Samsung Galaxy Nexus Teardown Complete Ahead of Launch

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The Samsung Galaxy Nexus was rumored to be launched on December 8 with pre-orders expected to start today, but Verizon did not confirm launch plans for the U.S. yet and we’re left to wonder when the handset will finally be released in the region. Nevertheless iFixit managed to get its hands on a European Galaxy Nexus version, and completed the mandatory teardown.

While this is the GSM/HSPA+ version, the device is very similar to the CDMA/LTE model that’s going to be launched in the USA, albeit thinner. We’ll probably see iFixit it dismantle that version too when the time comes but until then let’s check out the insides of the European Galaxy Nexus.

Before we move to the interesting tidbits found inside of the device I’ll have to warn you (spoiler alert) that there are no traces of actual Ice Cream found inside the handset. But we’ll get serious and right to the point, here are some notes worthy of your attention on the Galaxy Nexus’s internal components, followed by a gallery of teardown images:

• Not only does the 3.7 V, 1750 mAh battery power the phone, but the user manual states that it also doubles as the NFC antenna. Of course, we had to see this one for ourselves, so we peeled apart the battery. Lo and behold, there’s a sweet antenna hiding underneath the battery’s shiny wrapper.
• If you ever want to buy a replacement battery (and keep NFC functional), ensure that the battery has the antenna. Our battery says “Near Field Communication” on it, so that might be a good indicator if it will function as an NFC antenna.
• The primary internals of the Galaxy Nexus are contained on two L-shaped boards that are held together by soldered wires from the vibrator motor. We found the following chips:
• Texas Instruments TWL6040 8-Channel High Quality Low-Power Audio Codec
• Texas Instruments TWL6030 Fully Integrated Power Management with Switch Mode Charger
• Invensense MPU-3050 Motion Processing Unit
• Intel XG626 Baseband Modem
• RFMD RF6260 Quad-band Multimode Power Amplifier Module
• Samsung K3PE7E700M 512 MB DDR2 SDRAM
• Samsung KMVYL000LM Multichip Memory Package, which we believe to house an additional 512 MB of RAM in addition to the main processor.
• Samsung SWB-B42 BT 4.0 Dual Band Wlan FM Tx/Rx. Chipworks says the module is actually manufactured by Murata, and houses a Broadcom BCM4330 die inside.
• NXP 65N00 Smart Card IC. According to Chipworks, this two-die package houses an MCU and a PN544 NFC controller.

While that sort of tech breakdown of a new handset gets us all excited we’re mostly interested in the NFC capabilities of the handset at this point, especially since neither Google nor its carrier partners seem to be focusing on that particular feature, which is pretty strange considering how Google is making a pretty big deal out of its Google Wallet service.