Samsung Says Batteries Caused Note 7 Fires, Delays New Phone

[xrunner]

Jan 23, 2017

Samsung Electronics says flaws in the design and production of batteries used in its Galaxy Note 7 smartphone, not its hardware or software, made it prone to catch fire.

Samsung said Monday that it was responsible for not ensuring the design specifications given to its suppliers were failsafe but believed its investigation into the problem would help the entire industry counter overheating risks with lithium batteries. Analysts questioned if the world's largest smartphone maker had really gotten to the bottom of the problem.

The South Korean company delayed the launch of its next Galaxy phone —the Galaxy S8, which usually would come in February. It also announced tighter quality controls and more rigorous testing to ensure safety.

During a two-hour press conference livestreamed in English, Chinese and Korean, Samsung said tests of more than 200,000 phones and 30,000 batteries showed different problems with each of the two kinds of batteries used in the Note 7.

...

 Having taken heat for failing to fix the problem after the first Note 7 recall in September, Samsung brought in three private inspectors to help. U.S. companies UL and Exponent examined batteries from Samsung's suppliers Samsung SDI and Amperex Technology Ltd., or ATL. The German company TUV Rheinland analyzed the Note 7 supply chain as part of the investigation.

Inspectors found damage to the upper corners of batteries made by one manufacturer — likely Samsung SDI — and used in the initial batches of Note 7s.

That, combined with overly thin separators and high energy density, caused the phones to overheat, Samsung said. The cell-pouch design of the battery also did not have enough space to safely accommodate its electrodes — another flaw.

In other batches of batteries from a second manufacturer, presumably China-based ATL, used in replacements for the recalled smartphones the researchers found welding defects and a lack of protective tape in some battery cells.

Patrick Moorhead, president of Moor Insights & Strategy, said the odds of two different suppliers having issues with the same phone are extremely low.

...

To avoid further problems, Samsung said it was introducing an 8-point battery safety check with more intense durability tests; a new test on accelerated usage and a charge and discharge test. The tighter safety measures will be implemented in "every element of the company's devices," it said, including overall design and materials used.

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory/samsung-batteries-caused-note-fires-delays-phone-44979925

[ZeTeX]

Yeah no shit it was the battery, it couldn't be the display obviously lol.
if it was something in software they would just release a new update and force everyone to update probably..

[xrunner]

Yeah no shit it was the battery, it couldn't be the display obviously lol.
if it was something in software they would just release a new update and force everyone to update probably..

LOL 

[tom66]

Yeah no shit it was the battery, it couldn't be the display obviously lol.
if it was something in software they would just release a new update and force everyone to update probably..

Well, there was a chance that it was the hardware charging the battery beyond limits or failing to detect critical temperatures. 

[Jay_Diddy_B]

Hi,

The numbers are staggering. In one report I read they had 700 engineers involved in the testing, 200,000 phones and 30,000 batteries.

That is around 285 phones each !!

Regards,

Jay_Diddy_B

[filssavi]

I don't know if I fully buy that...

they are blaming 2 different battery manufacturers, for 2 different extremely severe unrelated faults on the batteries, that seems a little bit unrealistic that their engineers dont have anything to do with all of that

first because amperex is apple supplier of batteries and to this day iphones may have a lot of faults, but spontaneous combustion at will is not one of them, so they clearly know how to design and produce safe batteries; also SDI is a samsung subsidiary and likely producing batteries for a lot of other samsung products (if not why would they have a li-ion producing arm?) and they also are not catching fire at random

my guess is that marketing set a number for battery capacity, since the dimension of the battery compartment were also set (as a result of defining the form factor and case design) so the battery manifacturer had to cut corners in order to fit the capacity in the small space, and so they probably used very thin insulator and battery corners rounding that led to short circuit and ultimately fire.

and I'm also willing to bet that they were already aware issues with the battery before the launch, since the first problem had a incidence of 100% even basic QA testing would have found something, and ok ,samsung might not produce the highest qualyty stuff, having owned a lot of samsung consumer products I personally think they are cheaply designes and manifactured to almost aliexpress level (ok that might be an hyperbole but still their products have a much lower quality than other south korean firms) my guess here is that for fear of discovering something serious, that would delay the product's launch someone decided to not diagnose further the problem and take the gamble...

[ZeTeX]

Yeah no shit it was the battery, it couldn't be the display obviously lol.
if it was something in software they would just release a new update and force everyone to update probably..

Well, there was a chance that it was the hardware charging the battery beyond limits or failing to detect critical temperatures.

It's pretty hard for a bunch of engineers and such a big company to fuck up something like the charging circuity which is generally not that complicated or hard to troubleshoot, something like the battery is much harder to troubleshoot and check IMO.

[bitwelder]

I saw retweeted today the pictures of the 'testing lab' from CNET writer. Quite impressing. Here's the article:
https://www.cnet.com/news/samsung-answers-burning-note-7-questions-vows-better-batteries/

[Red Squirrel]

I'm sure this is good news for them.  They could more or less use the same hardware/software and a different battery. 

Part of the issue is this race for the thinnest device, while not sacrificing battery life. Puts lot of stress and demand on the battery manufacturer.

[raptor1956]

I'm sure this is good news for them.  They could more or less use the same hardware/software and a different battery. 

Part of the issue is this race for the thinnest device, while not sacrificing battery life. Puts lot of stress and demand on the battery manufacturer.

Not necessarily ... if the battery compartment was too thin/cramped then the battery design would have to be perhaps too thin as well and you're back to the same problem.  My guess is the design of the phone package led to the design of a battery to fit that package and .... pooof!

Hopefully the need to make each generation of phone ever thinner has come to an end.


Brian

[thm_w]

...
first because amperex is apple supplier of batteries and to this day iphones may have a lot of faults, but spontaneous combustion at will is not one of them, so they clearly know how to design and produce safe batteries; also SDI is a samsung subsidiary and likely producing batteries for a lot of other samsung products (if not why would they have a li-ion producing arm?) and they also are not catching fire at random
...

https://www.google.ca/search?q=iphone+burned&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X

I agree with the capacity point, most iphones have tiny batteries (<1900mAh), so the explosion would be less violent. Maybe they are being conservative on design.

[mariush]

Found this same news story on Anandtech with some pretty pictures : http://www.anandtech.com/show/11060/samsung-reveals-root-cause-of-galaxy-note7-battery-fires

Can't be bothered to check all the links in the thread to see if they're the same.

So yeah, very tight pouch squeezing the layers at corners and causing problems near the negative terminal for the first batteries. Crap spot soldering leaving sharp points on the positive terminal on the second batteries (from other manufacturer).

[bitseeker]

Is it just a coincidence that Samsung got so many bad batteries from two different companies for the same line of phone? Perhaps. It seems more likely that Samsung's design decisions were the catalyst, especially if these manufacturers were able to produce safe batteries for other customers. Also, quoting from the article in the OP, "Samsung said Monday that it was responsible for not ensuring the design specifications given to its suppliers were failsafe..." Sounds like it was built to a price.

[Hypernova]

Hi,

The numbers are staggering. In one report I read they had 700 engineers involved in the testing, 200,000 phones and 30,000 batteries.

That is around 285 phones each !!

Regards,

Jay_Diddy_B

That's full-mobilization when shit hits the fan for ya.