Samsung’s recall of Galaxy Note7 smartphones over reports that dozens caught fire might have a lasting impact on the company’s image.
Or not, depending on which analyst you ask.
“What more can a vendor do than a complete recall?” asked Patrick Moorhead, an analyst at Moor Insights & Research. “This is exactly what Samsung did. All I’d say is that that they could have sent out the ‘power down’ message a few days earlier and maybe sent that through the carrier text network like a weather alert.”
In fact, Samsung issued a global recall of Note 7s on Sept. 2. From the start, however, there was confusion about whether that recall meant users should immediately stop using the smartphones or charging them, since the fires were traced to problems with lithium ion batteries. About 2.5 million Note 7s were reportedly sold at the time of the Samsung recall, with 35 initial reports of fires.
About a week later, on Sept. 10, Samsung updated its advice and urged Note7 users in the U.S. to “power down” the device and “exchange it now.”
Samsung said consumers should visit the store where they purchased the device to obtain a replacement Note7
As of Wednesday, there was no formal CPSC recall for the U.S. or a CPSC approval of a replacement device. A software upgrade to lessen the power that could be charged to a Note7 in use in South Korea also hadn’t been approved for use in the U.S.
I recently had the opportunity to speak with Nadim Maluf, CEO of Qnovo, and Robert Nalesnik, Qnovo’s VP of Marketing, part of the visionary team seeking to re-imagine and improve the way batteries are charged. Qnovo developed the concept of adaptive battery charging to augment battery performance.
Maluf and Nalesnik are keenly aware of what’s happening in the battery market, so we sat down to talk about current events involving rechargeable Li-ion batteries and glean insight into what electrical engineers need to know to design a long-lasting, safe, portable product.
Power Electronics News (PEN): What do engineers need to know about battery fires in mobile phones?
Maluf: We learned a lot from the laptop fires that occurred about 15 years ago. For example, if you open up a battery, there is a chip at the two terminals of the battery — the battery protection circuit module (PCM) chip, [which is] used for overvoltage/overcurrent protection. They were developed after researching what went wrong with the laptops. These chips are in place to make sure the battery does not exceed its maximum voltage or current.
Nalesnik: So, for example, if you shorted the battery’s terminals, then the PCM chip would shut off current so you wouldn’t get into a dangerous situation.
Maluf: However, I pointed out in a recent blog that, although this is necessary, it isn’t sufficient anymore. The reason is because the battery chemists and vendors are being asked to do much more than they had to do in the past. In particular, they have to put a lot more capacity in the batteries and with more density. They have to charge these batteries at a much faster rate. And that is really straining the chemistry in the battery and forcing the battery chemists to find ways to reduce the error margins. Electrical engineers know that when you design something, you build in a margin for error in your design. Those margins for error are being lowered dramatically.
A recent article published by The Verge attempted to explain the science behind the exploding Samsung Note 7 batteries. The article touches on several important aspects of battery safety but the handwaving did not really talk about much science. So this post will address a failure mode of lithium-ion batteries and how defects can form during manufacturing with catastrophic results.
One of my earlier posts described the inner structure of a lithium battery. In a nutshell,
In practical terms, the anode is wider than the cathode ever so slightly, only a few percents. Any extra width of the anode does not participate in energy storage. In other words, the extra width of the anode is required for safety reasons, but does not contribute to charge storage. So battery designers go to extremes to optimize the extra width of the anode for the requisite safety.
Samsung’s bad month gets worse as the South Korean electronics giant warns that some of its washing machines may halt and catch fire.
The tech giant says it is working with the US Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) on a plan to fix top-loading washing machines prone to what Samsung terms “abnormal vibrations”, or as the rest of us call it, “exploding”.
Samsung says the affected units are all top-loading washers manufactured between March 2011 and April 2016.
“In rare cases, affected units may experience abnormal vibrations that could pose a risk of personal injury or property damage when washing bedding, bulky or water-resistant items,”
Samsung, meanwhile, is still trying to work out the replacements for the hand-burning Galaxy Note 7 phablet that’s at the heart of a massive recall worldwide and a flight ban over fears the fiery tablets could bring down aircraft.
I would feel so much safer on my next flight from Phoenix to Silicon Valley if I knew that there were safeguards in place inside passengers’ smartphones that could prevent fire and explosion from such design decisions like a company packing 10 pounds of Lithium-ion battery into a 5 pound compartment or a smartphone owner buying a lower cost, after-market battery replacing the original battery in their phone from some country and supplier of which I had never heard.
The problem is not just smartphone batteries, but laptops and other battery-operated electronics with Lithium-ion batteries. However, since the Samsung case is so recent and widespread, I wanted to focus mostly upon the smartphone in this article.
Let’s look at seven possible solutions based on solid technical research, which will build upon my recent initial article touching on this subject.
Southwest Airlines flight 994 from Louisville to Baltimore was evacuated this morning while still at the gate because of a smoking Samsung Galaxy Note 7 smartphone. All passengers and crew exited the plane via the main cabin door and no injuries were reported, a Southwest Airlines spokesperson told The Verge.
More worrisome is the fact that the phone in question was a replacement Galaxy Note 7, one that was deemed to be safe by Samsung.
Green said that he had powered down the phone as requested by the flight crew and put it in his pocket when it began smoking. He dropped it on the floor of the plane and a “thick grey-green angry smoke” was pouring out of the device. Green’s colleague went back onto the plane to retrieve some personal belongings and said that the phone had burned through the carpet and scorched the subfloor of the plane.
Samsung is likely in full-fledged crisis mode at this point, as a replacement phone catching fire would be truly disastrous for the company’s image and finances.
Samsung is about to get under way Note 7 smartphone in the exchange program. Now it’s time well aware of what caused the first batch of batteries overheating and even catching fire. The fault is localized to the production process, but the real reason is a lithium battery.
US battery cell must contain only 1.5 grams of lithium. One battery lithium content must not exceed 8 grams. For example, 2 amp-hour lithium battery was 0.6 grams.
The amounts are therefore negligible. Note 7: 3500 mAh the lithium battery is a little more than one gram. In a typical 60 watt-hour laptop battery lithium is 4.8 grams.
Lithium must be kept separate from all other metals.
Samsung’s production batch of batteries is apparently pressed together too strongly, so that the positive and negative side of the combine through the insulation. During charging, lithium ions are trying to move between the cathode and the anode by the shortest route, which has led to a short circuit.
Note 7 is not the first nor the last device or smartphone that overheats due to its battery.
According to Samsung the battery problem was related to the device for about a thousand, ie less than 0.01 per cent of all sold in Note 7 phones.
Jordan Golson / The Verge:
Three reports of replacement Samsung Galaxy Note 7s catching fire have surfaced in the past week — It sent a man to the hospital with smoke inhalation injuries — Another replacement Samsung Galaxy Note 7 has caught fire, bringing the total to three this week alone.
Another replacement Samsung Galaxy Note 7 has caught fire, bringing the total to three this week alone. This one was owned by Michael Klering of Nicholasville, Kentucky.
“The phone is supposed to be the replacement, so you would have thought it would be safe,” Klering told WKYT, saying that he had owned the replacement phone for a little more than a week. “It wasn’t plugged in. It wasn’t anything, it was just sitting there.”
The most disturbing part of this is that Klering’s phone caught fire on Tuesday and Samsung knew about it and didn’t say anything. And actually, it gets worse than that.
Samsung was aware that its replacement phones were catching fire five days ago. Another caught fire on Thursday (on an airplane), and then another on Friday in the hands of a thirteen-year old girl. That’s three in less than a week, with Samsung giving its customers little more than meaningless platitudes about “[taking] every report seriously” and that “customer safety remains our highest priority as we are investigating the matter.”
Billy Steele / Engadget:
After Samsung Galaxy Southwest Airlines incident, Verizon, Sprint, AT&T, and T-Mobile now offer exchange options for Note7 replacement models — A replacement Samsung Galaxy Note 7 started smoking and burned through the carpet on board a Southwest flight this week.
A replacement Samsung Galaxy Note 7 started smoking and burned through the carpet on board a Southwest flight this week. Following the incident, one US carrier is allowing owners to exchange those replacement devices even though the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) hasn’t issued a formal warning or recall yet. Sprint confirmed to Engadget it will allow customers to return their replacement Note 7 for another device at its retail stores “during the investigation window.” The carrier says that it’s working with Samsung “to better understand the most recent concerns” with the handset.
So, what if you’re on T-Mobile, AT&T or Verizon? Well, Recode reports T-Mobile will accept returns so long as they fall within its normal 14-day “remorse” policy.
AT&T confirmed to Engadget that it will also allow customers to exchange replacement Galaxy Note 7s for another phone.
Samsung is putting the brakes on its beleaguered Galaxy Note 7 smartphone as fears spread that even replacement versions of the device can burst into flames.
Production of the phone has been temporarily suspended, a person familiar with the matter told CNN on Monday.
Samsung (SSNLF) recalled about 2.5 million of the devices worldwide last month, blaming faulty batteries for overheating the phones and causing them to ignite.
Verizon announced late tonight that it would no longer offer replacement Samsung Galaxy Note 7 phones to its customers, joining fellow US carriers T-Mobile and AT&T, and other carriers around the world in halting sales of the device. Verizon’s decision comes after it was reported earlier tonight that Samsung was halting production of new Note 7 phones while the investigation is ongoing.
At least five replacement Note 7 phones caught fire in the US alone this week, and federal regulators with the Consumer Product Safety Commission are working to investigate the incidents.
If you own a Samsung Galaxy Note 7 you should immediately stop using it and return it for a refund
AT&T is discontinuing all sales and exchanges of Samsung Galaxy Note 7 smartphones following a number of fires caused by supposedly “safe” phones that had been replaced under recall.
“Based on recent reports, we’re no longer exchanging new Note 7s at this time, pending further investigation of these reported incidents,” said an AT&T spokesperson in a statement to The Verge. “We still encourage customers with a recalled Note 7 to visit an AT&T location to exchange that device for another Samsung smartphone or other smartphone of their choice.”
All four of the big US carriers have said they will allow returns of any Note 7, but AT&T is the first to stop sales of the device entirely.
ABC30 reports that an iPhone 6 Plus exploded during charging. The device, which belonged to Yvette Estrada from Fresno, California, has been rendered completely unusable. The incident happened this week, in the night from Thursday to Friday.
The iPhone 6 Plus was connected to the power adapter that came bundled with it.
