In my recent 2nd generation Google Chromecast teardown, “The Google Chromecast Gen 2 (2015): A Form Factor Redesign with Beefier Wi-Fi, Too,” I noted that I subsequently planned on tearing down the Chromecast Ultra, followed by the 3rd generation Chromecast, chronologically ordered per their respective introduction dates (2016 and 2018).
I’ve subsequently decided to flip-flop that ordering, tackling the 3rd generation Chromecast first, in the interest of grouping together devices with output resolution commonality. All three Chromecast generations, also including 2013’s original version, peak-output 1080p video, although the 3rd generation model also bumped up the frame rate from 30 fps to 60 fps; the Ultra variant you’ll see in the near future conversely did 4K. If you’re wondering why I’m referring to them all in the past tense, by the way, it’s because none of them are in production any longer, although everything but the first-generation Chromecast still gets software updates.
Google also claimed at intro that the Chromecast 3 not only came in new color options:
but was also 15% faster than its predecessor (along with adding support for Dolby Digital Plus and fully integrated Chromecast with Nest smart speakers), although the company was never specific about what “15% faster” meant. Was it only in reference to the already mentioned 1080p60 smoother video-playback option? One might deduce that it also referred to more general UI responsiveness, but if true was this due to faster innate processing—which all users would conceivably experience—or higher wireless network performance, only for those with advanced LANs? Or both? I hope this teardown will help answer these and other questions (like why does Wikipedia list no CPU or memory details for this generation?) to at least a degree.
Generally speaking, I try whenever possible to avoid teardowns of perfectly good hardware that end up being destructive, i.e., leaving the hardware in degraded condition that precludes me from putting it back together afterwards and donating it to someone else. In such cases, I instead strive to focus my attention on already nonfunctional “for parts only” devices sourced from eBay and elsewhere. This time, however, all I could find were still-working eBay options:
although the one I picked was not only inexpensive ($10 plus shipping and sales tax, $16.63 total) but was absent its original packaging:
Here’s a closeup of the micro-USB connector—a legacy approach that’s rapidly being obsoleted by the USB-C successor—at the other end of the USB-A power cable:
And here’s a top view of our patient, as usual accompanied by a 0.75″ (19.1 mm) diameter U.S. penny for size comparison purposes:
Followed by a closeup of the top of the main body:
Same goes for the underside:
That printing on the bottom is quite scuffed at this seeming long-time use point, although I suspect it was already faint from the get-go. In the center are “UL Listed” and HDMI logos, with the phrase “ITE E258392” in-between them. And here’s what it says around the circumference:
Google Model NC2-685
1600 Amphitheater Parkway
Mountain View, CA 94043
CAN ICES-3
(B)NMB-3(B)
IC 10395A-NC26A5
FCC ID A4RNC2-6A5B
Made in Thailand
06041HFADVM445
…whatever (some of, I already get the rest of) that means. And phew!
Here’s the HDMI connector on one end of the cable:
And jumping ahead in time a bit, the other end, entering the partially disassembled body:
Back to where we were before in time, the opposite side of the body showcases, left to right, a hardware reset button (you can also reset via software, if the Chromecast is already activated and mobile device-connected), the aforementioned micro-USB power input and a status LED:
Speaking of sides, you probably already noticed the seam around the circumference of the main body. Also speaking of sides, let’s see if it gets us inside. First off, I used the warmed-up iOpener introduced previously in the Chromecast 2 teardown to heat up the presumed glue holding the two halves together at the seam:
Then I set to work with its iFixit-companion Jimmy:
which got me partly, albeit not completely, to my desired end result, complete with collateral damage in the process:
I suspected that the diminutive dallop of under-case thermal paste I’d encountered with the 2nd-generation Chromecast was more substantially applied this time, to counteract the higher heat output associated with the 3rd-generation unit’s “15% faster” boast. So, I reheated the iOpener, reoriented it on the device, waited some more:
and tried, tried again. Yep, there’s paste inside:
Veni, vidi, vici (albeit, in this case, not particularly swiftly):
My, that’s a lot of (sloppily applied, to boot) glue:
The corresponding paste repository on the inside of the upper-case half is an odd spongy donut-shaped thing. I’ve also scraped away some of the obscuring black paint to reveal the metallic layer beneath it, which presumably acts as a secondary heat sink:
