Sciphone Dream G2

Dream G2 booting...

Sciphone Dream G2 was made and sold by Bluelans from about end of 2008 to end of 2009. It was relatively successful, selling about 200,000 units. PCBA manufacturer was SIECOM, PCBA subsidiary of Hedy. The successor was the Sciphone G15, but it didn't sell well and was discontinued after a few months. Bluelans is not currently selling any phones made by SIECOM anymore. SIECOM has 2 lines of MTK models, low-end around 6253, high-end around 6235. All SIECOM PCBAs supposedly expose JTAG, sometimes under a shielding case. We might investigate other 6235 models made by SIECOM.

Key Components

Manufacturer Part Number	Function	Datasheet
MTK MT6235BA	CPU
MTK MT6140BN	GSM/GPRS/EDGE transceiver
RFMD RF3159	RF amplifier
MTK MT6188C	FM radio
MTK MT6601T	Bluetooth
MTK MT5921B	Wi-Fi
Hynix H8ACU0CE0BBR	DDR memory and NAND flash
Display-tech DP0238-1-FD	LCM

G2 PCB Revisions

Identifier	Date	Notes
I10_MAINBOARD_V2.0	2008/11/04
I10_MAINBOARD_V2.1	2009/03/02
I10_MAINBOARD_V2.2	2009/08/18
I10_MAINBOARD_V3.1	2009/10/15

Disassembly

1: Remove the back cover.

2: There is only 1 screw (+ type), in the lower right corner.

3: Lift up the plastic piece, there are 4 small hooks on the left and right side, 3 on the top.

4: Plastic piece after it is removed, notice the hooks (4 left and right, 3 at top).

5: Plastic from inside, notice the GSM antenna at the bottom.

6: Detail of the antenna connectors on the PCB.

7: Before lifting up the PCB, make sure to open the latch and remove the touch panel FPC.

8: Should be open like this before lifting up the PCB.

9: Lift up the PCB, I suggest from the left side as there is no connector there.

10: When lifting up the PCB, do not apply pressure from the other side (the front side), as there is a glass layer under the touch panel. I did so I broke the glass.

11: Top plastic from inside (with broken glass).

12: Assembled PCBA from front.

13: The LCM is soldered to the phone PCB.

PCBA Pictures

• 

  front, assembled

• 

  front, with shields

• 

  front, without shields

• 

  back, assembled

• 

  back, with shields

• 

  back, without shields

PCB layers

You can also download a PDF file including all layers here (90 MB). Note that the manufacturer of the PCB calls the side of the battery the 'top' side, the side of the LCM and keyboard is the 'bottom' side. The pictures are in bottom-to-top order here, because we probably normally start from the side where the CPU (and JTAG pins) are. Feel free to change/cleanup if you think this is not ideal.

1: bottom silk

2: bottom copper (copper layer #6)

3: bottom <-> 5 vias

4: inner copper layer #5

5: 5 <-> 4 vias

6: inner copper layer #4

7: inner copper layer #3

8: 3 <-> 2 vias

9: inner copper layer #2

10: 2 <-> top vias

11: top copper (copper layer #1)

12: top silk

Schematics, component placement

Bluelans has generously released the G2 schematics and component placement into the public domain.

• Schematics: Sciphone_G2_I10_v3_schematics.pdf
• component placement: LCM side, battery side

USB charging

The Sciphone Dream G2 has a non-standard connector at the bottom of the phone. The following two pictures show how to provide current for charging.

References

• Bluelans
• HEDY mobile phones