Earlier this week, an iPhone 6 Plus burned in the back pocket of college student Darina Hlavaty. The cause of fire in both incidents is not yet known, although it might be a case of defective batteries or a short circuit.
Samsung Global Newsroom:
Samsung tells owners of Galaxy Note7 to stop using device, asks global carrier and retail partners to stop sales and exchanges of the phone — We are working with relevant regulatory bodies to investigate the recently reported cases involving the Galaxy Note7.
Jordan Golson / The Verge:
5 cases of replacement Galaxy Note7s catching fire reported in US; Samsung says it is investigating the reports, working with Consumer Product Safety Commission — This time in Texas — Another replacement Samsung Galaxy Note 7 has caught fire, this one in Houston, Texas.
Another replacement Samsung Galaxy Note 7 has caught fire, this one in Houston, Texas. Daniel Franks was at lunch with his daughter and wife when their replacement caught fire while sitting on the table, he told The Verge in an interview. It had been replaced at a Best Buy store in late September.
Franks said that his eight-year-old daughter regularly plays Minecraft on the phone and wondered what could have happened if she was holding it or it was in his pocket or sitting on a nightstand.
This is the (1, 2, 3, 4) fifth replacement Note 7 that has caught fire in the US in the past week that we know of. It seems likely that there are more. AT&T has stopped selling the phones entirely, while the US Consumer Product Safety Commission says it is “moving expeditiously” to investigate, though perhaps even that isn’t quickly enough.
According to Samsung, there have been 35 reported cases and 2.5 million phones have been produced. While that figure is relatively high (batteries typically fail at a rate of 1 in tens of millions) it’s still far from common.
“Battery failures are exceedingly rare,” says Donal Finegan, a chemical engineer at University College London. “Any kind of fault does garner a lot of media attention and can really affect the reputation of a product that relies on the battery.”
Like many rechargeable devices, phones use lithium-ion cells. But what makes these batteries great at powering gadgets also makes them vulnerable to catching fire, says Finegan. “They are so energy-dense and can operate under such high power that they can combust in a particularly catastrophic way.
Overheating is obviously driven by temperature rise. This can be due to the environment, such as a hot car in summer, or through heat transferred to a battery from another component inside the phone. Heating can also begin within a battery itself, which is what’s behind the “battery cell issue” in Samsung’s Note 7.
One cause of combustion is a problem with the “battery management system” that monitors the electrical current and normally tells a chip inside the phone to stop the current once a battery is fully charged. If either the system or chip is faulty, a battery can enter a state of “overcharge”.
“The battery can continue to charge and can become even more unstable and eventually just burst into flames itself, without any kind of external heating,” Finegan explains.
Phones don’t contain fans or the liquid cooling mechanism you find in a gaming PC or electric vehicle, so heat must radiate out into the surroundings.
When a battery reaches about 100ºC (200ºF), its materials start to break down, triggering a chemical chain reaction that releases its own energy. This accelerates the warming and leads to a snowball effect — a process called “thermal runaway”.
“The snowball effect happens so fast that, within a second, the entire cell goes from being intact to being completely destroyed,” says Finegan.
Lithium ions are carried by an electrolyte solution, which is a volatile liquid. Finegan’s X-ray snapshots reveal that when heated, electrolytes produce gas bubbles that causes a cell to lose structural integrity and can create the short circuit.
Rectangular batteries are more prone to failure compared to cylindrical cells because the latter usually have a central support that helps prevent internal layers from deforming, as well as a “rupture disc” that will cut-off the current when stretched. Phones don’t have such secondary fail-safes because small size is a desirable feature.
Batteries aren’t as safe as they could be, partly because scientists must cater to the demands of manufacturers, who prefer high performance — but less stable — cells. “They usually try to use the most highly energy-dense material, so we have to keep up with that,” Finegan points out. “It’s not as simple as saying, ‘Just use a safer material’.”
Chemical engineering could help the phone industry reduce the risk of battery failure in future.
After the replacement units of Galaxy Note 7 also started to catch fire, Samsung is now permanently discontinuing its latest flagship smartphone, , the company said today. The news comes a day after Samsung halted sales of Note 7 once again and began asking users to return the device. So far nearly 50 incidents of Note 7 causing fires have been reported. More importantly, many people have been physically injured with their new Galaxy phone catching fire.
WSJ reports:
“Samsung said in a filing with South Korean regulators on Tuesday that it would permanently cease sales of the device, a day after it announced a temporary halt to production of the smartphones”
Samsung has instructed all partners worldwide to stop both sales and exchange of its Galaxy Note 7 while it works out what went wrong.
Owners are told to power down, stop using the device, and “take advantage of the remedies available” – which varies depending on who they bought the Note 7 from.
The announcement pretty much completes the misery of the Note 7 launch for flammable Sammy, since it seems improbable that users will have much faith in whatever solution the company conceives.
Power Electronics News (PEN): What do engineers need to know about battery fires in mobile phones?
Maluf: We learned a lot from the laptop fires that occurred about 15 years ago. For example, if you open up a battery, there is a chip at the two terminals of the battery — the battery protection circuit module (PCM) chip, [which is] used for overvoltage/overcurrent protection. They were developed after researching what went wrong with the laptops. These chips are in place to make sure the battery does not exceed its maximum voltage or current.
Nalesnik: So, for example, if you shorted the battery’s terminals, then the PCM chip would shut off current so you wouldn’t get into a dangerous situation.
Maluf: However, I pointed out in a recent blog that, although this is necessary, it isn’t sufficient anymore. The reason is because the battery chemists and vendors are being asked to do much more than they had to do in the past. In particular, they have to put a lot more capacity in the batteries and with more energy density. They have to charge these batteries at a much faster rate. And that is really straining the chemistry in the battery and forcing the battery chemists to find ways to reduce the error margins. Electrical engineers know that when you design something, you build in a margin for error in your design. Those margins for error are being lowered dramatically.
Nalesnik: Basically, the EE trusts that if they stay within the specs for the battery, then everything will be fine. Unfortunately, that’s not true anymore.
Maluf: There are mechanisms in place today for qualification. For example, let’s say your favorite chip is a processor. If you are Apple and you buy a processor from Intel, you don’t just look at a spec sheet; you audit and you test everything you can on that chip. That’s not the case for the battery. If I’m the battery vendor, I tell you what battery you need for your requirements. Most companies don’t have the means to test the batteries the way they need to be tested. And the EEs don’t have the knowledge needed about batteries, and the knowledge they do have is dismal.
PEN: Is there anything that can help with this problem?
Nalesnik: Fundamentally, even though you have a power control module that can handle overvoltage/overcurrent, if a fire occurs, the PCM never sees it because it goes into a runaway mode before it gets to overvoltage/overcurrent. So the charging processes are blind to what’s going on inside the battery because it’s an open-loop process. Essentially, you can get a safer process by turning the charging into a closed-loop process with an adaptive control system. That means you are looking at the battery operation and what the expected behavior is on very small time increments on the order of seconds.
Maluf: The key point is that this is predictive. The old PCM idea is that they react to a situation that is already past the danger point. The algorithm software is predictive and can predict that a battery will fail in days or even weeks.
Nalesnik: It really means that you can’t look at charging as an open-loop process anymore. Even though the failure rate is measured in ppm, if you happen to be that person who gets the one battery that isn’t safe, then it makes it a big deal. You can’t just depend on the chemistry and an open-loop process anymore.
It’s not only Samsung that is having this problem. If you look for recalls, you will see that it is becoming a more prevalent problem as more devices are run by batteries. And as billions of batteries are out there, then ppm/ppb starts to become significant.
PEN: Maybe this isn’t about the ppm; maybe it’s about the safety of the consumer.
Nalesnik: Yes, companies need to have zero failures. You can’t afford to have safety problems. But if the charging is open loop, then you can’t get to zero failures.
Maluf: Lithium plating is developed inside the battery and is not visible to the user from the outside. But lithium plating is ultimately what creates the massive short. It could happen because of a bad design; it could be defects and many other reasons. These problems can’t be seen by the EE unless you force the battery manufacturer to run thousands of tests before they ship the battery.
Qnovo has frequently seen that the battery vendors will change their initial recipe. And it could vary ever so slightly.
Engineers have things they can do, but it’s more of a Band-Aid solution. They can drop the voltage of the battery. In other words, today’s batteries, individual cells, are 4.35 V max, and the newest crop of batteries are at 4.4 V max. That means battery manufacturers are pushing the limits of materials to the precipice. If you run a 4.4-V battery at 4.35 V, you are sacrificing basically 5% of the capacity. Engineers often sacrifice capacity by reducing the voltage. That means you have to tell your customers that they will lose an hour or more of use time. That’s something that engineers do as a Band-Aid safety fix, but it doesn’t make consumers happy. It’s essentially backing off the edge of the cliff. Another trick you will see some vendors doing is to start at full voltage at the beginning and then drop the voltage. So you think you have 3,000 mAh, but unknown to you, the energy drops during operation to 2,800 or 2,900 mAh, and vendors don’t tell you that. And there is no standard or control in place to prevent that from happening.
PEN: Are we reaching the end of Li-ion batteries?
Nalesnik: I think we are reaching the end of open-loop charging of Li-ion batteries.
Maluf: It’s a great question — and the answer is, it depends on what you mean by reaching the end.
So for Li-ion batteries, if the metric is energy density and wondering if it will keep growing the way it did for the last 10 years, then yes, we are reaching the limits for Li-ion. We are somewhere between 600 Wh/l and 700 Wh/l and, barring some new materials that are yet to be discovered on the commercial scale, I don’t think the energy density will keep growing.
So this begs the question: why did Samsung release new software that limits the maximum charge in the faulty Galaxy Note 7 to only 60% of maximum? It is because the risk of lithium metal plating heavily depends on the voltage and the maximum charge in the battery. This is evident in the voltage chart of this earlier post: the higher the voltage, i.e., the higher maximum allowed charge, the higher the risk of lithium metal plating.
I will close by reiterating one final thought. The tolerance requirements in the manufacturing of lithium ion batteries have risen sharply with increasing energy density. Short of using new materials (that still do not exist in commercial deployment), increasing the energy density means reducing all the extra space inside the battery that is not made of anode and cathode materials. These are the only two materials that store energy. Everything else is just overhead…i.e., dead weight. They are still needed for other functions and safety, but they do not contribute to storing electrical charge. So battery designers keep reducing this overhead and in the process, make the manufacturing tolerances every so tight….and that is a recipe for many disasters to come unless we start adding a lot more intelligence to the battery to avoid and mitigate these undesired situations.