Some rubbing alcohol and a tissue cleaned the blue-green goop off the Faraday cage:
Although subsequently removing the retaining screws on either side of the HDMI cable did nothing to get the cage itself off:
Resigning me to just ripping it off (behavior that, as you’ll soon see, wasn’t a one-time event):
Followed by (most of) the black tape underneath it:
I never actually ever got the HDMI cable detached from the lower-case half, but with the screws removed, I was at least able to disconnect it from the PCB:
enabling me to remove the PCB from the remainder of the case…at least theoretically:
This Chromecast-generation time around, there’s an abundance of thermal paste on both sides:
Even after jamming the Jimmy in the gap in attempting to cut the offending paste in half, I still wasn’t able to separate the PCB from the case, specifically down at the bottom where the micro-USB connector was. The ambient light in the room was starting to get dim and I needed to leave for Mass soon, so I—umm—just gave the PCB a yank, ripping it out of the case:
and quickly snapped the remainder of the photos you’ll see, including the first glimpse of the bottom of the PCB:
When I got back home and reviewed the shots, I was first flummoxed, then horrified, and finally (to this very day, in fact) mortified and embarrassed. And I bet that at least a few of you eagle-eyed readers already know where I’m going with this. What’s that in the bottom left-ish edge of the inside of the back half of the case (with the reset button rubber “spring” to its left and the light guide for the activity LED to its right)? Is that…a still-attached screw? Surrounded by a chunk of PCB?
Yes…yes it is. This dissected device is destined solely for the landfill, “thanks” to my rushed ham-handedness. Sigh:
Guess I might as well get this Faraday cage off too:
And clean off the additional inside paste:
The IC in the upper left is Marvell’s Avastar 88W8887 quad wireless transceiver, supporting 1×1 802.11ac, Bluetooth 4.1, NFC and FM, only some of these functions actually implemented in this design. It’s the same chip used in the 2nd generation Chromecast, so the basis for the “15% faster” claim seemingly doesn’t seemingly source here. Next to it on the right is a SK Hynix H5TC4G63EFR-RDA 4 Gbit LPDDR3-1866 SDRAM. Note too the LED in the lower left corner, and the PCB-embedded antennae on both sides. And, since this PCB is “toast” anyway (yes, note the chunk out of it in the lower right, too), I went ahead and lifted the upper right corner of the cage frame to assure myself (and you) that nothing meaningful was hiding underneath:
Back to the previously seen front side of the PCB:
At far left (with the hardware reset switch below it in the lower left corner…and did I mention yet the missing chunk of PCB to the right of it?), peeking out from the cage frame, is a small, obviously Marvell-sourced, IC labeled as follows (ID, anyone?):
MRVL
G868
952GAX
which I suspect has the same (unknown) function(s) as a similarly (but not identically) labeled chip I’d found in the 2nd-generation Chromecast:
MRVL
G868
524GBD
To its left is the much larger Synaptics MM3006, formerly known as the Marvell 88DE3006 (Synaptics having acquired Marvell’s Multimedia Solutions Business in mid-2017). Again, it’s the same IC as in the 2nd generation Chromecast. And finally, at far right is a Toshiba TC58NVG2S0 4 Gbit NAND flash memory. Same flash memory supplier as before. Same flash memory technology as before. But hey, twice the capacity as before (presumably to provide headroom for the added firmware “support for Dolby Digital Plus and fully integrated Chromecast with Nest smart speakers” mentioned earlier)! So, there’s that…
Aside from a bigger flash memory chip (and, ok, getting rid of the magnet integrated into the Chromecast 2’s HDMI connector), what’s different between the 2nd and 3rd generation Chromecasts, and where does Google’s “15% faster” claim come from? The difference, I suspect, originates with the DRAM. I hadn’t specifically mentioned this in the previous teardown, but the Samsung DRAM found there, while also LPDDR3 in technology and 4 Gbit in capacity, was a “K0” variant reflective of a 1600 MHz speed bin. This time, conversely and as already noted, the DRAM runs at 1866 MHz. My guess is that this uptick also corresponds to a slightly faster speed bin for the Marvell-now-Synaptics application processor. And therein lies, between the two, the modest overall system performance boost.
Agree or disagree, readers? Any other thoughts? Let me know in the comments!
—Brian Dipert is the Editor-in-Chief of the Edge AI and Vision Alliance, and a Senior Analyst at BDTI and Editor-in-Chief of InsideDSP, the company’s online newsletter.
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