Nokia Schematics Via Shenzhen

nokia

The silicon hacker behind the Chumby, [bunnie huang], was browsing through the Mobile Phone Megamarket in Shenzhen, China and stumbled upon an unusual repair book. It turns out the book had the schematics to hundreds of Nokia phones. It’s hard to tell if they are legitimate, but the amount of information makes them seem so. [bunnie] claims that the book is a learning experience because it shows how some sub-circuits are implemented. Also, it can be a good reference for sourcing parts. Since Nokia buys millions of each component, the supply of parts they use are stable. There are also editions for other brands, such as Motorola and Samsung.

26 thoughts on “Nokia Schematics Via Shenzhen

  1. @threepointone

    Do you have any tips for good search queries and search engines? Part number, manufacturer, “schematic”. I *always* sift through hundreds of product reviews and blog posts but eventually turn up empty handed. *ALWAYS*.

  2. This is where China’s attitude and disregard for intellectual property seems to help them and hurt us.

    I’ve also seen terabytes of ISO ANSI IEEE JIS of stolen standards documents available on Chinese web sites for one tenth their price of their normal distribution channel.

    I wouldn’t be surprised if these Nokia schematics as well as others weren’t part of a leaked or copied larger industrial espionage cache of documents that was government run.

    How can U.S. and EU companies compete when Chinese companies have access to proprietary designs and don’t respect intellectual property?

  3. I managed to download several Nokia schematics before, it’s not that hard. They were useful for sussing out LCD pin-outs for one of the dead phones in my possession. I just punch in the model number and the word ‘schematic’ in google. Sometimes ‘service manual’ does the trick too. Adding the terms ‘rar OR zip’ can help. And just because nothing comes up in the first 5 search ranking, that doesn’t mean it’s not there.. Don’t be afraid to look through several pages in your google search results.

  4. Lol, god I love Shenzhen, It’s the only place where you can buy a spicy grilled snake on street corner, and right next to him will be a guy selling idustrial size transformers, and next guy over has every possible “switch” you could want to buy. Right next door to a Jade trader…..mmm Shenzhen … the “Snooker Club” is the best :P

  5. @faelenor

    You’re right. After I wrote that I went looking for the schematics to my 6101. Not only did I find the schematics, I found the fix to my “Insert sim card” water damage problem (thanks Archit Raj!). When I first broke it a few years ago I couldn’t find anything. I now have schematics to all my phones.
    My most recent project, OTOH, is a Sanyo DP32648 31.5″ flat screen with lightening damage. Can *not* find schematics for this.

  6. @Agent420: Google fake N95. It does not need to leak. It will be copied. It may look like N95, it may work like N95, but inside it will be nothling like N95.
    It is actually good that someone posted schematics of original mobile phones to the public. The factories cant be hurt by this, the customers can only benefit from this.

  7. It looks the type of schematics used in repair.
    It’s in Chinese and English the original nokia design schematics should be in Finnish.
    Also along side each labeled component there is a description of what failure of this component will cause.

    As for helping clone phone manufactures the firmware and PCB layouts are just as important in making a functional product as the schematics.

  8. Unless the fakers can get their hands on some custom chips from Nokia, I doubt they will be able to make clones. As Space mentioned earlier, they could clone phones aesthetically, but not the guts of it.

  9. Tachikoma, I beg to differ.

    With the schematics above and a legitimate phone to dump the firmware from, I believe it would only take some quantity of hours to properly reverse engineer and re-create a clone phone.

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