The safety regulators from the U.S. are officially recalling Samsung Galaxy Note 7 phones, even after the company is voluntarily recalling 2.5 million of the phones globally. Read what Sr. Tech Editor Jim Harrison of Electronic Products has to say about what this recall means for phones and other products that use this prevalent battery technology.
Samsung has given out an explanation of the cause of Galaxy Note 7 phone fires as follows: “Based on our investigation, we learned that there was an issue with the battery cell. An overheating of the battery cell occurred when the anode-to-cathode came into contact which is a very rare manufacturing process error. We are working with multiple suppliers to ensure that a rigorous inspection process is conducted to ensure the quality of our replacement units and we do not anticipate any further battery issues.” This according to the site http://wccftech.com.
Some people have said they were confused by this explanation because the charge circuit should have a safety mechanism to shut down charging when the battery voltage is not in the normal range. But, the destruction evident in the problem phones could have been caused by the energy in the battery itself and not involve any circuit design problem at all. The problem may be the quality control of the 3,500 mAh lithium-ion battery.
Lithium-ion cells got a bad rap for starting fires on the 787 Dreamliner, and now this. We better hope lithium-ion is a good thing, because Elon Musk and other folks are in the process of making a hell of a lot of them. The problem batteries here were apparently made by Samsung SDI. Now the Note 7 will switch to Amperex Technology Limited (ATL) batteries that are made in China. ATL supplied around 35% of the current model batteries.
Lithium-ion batteries catching fire have been in the news recently, causing many customers to reconsider which mobile phones to purchase and even prompting airlines to restrict the devices’ use when flying. It affects all of us who use rechargeable battery devices and certainly is critical to design engineers who create the mobile devices and the surrounding protection circuitry for these millions upon millions of everyday consumer devices.
Samsung gets kicked off the plane
Fires involving lithium-ion batteries are infrequent but not rare. Incidents involving Samsung’s latest smartphone may encourage mobile device makers to reexamine the integrity of their power trains. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) issued an advisory on Sept. 8 effectively declaring the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 — arguably the most feature-laden smartphone ever — a fire hazard. The FAA advisory asked passengers “not to turn on or charge these devices on board [an] aircraft and not to stow them in any checked baggage.”
Cause of Samsung Galaxy Note 7 fires determined, probablyExploding-Battery-Graphic-Bigger
The safety regulators from the U.S. are officially recalling Samsung Galaxy Note 7 phones, even after the company began voluntarily recalling 2.5 million of the phones globally.
Explosions at two Shenzhen LIB factories, caused by high temperatures… or not?
Among the several lithium-ion battery explosions reported this year, battery factory explosions (July 2016) in Shenzhen were the most recent. The cause of the explosion has not yet been determined
Samsung recall: Tech solutions to enhance lithium-ion battery safety
The typical failure modes of lithium-ion batteries can be electrical abuse, thermal abuse, and physical damage.
Samsung’s burning batteries demonstrate the need for lithium ion alternatives
Mehta says that instead of waiting for promises of a safe lithium-ion battery technology, which may be too expensive or too far out in the future, there are safe alternatives available today.
Pushing to the very edge of safe Li-ion charging
An interview with Qnovo about best practices for battery charging designs. Qnovo developed the concept of adaptive battery charging to augment battery performance, and make them safe.
Li-ion is dead
The lithium-ion battery has had 90% of the engineering efficiency of which it is capable already optimized. Anything further may be dangerous and could result in fire or explosion.
A replacement Samsung Galaxy Note 7 phone catches fire
On October 5, 2016 a Southwest Airlines flight was evacuated while still at the gate because of a smoking Samsung Galaxy Note 7 smartphone. This report from The Verge says that the phone in question was a replacement Galaxy Note 7, one that was deemed to be safe by Samsung.
The trauma faced by consumers and the pain of the Galaxy Note7 recall that Samsung Electronics is going through is unfortunate. The reported incidents of flaming devices highlight both the persistent need for portable energy storage and the problems with our dependence on chemical lithium ion batteries.
While portable, high-energy density lithium batteries have been a boon for mobile computing and pervasive sensors in many useful areas in our lives, they continue to be a bane for several undesirable characteristics: long recharge times, which leads to battery anxiety and constant hunting for recharge sockets; low cycle life, which leads to increased burden on landfill waste management; and the unsafe and environmentally unfriendly nature of the chemistry. All of these nagging issues make chemical, rechargeable battery cells troubling and downright dangerous to use, especially when you consider the vast number of these chemical energy storage cells in everything around us.
Lithium ion batteries are, by and large, safe as demonstrated by the millions of devices using them over the years. However, since active chemistry is taking place in these cells, the risk of runaway thermal breakdown is never completely removed. Instead of waiting for promises of a safe lithium-ion battery technology, which may be too expensive or too far out in the future, a new generation of higher energy hybrid-supercapacitors offers a choice available today.
There are certainly other chemical energy storage alternatives that are safer than lithium ion — like zinc-based electrochemical storage batteries — and these should also be considered. Nickel metal Hydride (NiMH) batteries and Nickel Cadmium have also been used for a long time
New developments and advances in hybrid supercapacitors technology have addressed these two main issues, making it more suitable for a wider range of applications.
Commercially available hybrid supercapacitors have various chemistries (using metal oxides such as manganese, ruthenium, lithium-ion to increase electrode voltage and thus energy density) and have demonstrated as much as 10X energy density as compared to previous generation supercapacitors.
Specifically, high energy supercapacitors are a good fit for applications where a two-to-three–minute recharge of the energy storage cell can get the product ready for a few hours of use. The concept of “Energy Snacking” — fully recharging in minutes several times through the day — also makes the long cycle life of supercapacitors (tens of thousands of cycles) a good fit for this type of product usage.
Product manufacturers and consumers need to know that a safer alternative to lithium ion is available today for specific applications where consumer safety is a high concern.
Samsung has been forced to cease production of its disastrous Galaxy Note 7 Smartphones because they keep catching fire, but it still has to address the problem of cleaning up its mess. The phone has been recalled twice, and owners now have to send their incendiary handsets back to the South Korean firm. And that poses a bit of a problem: if you need to issue a recall for a phone that is prone to spontaneously combust, you don’t want those phones catching fire in transit. Samsung’s solution is a fancy “Note 7 Return Kit,” and it has sent one to XDA Developers. The kit contains a special “Recovery Box” that’s lined with ceramic fiber paper to provide some protection against incineration.
Samsung has been forced to cease production of its disastrous Galaxy Note 7 Smartphones because they keep catching fire, but it still has to address the problem of cleaning up its mess. The phone has been recalled twice, and owners now have to send their incendiary handsets back to the South Korean firm. And that poses a bit of a problem: if you need to issue a recall for a phone that is prone to spontaneously combust, you don’t want those phones catching fire in transit.
The kit contains a special “Recovery Box” that’s lined with ceramic fiber paper to provide some protection against incineration. Samsung warns that some people will have a bad reaction to this lining, so the recovery kit also includes some gloves to protect your hands.”
Samsung also includes a shipping label to send the phone back. The box reinforces that flying ban, noting that the devices are only to be shipped by ground, safely within reach of the quenching hoses of the fire department.
Samsung Galaxy Note 7 is a huge disaster. Replacing the batteries did not help at all, but the whole production unit is now closed. According to data from the American machine problems do not, however, attributable to the battery, but the processor that attempts to charge the battery too quickly or with too much power.
Note 7 batteries were originally supplied two companies:
Samsung SDI from and Amperex Technology.
The first back-called tranches were all overheated batteries Samsung SDI supplied.
New installment in all the batteries were Aperexilta, but still over-heating problems continued.
This suggests that the battery is not the root cause of problems.
The Financial Times is now quoted information: problem is the changes made to the processor for faster charging and the problem relates to the incomplete testing of the device. Sufficiently comprehensive test would have revealed overheating and Samsung might have avoided billions of dollars to rising losses.
A popular joke going around the telecoms industry of late is that Samsung has outmanoeuvred Apple in smartphone innovation this year — adding a powerful heater to its Galaxy Note 7 to warm the hands of users in cold winter months.
Yet the smartphone’s overheating safety issues have become no laughing matter for the South Korean company, after it pulled the plug on a model that only a few months earlier had some in the industry arguing it was the best handset they had ever seen.
The unprecedented move to warn consumers immediately to stop using the fire-prone model and then to kill the handset model for good during a frantic 24-hour period, has not only hit Samsung’s share price and reputation but also raised concerns that its standing as the world’s largest phonemaker could be under threat.
Less than eight weeks after going on sale, Samsung’s fire-prone Galaxy Note 7 has been consigned to history by the company. Here is how a much-praised smartphone became an expensive and embarrassing disaster for the world’s biggest maker of such devices.
Jason Koebler / Motherboard:
Samsung says it won’t refurbish Note7s, choosing to “safely dispose” of them, which creates waste, loses rare earth elements, and could harm the environment — Lost in the hype about Samsung permanently pulling the plug on its exploding phone is this: The failure of the Galaxy Note 7 …
Lost in the hype about Samsung permanently pulling the plug on its exploding phone is this: The failure of the Galaxy Note 7 is an environmental tragedy, regardless of what Samsung decides will happen to the 2.5 million devices it manufactured.
Early Tuesday morning, Samsung announced it has permanently discontinued and stopped promoting the Galaxy Note 7, and has asked its customers to return their devices for a refund or exchange. A Samsung spokesperson told me the phones will not be repaired, refurbished, or resold ever again: “We have a process in place to safely dispose of the phones,” the company said.
This sounds reasonable, but the fact is that besides sitting in your nightstand drawer for eternity (a fate that will surely befall some of these phones) or being thrown into a garbage dump or chucked into the bottom of a river, being recycled is the worst thing that can happen to a smartphone.
“Smartphones are not really recycled.”
There are two main things to consider here: First, though smartphones weigh less than a pound, it was estimated in 2013 by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers estimated that it takes roughly 165 pounds of raw mined materials to make the average cell phone, a number that is certainly higher for the Note 7, being both one of the largest and most advanced smartphones phones ever created. Second, much of that mined material is going to be immediately lost.
This is because we are terrible at recycling smartphones—of the 50-or-so elements that are in a Galaxy Note 7, we can only recover about a dozen of them through recycling. Lost are most of the rare earth elements, which are generally the most environmentally destructive and human labor-intensive to mine.
