Shenzhen - Phone recycling -4-

Although the components that are sold here don’t have the best reputation, there are a number of quality control methods used to make sure everything is still in working order. One of them is an optical check for any obvious damage.

More interesting are test setups that use rewired versions of the devices that the chips original came from.

These boxes are made-to-order for specific phones and specific parts. The shop that sells them is one of several tool suppliers in the building. There are others selling soldering irons, heat guns and books with circuit board schematics.

Finally the most valuable chips get reprogrammed or flashed and packaged into trays and tape reels (I’ve seen them do it!) that can be fed into the pick-and-place robots used to build new devices.

The next post will be dedicated to the other activities in this building, such as the (partial) fabrication of Shanzai phones.