NAOMI: Article from PHONEFIX
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Is your iPhone 12 motherboard completely screwed up? After replacing several parts, the phone still won't turn on? Your iPhone 12 is flooded and needs deoxygenation? Find out everything to do to extract and replace your iPhone 12 logic board in this repair guide written by PHONEFIX.
NOTICE: Replacing the motherboard with a refurbished motherboard will result in loss of all data. Please backup first.
FYI, there are no new iPhone motherboards.
The motherboard of the iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 Pro is almost identical in appearance with the double-stacked soldering. The sole difference is that the connecting part of the LiDAR Scanner on the iPhone 12 motherboard has no stuff.
1. About Face ID
In appearance, taking the Face ID parts of the iPhone 12 and iPhone 11 Pro to compare, the iPhone 12 Face ID front camera module looks much the same as the previous iPhone 11. By the way, we can repair the iPhone 12 face ID issue by using JC dot cable or I2C face ID repair cable.
The layout of the infrared camera, front camera, and dot projector remains unchanged. But there are some changes in the metal frame and flex cable.
It can be seen from the microscope and camera lens that the flood illuminator module at the ear speaker flex cable is different. The lighting area of the iPhone 12 flood illuminator is larger.
2. About Card Slot
Adopted a stand-alone design, the iPhone 12 SIM card slot is connected via flex cable. In case of any fault related to the card slot during repair, you only need to replace the stand-alone card slot.For comparison, the iPhone 11 card slot is also connected to the motherboard via flex cable, but it is embedded on the motherboard for iPhone 11 Pro series.
3. About Lightning Connector Flex Cable
The lightning connector flex cable of the iPhone 11 Pro integrates Bot Speaker IC, ARC Vibrator IC, Charging IC, and Wireless Charging IC, which increases the possibility of functional failure in the case of water damage or heavy fall.
But these ICs are back on the iPhone 12 motherboard, which not only reduces the possibility of lightning connector functional failure but also makes it easier to repair in the case of water damage or heavy fall.
4. About Antenna
U.S. Version iPhone
The U.S. version iPhone will feature an extra mmWave antenna while the motherboard will have an additional mmWave antenna connector seat. In addition to differences in the outer look, the layout of the three motherboards is also different.
The motherboard of the iPhone 12 is placed on the left while the motherboard of the iPhone 11 and iPhone 11 Pro is placed on the right.
Other Versions
The iPhone 12 in our hand is not a U.S. version. As its 5G network frequency band adopts the Sub-6G, there are primarily three antenna connection seats (upper antenna, NFC antenna, and lower antenna).
As the new iPhone 12 lineup requires the baseband and chip of 5G to be added to the motherboard. Apple may need to redesign the motherboard and its layout.
5. About the Upper layer and Lower layer
As we mentioned in our previous video, the motherboard of the iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 Pro is almost identical in appearance with the double-stacked soldering. The sole difference is that the connecting part of the LiDAR Scanner on the iPhone 12 motherboard has no stuff.
Beyond that, we can see two empty parts on the upper layer after separating by using the MIJING heating platform. The two parts are additionally reserved for the Camera PMU2 and LiDAR PMU on the iPhone 12 Pro motherboard.
6. About A14 Chip
With A14 Bionic, the CPU, GPU, and machine learning abilities of the iPhone 12 lineup have been improved substantially.
Developed from the A13 chip, the A14 chip nanometer process goes from 7nm to 5nm. As the first 5-nanometer chip in the industry, A14 Bionic is faster than every other smartphone chip.
7. About Power Management Chip
Power management is more important in the iPhone 12 than for its predecessors given additional camera features and 5G capabilities, increasing Apple’s need for these parts. Apple is said to face shortages in power chips for iPhone 12.
In summery, compared with the iPhone 11 series, the motherboard separation of the iPhone 12 has become more difficult with different components structure. Visit our online PHONEFIX shop for repair parts and tools.