Sam Byford / The Verge:
Samsung cuts profit forecast by 33% for Q3 from $7B to $4.6B, revenue expectations from $44B to $41.8B, following Galaxy Note7 crisis — Samsung issued earnings guidance last week that suggested the calamitous Galaxy Note 7 recall wouldn’t have a major impact on the company’s bottom line …
Samsung issued earnings guidance last week that suggested the calamitous Galaxy Note 7 recall wouldn’t have a major impact on the company’s bottom line, but the company just released a statement adjusting its forecast significantly. Operating profit for the third quarter of 2016 is now estimated to come in at 5.2 trillion won ($4.6 billion), down 33 percent from the previous figure, while revenue expectations have been slashed by 2 trillion won to 47 trillion ($41.8 billion).
Samsung owes its customers and the tech community a clear explanation of what happened with the lithium ion batteries in its Galaxy Note 7 smartphones.
We live in an industry that operates behind closed walls. Most days corporations need to protect their intellectual property carefully, but this is not one of them.
Lithium ion batteries are widely used across the industry in everything from hearing aids to electric cars. The drive for profits from the premium smartphone market drove Samsung to push the limits of how much work the thinnest and lightest of those batteries could do in a high res, multitasking consumer product.
Something went horribly awry and customers and fellow engineers need to know the details.
Whatever lessons Samsung learned about these products needs to be shared with the community—with the same intensity and speed with which the products are designed and built.
I applaud executives who made the hard decision to pull the Galaxy Note 7 from the market entirely. The move slashed and estimated $17 billion off Samsung’s market capitalization and could cost another $2.8 billion in quarterly losses, according to analysts quoted by The Wall Street Journal.
Samsung’s Galaxy Note 7 phones may have an new, separate issue from the one addressed by its original recall, according to unnamed investigators cited by Bloomberg.
Samsung and U.S. safety regulators had pinned the problems to a certain battery supplier, SDI, according to Bloomberg. But a new flaw emerged after Samsung switched to batteries from China’s Amperex Technology, Bloomberg reported.
Bloomberg reports that SDI’s batteries were thought by U.S. regulators to be too large for the phone, crimping the corners and causing them to short circuit. Experts have told CNBC the cause might be thin separators between battery layers, or a manufacturing error
It comes after a New York Times report indicated that Samsung may not even know what the problem is with the phones, because testers were unable to recreate the battery explosions being reported.
As more and more reports of failing Samsung Galaxy Note7 devices crop up, so, too, do videos of smoking smartphones — a terrifying sight for the vast majority of users.
What you’ll notice in some of these videos is the sight of people handling the failing device as thought it’s a hot plate of pasta instead of a very dangerous battery that could explode at any moment.
DO
Get away: “The best thing to do is to stand back and let the device burn or smoke — you cannot stop it once it begins,” Jeff Dahn, a professor of physics and atmospheric science at Canada’s Dalhousie University who is currently working with Tesla on battery technology, told Mashable. “The fumes contain toxic gases so you do not want to breathe those.”
That’s the same advice given by electrical engineer John Drengenberg, who also serves as the consumer safety director at UL (Underwriters Laboratories),
“The most conservative thing you can do is don’t breathe the fumes and call the fire department for help,”
DON’T
Extinguish the fire: Contrary to what your instincts might tell you, attempting to put a lithium ion battery fire out like a normal fire might cause more trouble. “Best thing to do is push the device into a bucket of sand,”
Move the device:
“You don’t want to pick it up because you could be injured by a chemical burn,”
Where to move it, if you must:
“It is important not to let the fire spread to other items (papers, house, whatever),” says Dahn. “So putting the phone on a non-combustible surface is a good thing.” Drengenberg suggests an even better solution: “If you have a metal container of some kind and put it in there with a spatula, that would be a good course,”
But despite the aforementioned warnings, the good news is that lithium ion batteries are, for the most part, safe.
“Of the roughly 3.5 to 4 billion lithium ion batteries out there, the failures are about one in 10 million,” says Drengenberg. “So it’s not common.”
Nick Statt / The Verge:
Samsung expects to lose about $3B in operating profit from Q4 2016 through Q1 2017 due to Note7 recall — The cost of playing with fire — Samsung says the Galaxy Note 7 discontinuation will cost it around $3 billion over the course of the next two fiscal quarters.
Samsung says the Galaxy Note 7 discontinuation will cost it around $3 billion over the course of the next two fiscal quarters. The device, which has a chance of overheating and exploding, has been plagued with problems since its launch back in August. After recalling millions of devices thought to have battery issues, Samsung began issuing replacement Note 7s to customers around the world. However, numerous cases of those replacement units catching fire in the US over the course of the last week prompted Samsung to announce a worldwide recall of all devices and cease production permanently. The company still can’t pinpoint the cause of the problem.
Jacob Kastrenakes / The Verge:
Samsung says it has received 96 reports of overheating Note7s in the US, 23 of which came after the recall
Samsung and the US Consumer Product Safety Commission formally recalled the Note 7 overnight, requesting that every single unit immediately be powered down and returned. That’s 1.9 million phones in total — 1 million of the original Note 7, and 900,000 “replacement” Note 7s — that need to go back.
To date, Samsung has received 96 reports of overheating phones in the US, with 23 of those coming after the initial recall. But most of those were the original devices. The CPSC says that it’s only looking into six reports of overheating replacement phones right now. Though it’s aware that there might be more.
At this point, it’s not clear how many Note 7s are still out there. In late September, Samsung said that 60 percent of all phones had been recovered — but that was only out of the original 1 million units. Samsung has since added 900,000 Note 7s back into the marketplace, all of which need to be returned.
Even after two recalls, nearly 100 instances of dangerous overheating, and Samsung’s specific instructions to shut them off because they might catch fire, some people just won’t relinquish their Galaxy Note 7 smartphone.
More than one million people continue using the phones, according to mobile analytics firm Apteligent. That’s after Samsung issued a recall on September 15 and offered replacement phones—and 23 devices have overheated since then. On Monday, Samsung said it will stop producing the phones entirely, and the US Consumer Product Consumer Product Safety Commission announced an expanded recall today.
Getting the volatile phone out of consumers’ hands remains a challenge, but that could be easier than disposing of them. As many as 1.9 million phones in the US alone must be collected, packaged, transported, and recycled.
Although Samsung maintains a phone repair center in the Dallas suburb of Plano, that facility cannot handle large-scale recycling of lithium-ion batteries. For that, Samsung, which has not responded to requests for comment, probably must tap one of the nation’s established recycling pipelines.
The US Environmental Protection Agency says Samsung participates in its sustainable materials management program, which requires the company to send devices to certified recycling facilities.
In the US and Canada, Samsung often uses the nonprofit Call2Recycle for small-scale recycling efforts organized through a nationwide network of drop-boxes.
Generally speaking, a recycler removes the battery from a phone before breaking the device down to recover precious metals and other materials. For every one million phones, recyclers can collect 35,274 pounds of copper, 772 pounds of silver, 75 pounds of gold, and 33 pounds of palladium, according to the EPA.
The challenge is getting the battery out, because Samsung, like many manufacturers, glues them down. Removing it requires carefully opening the phone, removing the glass, and prying out the battery—a procedure so fraught that the engineers at iFixit who tore down a Note 7 likened it to brain surgery with a patient that might catch fire.
Smith says the scale of the Note 7 recall presents a unique challenge. “Anytime there are multiple devices, there could potentially be a chain reaction unless all materials are packaged safely,” he says. “The Note 7 device would be classified as ‘damaged, defective, recalled’ and therefore must comply with the special packaging, labeling and shipping requirements.”
Although Samsung offers a Take Back & Recycling program that lets you return phones using a pre-paid postage envelope, you shouldn’t use it to return a Note 7. A normal envelope doesn’t comply with federal regulations.
With over 2.5 million devices in existence, it’s creating quite a headache for the company and its consumers.
They quickly tied the problem to faulty Li-ion batteries and started replacing them, while issuing a firmware update to stop charging at 60 percent capacity. But after 5 of the replacement phones caught fire, Samsung killed the Note7 completely. There is now a Total Recall on all Note7 phones and they are no longer for sale. If you have one, you are to turn it off immediately. And don’t even think about strapping it into a VR headset — Oculus no longer supports it. If needed, Samsung will even send you a fireproof box and safety gloves to return it.
It should be noted that the problem only affects 0.01% of the phones out there, so they’re not exactly going to set the world on fire. However, it has generated yet another discussion about the safety of Li-ion battery technology.
It was just a few months ago we all heard about those hoverboards that would catch fire.
Check out what happens when you drop pure lithium into water.
Long story short — lithium is highly reactive because it loses electrons so easily and forms positive ions. And this comes in handy when we want to make electrical current!
Using lithium for a battery is a no-brainer. You can find lithium ion batteries almost everywhere these days.
They’re constructed by making many layers of cathode/anode pairs, with the cathode being a lithium metal oxide and the anode being graphite. The electrolyte is a lithium salt dissolved in an organic solvent. Each cathode/anode layer is separated by what is known as a separator.
The separator is a permeable membrane that allows the tiny ions to pass, while keeping the anode and cathode physically separated
The biggest fail point is obviously the separator. If a problem occurs with the separator, allowing the anode and cathode to touch, bad things will happen. Add to this the fact that the electrolyte is an organic solvent (most organic solvents are flammable) and you’ve got trouble.
Samsung reported a manufacturing error that “placed pressure on plates contained within battery cells, which brought negative and positive poles into contact.”
One glaring oversight is that the battery in the Note 7 is not consumer replaceable. Imagine how easy the fix would be just to send everyone new batteries and set up a collection process for the old ones. Instead, Samsung now needs to recycle all components in the entire phone… 2.5 million times.
More industry-changing solutions include using safer forms of lithium derivatives, such as lithium iron phosphate. LFP batteries have a 14% lower energy density than typical Li-ion batteries, but are much safer.
But the consumer phone market is a blood-sport, and battery life is usually the number one complaint of Android phone users.
Department of Transportation:
US Department of Transportation bans Samsung Galaxy Note7 devices from planes, even if turned off; passengers evading ban may be fined or face criminal charges — WASHINGTON – The U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT), with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and the Pipeline … http://www.transportation.gov/briefing-room/dot-bans-all-samsung-galaxy-note7-phones-airplanes
Samsung says the Galaxy Note 7 discontinuation will cost it another $3.1 billion over the course of the next two fiscal quarters, following a significant reduction in its Q3 earnings guidance. The device, which has a chance of overheating and exploding, has been plagued with problems since its launch back in August.
