently an analyst said Verizon the Thunderbolt was more popular than the iPhone at Verizon stores. More
