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Samsung-Burnout

Always since Samsung recalled, reissued, and double-recalled the Galaxy Annotation 7, there'southward been curiosity and contention over what, exactly, killed the phone. This has ranged from the conspiratorial (Apple is paying the media to manufacture reports of fires) to the prosaic caption that whatever bombardment failure killed the first round of Note vii'southward either hadn't been fixed or hadn't been identified in the second run. Now, Samsung has released its own autopsy on what went wrong with the device — and how two issues, not just one, combined to impale it.

Equally previously rumored, there was a manufacturing defect in the corner of the batteries. A design flaw made the electrodes decumbent to bending. This could atomic number 82 to a separation and short-circuit in the battery itself, and was responsible for some of the fires. This was the problem with the first set of batteries — the ones that Samsung initially reported it would replace via recall.

When the Galaxy Note 7 launched, Samsung was dual-sourcing its batteries. After it realized that one of its designs had a problem, it started switching production to another battery manufacturer, but in that case, a welding defect could atomic number 82 to problems with the batteries. Some of these issues were too perhaps tied to a lack of insulation tape, which should have shipped standard on the hardware but didn't. The infographic below explains the difference between the two defects and gives some background information on the two problems.

Samsung_Note_7_infographic

These mistakes in the 2d battery run doomed the second set up of devices to take exactly the same problem every bit the first. Samsung's investigation into its production failure was conducted with 700 dedicated staff and the assist of three extra laboratories — UL, Exponent, and TUV Rheinland. The teams tested 200,000 phones and 30,000 batteries to come to its conclusions.

More than than anything, this illustrates how circuitous a device smartphones actually are. There was nothing incorrect with the Galaxy Annotation 7'southward pattern, its charging systems, or its battery programming. Instead, the problem came downward to a brusk-circuit flaw and a visitor that was, possibly, besides ambitious about shoving itself into the marketplace and taking share from its master competitor, Apple. And it makes sense that the telephone wound upwardly with a problem in two batteries.

When Samsung first recalled the Note 7, 1 of its bombardment suppliers had never had a trouble. It was merely when Samsung tried to ramp upwardly product at the second battery manufacturer that it started running into bug, either because it didn't precisely indistinguishable the correct manufacturing process or because the flaw was tiny plenty that information technology only became visible when manufactured at significant calibration. "We believe if non for that manufacturing consequence on the ramp [of battery B], the Notation 7 would all the same exist on the market," Samsung Electronics America head Tim Baxter told Recode.

Samsung will launch the Galaxy S8 in the next few weeks, with the Galaxy Annotation 8 probable arriving this summer, whether Samsung retains that brand name or not. As bad as blowing the Annotation 7'southward launch and recall was, it was one noted misstep for a company that has produced dozens of high-end devices without any suffering from this kind of trouble. And so long as customers believe this was a once-off, they're unlikely to rebel and decamp for other Android device manufacturers.