“The company already allocated the expected direct cost from the discontinuation of Galaxy Note7 sales in its third quarter earnings guidance revision announced on October 11th, but expects the drop in revenue from the discontinued sales to continue to have a negative impact on operating profit for the next two quarters,” reads Samsung’s statement. “The negative impact is estimated in the mid-2 trillion won range for the fourth quarter of 2016 and at approximately 1 trillion won for the first quarter of 2017.” At current conversation rates, 3.5 trillion won translates to around $3.1 billion.
It’s far from clear what exactly caused Samsung Note 7 to catch fire at this point. Samsung isn’t talking until after it finishes its own investigation.
But a new report emerged Wednesday that the culprit might not be the lithium-ion batteries themselves, which Samsung initially suspected. Rather, the problem might reside in the underlying technology — tweaks made to the processor in the smartphone.
Attributing an unnamed source who has spoken to Samsung chiefs, the Financial Times reported, “Problems with the phone appeared to have arisen from tweaks to the processor to speed up the rate at which the phone could be charged.”
The source told the U.K. newspaper, “If you try to charge the battery too quickly it can make it more volatile. If you push an engine too hard, it will explode. Something had to give.”
Samsung’s Note 7 comes in two versions, with one using Samsung’s own Exynos 8893 processor and another based on Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 820 processor.
Giving some credence to the new theory — putting the blame beyond the battery itself — are explosion incidents that have surfaced with replacement phones using new batteries produced by another company.
Initially, Samsung did not observe the overheating issues among Note 7 using ATL batteries. Therefore, after the first recall, as a temporary solution, Samsung asked ATL to step in and supply batteries for the replacement phones.
However, as it turns out, on Monday, the replacement phones with ATL batteries also started blowing up.
Samsung owes its customers and the tech community a clear explanation of what happened with the lithium ion batteries in its Galaxy Note 7 smartphones.
We live in an industry that operates behind closed walls. Most days corporations need to protect their intellectual property carefully, but this is not one of them.
Lithium ion batteries are widely used across the industry in everything from hearing aids to electric cars. The drive for profits from the premium smartphone market drove Samsung to push the limits of how much work the thinnest and lightest of those batteries could do in a high res, multitasking consumer product.
Something went horribly awry and customers and fellow engineers need to know the details.
Customers deserve an answer because they implicitly trusted the company with products they put in their pockets and held up to their faces. It’s not just Samsung’s credibility at stake here; any maker of smartphones now faces the consumer backlash these phablets created.
Engineers across the supply chain need to understand what happened if they are to prevent it happening again. We are a long way from any other mainstream battery chemistry at a time when the volume of smartphones, cars and other products using lithium ion are rapidly on the rise.
Whatever lessons Samsung learned about these products needs to be shared with the community—with the same intensity and speed with which the products are designed and built.
The batteries used in Samsung Electronics Co.’s troubled Galaxy Note 7 were tested by a lab that belongs to the South Korean electronics giant, a practice that sets it apart from other smartphone manufacturers.
PowerStream inputs– Every lithium ion battery pack should have a safety board or IC which monitors the charge and discharge of the pack, and prevents improper conditions. The specifications of these safety boards are dictated by the cell manufacturer, and may include the following:
Reverse polarity protection
Charge temperature–must not be charged when temperature is lower than 0° C or above 45° C.
Charge current must not be too high, typically below 0.7 C.
Discharge current protection to prevent damage due to short circuits.
Charge voltage–a permanent fuse opens if too much voltage is applied to the battery terminals
Overcharge protection–stops charge when voltage per cell rises above 4.30 volts.
Overdischarge protection–stops discharge when battery voltage falls below 2.3 volts per cell (varies with manufacturer).
A fuse opens if the battery is ever exposed to temperatures above 100° C.
From Walt Kester and Joe Buxton, Analog Devices–Li-Ion Charging: Li-Ion batteries commonly require a constant current, constant voltage (CCCV) type of charging algorithm. In other words, a Li-Ion battery should be charged at a set current level (typically from 1 to 1.5 amperes) until it reaches its final voltage. At this point, the charger circuitry should switch over to constant voltage mode, and provide the current necessary to hold the battery at this final voltage (typically 4.2 V per cell).
The main challenge in charging a Li-Ion battery is to realize the battery’s full capacity without overcharging it, which could result in catastrophic failure. There is little room for error, only ±1%. Overcharging by more than +1% could result in battery failure, but undercharging by more than 1% results in reduced capacity. For example, undercharging a Li-Ion battery by only 100 mV (-2.4% for a 4.2-V Li-Ion cell) results in about a 10% loss in capacity. Since the room for error is so small, high accuracy is required of the charging-control circuitry.
Overcharging Lithium-ion from Cadex Electronics Battery University
Lithium-ion operates safely within the designated operating voltages; however, the battery becomes unstable if inadvertently charged to a higher than specified voltage. Prolonged charging above 4.30V forms plating of metallic lithium on the anode, while the cathode material becomes an oxidizing agent, loses stability and produces carbon dioxide (CO2). The cell pressure rises, and if charging is allowed to continue the current interrupt device (CID) responsible for cell safety disconnects the current at 1,380kPa (200psi).
Should the pressure rise further, a safety membrane bursts open at 3,450kPa (500psi) and the cell might eventually vent with flame. The thermal runaway moves lower when the battery is fully charged; for Li-cobalt this threshold is between 130–150C°C (266–302°F), nickel-manganese-cobalt (NMC) is 170–180°C (338–356°F), and manganese is 250°C (482°F). Li-phosphate enjoys similar and better temperature stabilities than manganese.
Texas Instruments has the bq24314C which protects against:
Input overvoltage, with rapid response less than 1 us
User programmable overcurrent with current limiting
Battery overvoltage
Sui-Lee Wee / New York Times:
Samsung’s uneven handling of the Note7 fiasco in China has angered many, as it initially claimed the phones in that market were safe before issuing recall — TIANJIN, China — Zhang Sitong was saving a friend’s phone number on his Samsung Galaxy Note 7 smartphone when it started to vibrate and smoke. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/19/business/samsung-galaxy-note7-china-test.html
James Vincent / The Verge:
Samsung is setting up Note7 exchange booths at high traffic terminals in select airports around the world
Samsung is setting up Galaxy Note 7 exchange booths in airports around the world, hoping to stop customers taking the dangerous device onto flights at the last minute. The first of these new “customer service points” appear to have been introduced in South Korean airports, but Samsung has confirmed the booths are opening in airports across Australia, with reports of the desks appearing in the US as well.
The booths are located in “high-traffic terminals” before security screening, says Samsung, and allow Note 7 owners to swap their phone for an unspecified exchange device.
The Galaxy Note 7 wasn’t just recalled, it was cancelled. For good. And that makes Samsung very cranky indeed. So when YouTube user HitmanNiko created a video showing a Grand Theft Auto 5 mod in which Galaxy Note 7 handsets can be used as grenades, it’s perhaps somewhat understandable that someone inside Samsung took offense to the idea.
On the verge of challenging Apple’s mobile phone dominance, the South Korean company made a rushed decision, based on incomplete evidence, that later forced it to kill the model.
After reports of Galaxy Note 7 smartphones catching fire spread in early September, Samsung Electronics Co. executives debated how to respond.
A laboratory report said scans of some faulty devices showed a protrusion in Note 7 batteries supplied by Samsung SDI Co.
It wasn’t a definitive answer, and there was no explanation for the bulges. But with consumers complaining and telecom operators demanding answers, newly appointed mobile chief D.J. Koh felt the company knew enough to recall 2.5 million phones.
That decision in early September—to push a sweeping recall based on what turned out to be incomplete evidence—is now coming back to haunt the company.
Two weeks after Samsung began handing out millions of new phones, with batteries from the other supplier, the company was forced to all but acknowledge that its initial diagnosis was incorrect, following a spate of new incidents, some involving supposedly safe replacement devices. With regulators raising fresh questions, Messrs. Lee and Koh decided to take the drastic step of killing the phone outright.
The Galaxy Note series helped make Samsung a smartphone leader, and the Note 7, its most advanced phone ever
it looked like the Galaxy Note could win over users of Apple Inc. ’s iPhone
Instead, as a result of the flammable phones and the botched recall Samsung’s leaders are now struggling to salvage the company’s credibility.
Samsung still doesn’t have a conclusive answer for what’s causing some Note 7s to catch fire.
Outside experts have pointed to a range of possible culprits, from the software that manages how the battery interacts with other smartphone components to the design of the entire circuit.
Big product recalls are never easy.
Samsung executives have delayed the development of the Galaxy S8 device by two weeks
Meanwhile, investors have shaved off roughly $20 billion in Samsung’s market value. The company has said the recall would cost it $5 billion or more, including lost sales.
evacuation of a Southwest Airlines Co. flight in early October because of a smoking Samsung smartphone.
Top executives from major telecoms operators, including Verizon Communications Inc. ’s Lowell McAdam, urged Mr. Lee to quickly kill the Galaxy Note 7 smartphone
decision to abort the Note 7 has halted the damage for now
“There are few things in life I’m reasonably confident of predicting; one of those is….we’re going to have yet another issue of lithium ion batteries catching fire” from a range of devices, said CPSC commissioner Robert Adler. “This is just a massive problem.”
Wall Street Journal:
Samsung’s rushed replacement of Galaxy Note7 before finding the root cause of fires doomed the smartphone — On the verge of challenging Apple’s mobile phone dominance, the South Korean company made a rushed decision, based on incomplete evidence, that later forced it to kill the model. http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-fatal-mistake-that-doomed-samsungs-galaxy-note-1477248978
I have a plausible theory, won’t you don your tinfoil hat and follow me down this rabbit hole?
Remember Stuxnet? It’s a computer virus that infected and took down the centrifuges Iran was using in its uranium enrichment program.
The process involves software that continually tweaks the balance of the centrifuge
Why am I bringing up Stuxnet now? I started to think about the Samsung battery fires and the horrible effect it is having on the world. It certainly has put Samsung in a rough position — perhaps the most respected and trusted maker of Android phones got the battery tech in this phone wrong… twice. How could that be? Perhaps it was corporate espionage. But of course it wasn’t — if anything you’d have to call it corporate sabotage.
How Can You Sabotage a Battery?
Lithium batteries have monitoring circuits built into them. These are responsible for cutting off the cell before it gets too flat (which will damage it), and maintaining acceptable temperatures and constant current profiles during charging.
These battery-tending circuits run software, of course. Just last month we saw all the secrets for the controller of a laptop battery unlocked. Smartphones usually have a single cell, but there is still data there — a third conductor that can transfer data like temperature from the battery to the phone.
