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San Jose: While most iPhone owners could not wait to try out their pricey new gadgets, a few raced to break them apart.
The dismantled - and in some cases, permanently busted - iPhones revealed one of Apple Inc's closely guarded secrets: The names of the companies that supplied the chips and other electronic components for the highly anticipated device.
The findings sent all but a few of the component makers' stocks higher on Monday, the first day of trading since the iPhone - a combination cell phone, music player and wireless web browsing device - went on sale in the US on Friday evening for as much as $600 a pop. The parts makers stand to profit handsomely if the iPhone proves popular over time.
Target
Apple itself has set a target of selling 10 million units worldwide by 2008, gaining roughly a one per cent share of the cell phone market.
Among the beneficiaries of Apple's business and the tear-down buzz were semiconductor heavyweights Intel Corp, Broadcom Corp, Texas Instruments Inc and Infineon Technologies AG as well as lesser-known companies such as Skyworks Solutions Inc. and Linear Technology Corp.
Those that released detailed descriptions of the iPhone's innards included sites such as ThinkSecret.com and iFixit.com as well as research companies Portelligent and Semiconductor Insights. Several analysts also published the results of their own tear-downs.
One of the biggest winners is South Korean chip maker Samsung Electronics Co, which is making the main microprocessor used to run the phone's operating system and various applications.
Intel, the world's largest semiconductor company, is supplying another form of memory, called NOR flash.
Other chip makers whose stock rose on their involvement with the iPhone included Broadcom Corp., which is making a controller chip believed to be used for managing the touch-screen display.
Texas Instruments is supplying a power-management chip. German chip maker Infineon Technologies makes parts that handle cellular communications for the iPhone.
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