What if a very carefully crafted virus were able to rewrite the battery charging code of a carefully targeted phone and cause it to fail on purpose? With so many of this particular model in the wild — 1M of the 2.5M manufactured — a virus could be programmed to delete itself 99.99% of the time to avoid detection. The other 0.01% it would go into action — pushing the temperature of the cell past the failing point and thereby destroying the evidence in the fiery process. That would equate to about 100 incidents which is very close to the 112 being reported.
It’s a surprisingly enticing “what-if” and this thought process even opens up my mind to other possible industrial sabotage scenarios. Toyota’s uncontrolled acceleration, for instance. But the simplest answer tends to be the correct one: these are engineering failures.
This is All a Load of Bull
Even if phone batteries have rewritable firmware or the phone’s charging code can be attacked, it would be incredibly hard to get at that functionality from user space on an unmodified OS — then again there were a lot of people sideloading malware-laden versions of Pokemon Go.
Motive. There is very little motive for someone to target Samsung.
Some people like to watch the world burn… could it be a lone wolf hacker? Again, very unlikely.
No, it’s just a promising plot for a sci-fi novel.
Se Young Lee / Reuters:
Samsung: South Korean customers who exchanged their Galaxy Note7 for an S7 will be able to trade for Galaxy Note8 or S8 next year at 50% of the cost of their S7 — Samsung Electronics Co Ltd said on Monday it is offering an upgrade program to Galaxy Note 7 customers in South Korea who trade …
Samsung Electronics is offering an upgrade program option to Galaxy Note 7 customers in South Korea who trade in their recalled device for a Galaxy S7 phone, marking its latest attempt to retain customers.
In a statement on Monday, Samsung said customers who trade in their Note 7 phone for either a flat-screen or curved-screen version of the Galaxy S7 can trade up for a Galaxy S8 or Note 8 smartphone launching next year through an upgrade program.
Hooyeon Kim / Bloomberg:
Amid Note7 fiasco, hundreds file class action lawsuits against Samsung, and new Vice Chairman Jay Y. Lee faces pushback from investment groups
Samsung Group, for decades the corporate champion of South Korea, is now facing a revolt at home.
On Monday, hundreds of owners of Samsung Electronics Co.’s fire-prone Galaxy Note 7 filed a class-action lawsuit demanding compensation. Hours earlier, a South Korean investment advisory firm recommended shareholders vote against Vice Chairman Jay Y. Lee joining the board
The twin setbacks come as the phonemaker grapples with the most serious crisis in its 47-year history
“Samsung may have become a bit too conceited over the years. A lot has happened that would never have happened at Samsung in the past,”
Samsung has previously said the Note 7 fiasco, which originated in part because the company rushed a device to market ahead of arch-foe Apple Inc., will cost more than $5 billion and the phone unit will probably pay a steep price. The division has often received the biggest bonuses within Samsung Group, typically about half of base salary, but employees now suspect they may get nothing. Some senior executives will likely lose their jobs too.
Samsung Electronics, the world’s largest maker of smartphones and the second-largest chipmaker, said strength in its semiconductor business offset the impact to its mobile phone business caused by exploding batteries in its flagship Galaxy Note 7 products.
South Korea’s largest company said today in a press statement that operating profit for the third quarter this year was 5.20 trillion won ($4.6 billion), down 2.19 trillion won from the same period a year ago. Samsung originally forecast a 7.8 trillion won profit but cut its expectations to reflect losses from the cancelation of the Note 7 smartphones.
The company’s mobile product earnings plunged 98 percent from a year earlier to the lowest since the fourth quarter of 2008.
Samsung’s chip division posted a 3.37 trillion won profit for the third quarter, its highest since the same period a year ago. Samsung’s semiconductor business grew on demand for memory chips in high-performance mobile and server products. Samsung said demand was strong for its 14nm foundry products as well as mid-to-low end SoCs and image sensors.
Results from a recent International Data Corporation (IDC) survey, U.S. Smartphone Owners’ Reaction to Samsung Galaxy Note 7 Recall (Doc #US41878416), show that Samsung faces some short-term challenges but nothing that will darken its long-term prospects.
“As challenging as the Note 7 recall has been for Samsung, the data in this survey indicate that most consumers are unaffected by this, which should be good news for Samsung,” said Ramon T. Llamas, research manager, Wearables and Mobile Phones. “For the minority of Samsung customers who are unlikely to purchase a Samsung smartphone in the future, the company has to win back consumer trust. Thus far Samsung has offered monetary incentives but, at the heart of the matter, consumers want to learn the root causes of the problem and how Samsung intends to fix them.”
“The Note 7 recall along with all its repercussions, represents a significant event in the world of consumer electronics,”
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Tomi Engdahl says:
Samsung sells stakes in four companies
http://www.bbc.com/news/business-37404659
South Korean tech giant Samsung says it has sold stakes it held in four other companies in order raise money “to focus on its core business”.
The company has shares in four companies raising more than 1 trillion won ($888.9m; £681m).
The sales come as Samsung is recalling its flagship Galaxy Note 7 phone after reports of fires caused by faulty batteries.
Analysts say the recall could cost the company more than $1bn.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Samsung Note7 recall could hurt brand, or not
U.S. consumer product safety agency is working with Samsung over formal recall
http://www.computerworld.com/article/3120342/smartphones/samsung-note-7-recall-could-hurt-brand-or-not.html
Samsung’s recall of Galaxy Note7 smartphones over reports that dozens caught fire might have a lasting impact on the company’s image.
Or not, depending on which analyst you ask.
“What more can a vendor do than a complete recall?” asked Patrick Moorhead, an analyst at Moor Insights & Research. “This is exactly what Samsung did. All I’d say is that that they could have sent out the ‘power down’ message a few days earlier and maybe sent that through the carrier text network like a weather alert.”
In fact, Samsung issued a global recall of Note 7s on Sept. 2. From the start, however, there was confusion about whether that recall meant users should immediately stop using the smartphones or charging them, since the fires were traced to problems with lithium ion batteries. About 2.5 million Note 7s were reportedly sold at the time of the Samsung recall, with 35 initial reports of fires.
About a week later, on Sept. 10, Samsung updated its advice and urged Note7 users in the U.S. to “power down” the device and “exchange it now.”
Samsung said consumers should visit the store where they purchased the device to obtain a replacement Note7
As of Wednesday, there was no formal CPSC recall for the U.S. or a CPSC approval of a replacement device. A software upgrade to lessen the power that could be charged to a Note7 in use in South Korea also hadn’t been approved for use in the U.S.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Pushing to the very edge of safe Li-ion charging
http://www.powerelectronicsnews.com/technology/pushing-to-the-very-edge-of-safe-li-ion-charging
I recently had the opportunity to speak with Nadim Maluf, CEO of Qnovo, and Robert Nalesnik, Qnovo’s VP of Marketing, part of the visionary team seeking to re-imagine and improve the way batteries are charged. Qnovo developed the concept of adaptive battery charging to augment battery performance.
Maluf and Nalesnik are keenly aware of what’s happening in the battery market, so we sat down to talk about current events involving rechargeable Li-ion batteries and glean insight into what electrical engineers need to know to design a long-lasting, safe, portable product.
Power Electronics News (PEN): What do engineers need to know about battery fires in mobile phones?
Maluf: We learned a lot from the laptop fires that occurred about 15 years ago. For example, if you open up a battery, there is a chip at the two terminals of the battery — the battery protection circuit module (PCM) chip, [which is] used for overvoltage/overcurrent protection. They were developed after researching what went wrong with the laptops. These chips are in place to make sure the battery does not exceed its maximum voltage or current.
Nalesnik: So, for example, if you shorted the battery’s terminals, then the PCM chip would shut off current so you wouldn’t get into a dangerous situation.
Maluf: However, I pointed out in a recent blog that, although this is necessary, it isn’t sufficient anymore. The reason is because the battery chemists and vendors are being asked to do much more than they had to do in the past. In particular, they have to put a lot more capacity in the batteries and with more density. They have to charge these batteries at a much faster rate. And that is really straining the chemistry in the battery and forcing the battery chemists to find ways to reduce the error margins. Electrical engineers know that when you design something, you build in a margin for error in your design. Those margins for error are being lowered dramatically.
Tomi Engdahl says:
THE REAL SCIENCE BEHIND BATTERY SAFETY
http://qnovo.com/103-real-science-behind-exploding-batteries/
A recent article published by The Verge attempted to explain the science behind the exploding Samsung Note 7 batteries. The article touches on several important aspects of battery safety but the handwaving did not really talk about much science. So this post will address a failure mode of lithium-ion batteries and how defects can form during manufacturing with catastrophic results.
One of my earlier posts described the inner structure of a lithium battery. In a nutshell,
In practical terms, the anode is wider than the cathode ever so slightly, only a few percents. Any extra width of the anode does not participate in energy storage. In other words, the extra width of the anode is required for safety reasons, but does not contribute to charge storage. So battery designers go to extremes to optimize the extra width of the anode for the requisite safety.
THE INNER SANCTUM OF A BATTERY & FAST CHARGING
http://qnovo.com/inner-sanctum-of-a-battery-fast-charging/
Tomi Engdahl says:
The science behind exploding phone batteries
It’s natural for battery chemicals to want to explode
http://www.theverge.com/2016/9/8/12841342/why-do-phone-batteries-explode-samsung-galaxy-note-7
Tomi Engdahl says:
Samsung: And for my next trick – exploding WASHING MACHINES
Why wait for North Korea to nuke Seoul? Sammy’s gear will take care of the job at this rate
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/09/29/samsung_goes_full_ford_pinto/
Samsung’s bad month gets worse as the South Korean electronics giant warns that some of its washing machines may halt and catch fire.
The tech giant says it is working with the US Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) on a plan to fix top-loading washing machines prone to what Samsung terms “abnormal vibrations”, or as the rest of us call it, “exploding”.
Samsung says the affected units are all top-loading washers manufactured between March 2011 and April 2016.
“In rare cases, affected units may experience abnormal vibrations that could pose a risk of personal injury or property damage when washing bedding, bulky or water-resistant items,”
Samsung, meanwhile, is still trying to work out the replacements for the hand-burning Galaxy Note 7 phablet that’s at the heart of a massive recall worldwide and a flight ban over fears the fiery tablets could bring down aircraft.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Lithium-ion battery fires: 7 solutions for improved safety
http://www.edn.com/design/power-management/4442786/Lithium-ion-battery-fires–7-solutions-for-improved-safety?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20161005&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20161005&elqTrackId=c46e6dcff2c34092815d248c8c3aa142&elq=8bffa6bbaf844514a6ee7aa4e482a3b0&elqaid=34198&elqat=1&elqCampaignId=29860
I would feel so much safer on my next flight from Phoenix to Silicon Valley if I knew that there were safeguards in place inside passengers’ smartphones that could prevent fire and explosion from such design decisions like a company packing 10 pounds of Lithium-ion battery into a 5 pound compartment or a smartphone owner buying a lower cost, after-market battery replacing the original battery in their phone from some country and supplier of which I had never heard.
The problem is not just smartphone batteries, but laptops and other battery-operated electronics with Lithium-ion batteries. However, since the Samsung case is so recent and widespread, I wanted to focus mostly upon the smartphone in this article.
Let’s look at seven possible solutions based on solid technical research, which will build upon my recent initial article touching on this subject.
1. Using liquid coolant
2. Fire-retardant thermal insulation
3. Improved cathode materials
4. Smart multi-functional fluids
5. Strengthening the mechanical battery enclosure
6. Better modeling
7. Lower electrolyte flammability
Tomi Engdahl says:
Replacement Samsung Galaxy Note 7 phone catches fire on Southwest plane
http://www.theverge.com/2016/10/5/13175000/samsung-galaxy-note-7-fire-replacement-plane-battery-southwest
Southwest Airlines flight 994 from Louisville to Baltimore was evacuated this morning while still at the gate because of a smoking Samsung Galaxy Note 7 smartphone. All passengers and crew exited the plane via the main cabin door and no injuries were reported, a Southwest Airlines spokesperson told The Verge.
More worrisome is the fact that the phone in question was a replacement Galaxy Note 7, one that was deemed to be safe by Samsung.
Green said that he had powered down the phone as requested by the flight crew and put it in his pocket when it began smoking. He dropped it on the floor of the plane and a “thick grey-green angry smoke” was pouring out of the device. Green’s colleague went back onto the plane to retrieve some personal belongings and said that the phone had burned through the carpet and scorched the subfloor of the plane.
Samsung is likely in full-fledged crisis mode at this point, as a replacement phone catching fire would be truly disastrous for the company’s image and finances.
‘Fixed Samsung Galaxy Note 7′ catches fire on plane
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-37570100
A replacement Samsung Galaxy Note 7 device, deemed safe by the firm, has reportedly caught fire on a Southwest Airlines plane.
The airline confirmed one of its planes, due to fly from Louisville, Kentucky, to Baltimore, Maryland, was evacuated before take-off on Wednesday.
The Note 7 was subject to a mass recall in September, but Samsung said it had identified and fixed the problem.
Samsung said it was investigating.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Samsung is about to get under way Note 7 smartphone in the exchange program. Now it’s time well aware of what caused the first batch of batteries overheating and even catching fire. The fault is localized to the production process, but the real reason is a lithium battery.
US battery cell must contain only 1.5 grams of lithium. One battery lithium content must not exceed 8 grams. For example, 2 amp-hour lithium battery was 0.6 grams.
The amounts are therefore negligible. Note 7: 3500 mAh the lithium battery is a little more than one gram. In a typical 60 watt-hour laptop battery lithium is 4.8 grams.
Lithium must be kept separate from all other metals.
Samsung’s production batch of batteries is apparently pressed together too strongly, so that the positive and negative side of the combine through the insulation. During charging, lithium ions are trying to move between the cathode and the anode by the shortest route, which has led to a short circuit.
Note 7 is not the first nor the last device or smartphone that overheats due to its battery.
According to Samsung the battery problem was related to the device for about a thousand, ie less than 0.01 per cent of all sold in Note 7 phones.
Source: http://etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=5184:note-7-n-ongelmana-gramma-litiumia&catid=13&Itemid=101
Tomi Engdahl says:
Jordan Golson / The Verge:
Three reports of replacement Samsung Galaxy Note 7s catching fire have surfaced in the past week — It sent a man to the hospital with smoke inhalation injuries — Another replacement Samsung Galaxy Note 7 has caught fire, bringing the total to three this week alone.
Samsung knew a third replacement Note 7 caught fire on Tuesday and said nothing
It sent a man to the hospital with smoke inhalation injuries
http://www.theverge.com/2016/10/9/13215728/samsung-galaxy-note-7-third-fire-smoke-inhalation
Another replacement Samsung Galaxy Note 7 has caught fire, bringing the total to three this week alone. This one was owned by Michael Klering of Nicholasville, Kentucky.
“The phone is supposed to be the replacement, so you would have thought it would be safe,” Klering told WKYT, saying that he had owned the replacement phone for a little more than a week. “It wasn’t plugged in. It wasn’t anything, it was just sitting there.”
The most disturbing part of this is that Klering’s phone caught fire on Tuesday and Samsung knew about it and didn’t say anything. And actually, it gets worse than that.
Samsung was aware that its replacement phones were catching fire five days ago. Another caught fire on Thursday (on an airplane), and then another on Friday in the hands of a thirteen-year old girl. That’s three in less than a week, with Samsung giving its customers little more than meaningless platitudes about “[taking] every report seriously” and that “customer safety remains our highest priority as we are investigating the matter.”
Billy Steele / Engadget:
After Samsung Galaxy Southwest Airlines incident, Verizon, Sprint, AT&T, and T-Mobile now offer exchange options for Note7 replacement models — A replacement Samsung Galaxy Note 7 started smoking and burned through the carpet on board a Southwest flight this week.
US carriers exchange replacement Note 7s after airplane incident (updated)
AT&T, Sprint and Verizon will allow customers to swap for a another phone.
https://www.engadget.com/2016/10/07/sprint-replacement-galaxy-note-7-returns/
A replacement Samsung Galaxy Note 7 started smoking and burned through the carpet on board a Southwest flight this week. Following the incident, one US carrier is allowing owners to exchange those replacement devices even though the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) hasn’t issued a formal warning or recall yet. Sprint confirmed to Engadget it will allow customers to return their replacement Note 7 for another device at its retail stores “during the investigation window.” The carrier says that it’s working with Samsung “to better understand the most recent concerns” with the handset.
So, what if you’re on T-Mobile, AT&T or Verizon? Well, Recode reports T-Mobile will accept returns so long as they fall within its normal 14-day “remorse” policy.
AT&T confirmed to Engadget that it will also allow customers to exchange replacement Galaxy Note 7s for another phone.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Samsung has lots of problems with Galaxy Note 7:
Samsung halts production of troubled Galaxy Note 7 phone
http://money.cnn.com/2016/10/09/technology/samsung-galaxy-note-7/index.html
Samsung is putting the brakes on its beleaguered Galaxy Note 7 smartphone as fears spread that even replacement versions of the device can burst into flames.
Production of the phone has been temporarily suspended, a person familiar with the matter told CNN on Monday.
Samsung (SSNLF) recalled about 2.5 million of the devices worldwide last month, blaming faulty batteries for overheating the phones and causing them to ignite.
Samsung halts Note 7 production after new fire scare: source
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-samsung-electronics-smartphones-idUSKCN1290XH
Verizon will also stop issuing replacement Galaxy Note 7 phones
http://www.theverge.com/2016/10/10/13223972/verizon-samsung-galaxy-note-7-stop-sale-recall
Verizon announced late tonight that it would no longer offer replacement Samsung Galaxy Note 7 phones to its customers, joining fellow US carriers T-Mobile and AT&T, and other carriers around the world in halting sales of the device. Verizon’s decision comes after it was reported earlier tonight that Samsung was halting production of new Note 7 phones while the investigation is ongoing.
At least five replacement Note 7 phones caught fire in the US alone this week, and federal regulators with the Consumer Product Safety Commission are working to investigate the incidents.
If you own a Samsung Galaxy Note 7 you should immediately stop using it and return it for a refund
AT&T halting Samsung Galaxy Note 7 sales following multiple fires with replacement phones
http://www.theverge.com/2016/10/9/13219054/att-samsung-galaxy-note-7-stop-sales
AT&T is discontinuing all sales and exchanges of Samsung Galaxy Note 7 smartphones following a number of fires caused by supposedly “safe” phones that had been replaced under recall.
“Based on recent reports, we’re no longer exchanging new Note 7s at this time, pending further investigation of these reported incidents,” said an AT&T spokesperson in a statement to The Verge. “We still encourage customers with a recalled Note 7 to visit an AT&T location to exchange that device for another Samsung smartphone or other smartphone of their choice.”
All four of the big US carriers have said they will allow returns of any Note 7, but AT&T is the first to stop sales of the device entirely.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Also Apple get to news with exploding iPhones:
iPhone 6 Plus explodes during charging with the original charger
http://www.phonearena.com/news/iPhone-6-Plus-explodes-during-charging-with-the-original-charger_id86356
ABC30 reports that an iPhone 6 Plus exploded during charging. The device, which belonged to Yvette Estrada from Fresno, California, has been rendered completely unusable. The incident happened this week, in the night from Thursday to Friday.
The iPhone 6 Plus was connected to the power adapter that came bundled with it.
Earlier this week, an iPhone 6 Plus burned in the back pocket of college student Darina Hlavaty. The cause of fire in both incidents is not yet known, although it might be a case of defective batteries or a short circuit.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Samsung Global Newsroom:
Samsung tells owners of Galaxy Note7 to stop using device, asks global carrier and retail partners to stop sales and exchanges of the phone — We are working with relevant regulatory bodies to investigate the recently reported cases involving the Galaxy Note7.
Samsung Will Ask All Global Partners to Stop Sales and Exchanges of Galaxy Note7 While Further Investigation Takes Place
on October 11, 2016
http://news.samsung.com/global/samsung-will-ask-all-global-partners-to-stop-sales-and-exchanges-of-galaxy-note7-while-further-investigation-takes-place
We are working with relevant regulatory bodies to investigate the recently reported cases involving the Galaxy Note7.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Jordan Golson / The Verge:
5 cases of replacement Galaxy Note7s catching fire reported in US; Samsung says it is investigating the reports, working with Consumer Product Safety Commission — This time in Texas — Another replacement Samsung Galaxy Note 7 has caught fire, this one in Houston, Texas.
Samsung says it’s ‘working diligently’ as fifth replacement Note 7 burns
This time in Texas
http://www.theverge.com/2016/10/9/13219878/samsung-galaxy-note-7-replacement-fire-fifth-statement
Another replacement Samsung Galaxy Note 7 has caught fire, this one in Houston, Texas. Daniel Franks was at lunch with his daughter and wife when their replacement caught fire while sitting on the table, he told The Verge in an interview. It had been replaced at a Best Buy store in late September.
Franks said that his eight-year-old daughter regularly plays Minecraft on the phone and wondered what could have happened if she was holding it or it was in his pocket or sitting on a nightstand.
This is the (1, 2, 3, 4) fifth replacement Note 7 that has caught fire in the US in the past week that we know of. It seems likely that there are more. AT&T has stopped selling the phones entirely, while the US Consumer Product Safety Commission says it is “moving expeditiously” to investigate, though perhaps even that isn’t quickly enough.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The video of a charred Galaxy Note 7 that caused Samsung to pull millions of handsets for fear of them exploding
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3770185/Samsung-considering-global-recall-Galaxy-Note-7-smartphone-battery-fire.html#ixzz4MltsfdXw
Tomi Engdahl says:
Why Are Samsung’s Galaxy Note 7 Phones Exploding?
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jvchamary/2016/09/04/samsung-note7-battery/#447ea0841eb2
According to Samsung, there have been 35 reported cases and 2.5 million phones have been produced. While that figure is relatively high (batteries typically fail at a rate of 1 in tens of millions) it’s still far from common.
“Battery failures are exceedingly rare,” says Donal Finegan, a chemical engineer at University College London. “Any kind of fault does garner a lot of media attention and can really affect the reputation of a product that relies on the battery.”
Like many rechargeable devices, phones use lithium-ion cells. But what makes these batteries great at powering gadgets also makes them vulnerable to catching fire, says Finegan. “They are so energy-dense and can operate under such high power that they can combust in a particularly catastrophic way.
Overheating is obviously driven by temperature rise. This can be due to the environment, such as a hot car in summer, or through heat transferred to a battery from another component inside the phone. Heating can also begin within a battery itself, which is what’s behind the “battery cell issue” in Samsung’s Note 7.
One cause of combustion is a problem with the “battery management system” that monitors the electrical current and normally tells a chip inside the phone to stop the current once a battery is fully charged. If either the system or chip is faulty, a battery can enter a state of “overcharge”.
“The battery can continue to charge and can become even more unstable and eventually just burst into flames itself, without any kind of external heating,” Finegan explains.
Phones don’t contain fans or the liquid cooling mechanism you find in a gaming PC or electric vehicle, so heat must radiate out into the surroundings.
When a battery reaches about 100ºC (200ºF), its materials start to break down, triggering a chemical chain reaction that releases its own energy. This accelerates the warming and leads to a snowball effect — a process called “thermal runaway”.
“The snowball effect happens so fast that, within a second, the entire cell goes from being intact to being completely destroyed,” says Finegan.
Lithium ions are carried by an electrolyte solution, which is a volatile liquid. Finegan’s X-ray snapshots reveal that when heated, electrolytes produce gas bubbles that causes a cell to lose structural integrity and can create the short circuit.
Rectangular batteries are more prone to failure compared to cylindrical cells because the latter usually have a central support that helps prevent internal layers from deforming, as well as a “rupture disc” that will cut-off the current when stretched. Phones don’t have such secondary fail-safes because small size is a desirable feature.
Batteries aren’t as safe as they could be, partly because scientists must cater to the demands of manufacturers, who prefer high performance — but less stable — cells. “They usually try to use the most highly energy-dense material, so we have to keep up with that,” Finegan points out. “It’s not as simple as saying, ‘Just use a safer material’.”
Chemical engineering could help the phone industry reduce the risk of battery failure in future.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Samsung Galaxy Note7 Teardown
https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Samsung+Galaxy+Note7+Teardown/66389
Tomi Engdahl says:
Galaxy Note 7 teardown reveals what’s underneath the glass exterior
http://www.androidcentral.com/galaxy-note-7-teardown-reveals-whats-underneath-glass-exterior
Tomi Engdahl says:
Samsung Permanently Discontinues Galaxy Note 7
https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/16/10/11/0930237/samsung-permanently-discontinues-galaxy-note-7
After the replacement units of Galaxy Note 7 also started to catch fire, Samsung is now permanently discontinuing its latest flagship smartphone, , the company said today. The news comes a day after Samsung halted sales of Note 7 once again and began asking users to return the device. So far nearly 50 incidents of Note 7 causing fires have been reported. More importantly, many people have been physically injured with their new Galaxy phone catching fire.
WSJ reports:
“Samsung said in a filing with South Korean regulators on Tuesday that it would permanently cease sales of the device, a day after it announced a temporary halt to production of the smartphones”
Samsung to Permanently Discontinue Galaxy Note 7 Smartphone
Move halts production and sale of defective premium phone; investors digest possibility smartphone giant could abandon Galaxy Note series
http://www.wsj.com/articles/samsung-to-permanently-discontinue-galaxy-note-7-smartphone-1476177331/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Samsung to Galaxy Note 7 users: Turn it off. Now
Phirebug phablet phreeze conphirmed as Samsung orders all sales and swaps stopped
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/10/10/its_official_samsung_announces_note_7s_cant_be_sold_or_exchanged/
Samsung has instructed all partners worldwide to stop both sales and exchange of its Galaxy Note 7 while it works out what went wrong.
Owners are told to power down, stop using the device, and “take advantage of the remedies available” – which varies depending on who they bought the Note 7 from.
The announcement pretty much completes the misery of the Note 7 launch for flammable Sammy, since it seems improbable that users will have much faith in whatever solution the company conceives.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Pushing to the very edge of safe Li-ion charging
http://www.powerelectronicsnews.com/technology/pushing-to-the-very-edge-of-safe-li-ion-charging
Power Electronics News (PEN): What do engineers need to know about battery fires in mobile phones?
Maluf: We learned a lot from the laptop fires that occurred about 15 years ago. For example, if you open up a battery, there is a chip at the two terminals of the battery — the battery protection circuit module (PCM) chip, [which is] used for overvoltage/overcurrent protection. They were developed after researching what went wrong with the laptops. These chips are in place to make sure the battery does not exceed its maximum voltage or current.
Nalesnik: So, for example, if you shorted the battery’s terminals, then the PCM chip would shut off current so you wouldn’t get into a dangerous situation.
Maluf: However, I pointed out in a recent blog that, although this is necessary, it isn’t sufficient anymore. The reason is because the battery chemists and vendors are being asked to do much more than they had to do in the past. In particular, they have to put a lot more capacity in the batteries and with more energy density. They have to charge these batteries at a much faster rate. And that is really straining the chemistry in the battery and forcing the battery chemists to find ways to reduce the error margins. Electrical engineers know that when you design something, you build in a margin for error in your design. Those margins for error are being lowered dramatically.
Nalesnik: Basically, the EE trusts that if they stay within the specs for the battery, then everything will be fine. Unfortunately, that’s not true anymore.
Maluf: There are mechanisms in place today for qualification. For example, let’s say your favorite chip is a processor. If you are Apple and you buy a processor from Intel, you don’t just look at a spec sheet; you audit and you test everything you can on that chip. That’s not the case for the battery. If I’m the battery vendor, I tell you what battery you need for your requirements. Most companies don’t have the means to test the batteries the way they need to be tested. And the EEs don’t have the knowledge needed about batteries, and the knowledge they do have is dismal.
PEN: Is there anything that can help with this problem?
Nalesnik: Fundamentally, even though you have a power control module that can handle overvoltage/overcurrent, if a fire occurs, the PCM never sees it because it goes into a runaway mode before it gets to overvoltage/overcurrent. So the charging processes are blind to what’s going on inside the battery because it’s an open-loop process. Essentially, you can get a safer process by turning the charging into a closed-loop process with an adaptive control system. That means you are looking at the battery operation and what the expected behavior is on very small time increments on the order of seconds.
Maluf: The key point is that this is predictive. The old PCM idea is that they react to a situation that is already past the danger point. The algorithm software is predictive and can predict that a battery will fail in days or even weeks.
Nalesnik: It really means that you can’t look at charging as an open-loop process anymore. Even though the failure rate is measured in ppm, if you happen to be that person who gets the one battery that isn’t safe, then it makes it a big deal. You can’t just depend on the chemistry and an open-loop process anymore.
It’s not only Samsung that is having this problem. If you look for recalls, you will see that it is becoming a more prevalent problem as more devices are run by batteries. And as billions of batteries are out there, then ppm/ppb starts to become significant.
PEN: Maybe this isn’t about the ppm; maybe it’s about the safety of the consumer.
Nalesnik: Yes, companies need to have zero failures. You can’t afford to have safety problems. But if the charging is open loop, then you can’t get to zero failures.
Maluf: Lithium plating is developed inside the battery and is not visible to the user from the outside. But lithium plating is ultimately what creates the massive short. It could happen because of a bad design; it could be defects and many other reasons. These problems can’t be seen by the EE unless you force the battery manufacturer to run thousands of tests before they ship the battery.
Qnovo has frequently seen that the battery vendors will change their initial recipe. And it could vary ever so slightly.
Engineers have things they can do, but it’s more of a Band-Aid solution. They can drop the voltage of the battery. In other words, today’s batteries, individual cells, are 4.35 V max, and the newest crop of batteries are at 4.4 V max. That means battery manufacturers are pushing the limits of materials to the precipice. If you run a 4.4-V battery at 4.35 V, you are sacrificing basically 5% of the capacity. Engineers often sacrifice capacity by reducing the voltage. That means you have to tell your customers that they will lose an hour or more of use time. That’s something that engineers do as a Band-Aid safety fix, but it doesn’t make consumers happy. It’s essentially backing off the edge of the cliff. Another trick you will see some vendors doing is to start at full voltage at the beginning and then drop the voltage. So you think you have 3,000 mAh, but unknown to you, the energy drops during operation to 2,800 or 2,900 mAh, and vendors don’t tell you that. And there is no standard or control in place to prevent that from happening.
PEN: Are we reaching the end of Li-ion batteries?
Nalesnik: I think we are reaching the end of open-loop charging of Li-ion batteries.
Maluf: It’s a great question — and the answer is, it depends on what you mean by reaching the end.
So for Li-ion batteries, if the metric is energy density and wondering if it will keep growing the way it did for the last 10 years, then yes, we are reaching the limits for Li-ion. We are somewhere between 600 Wh/l and 700 Wh/l and, barring some new materials that are yet to be discovered on the commercial scale, I don’t think the energy density will keep growing.
THE REAL SCIENCE BEHIND BATTERY SAFETY
http://qnovo.com/103-real-science-behind-exploding-batteries/
So this begs the question: why did Samsung release new software that limits the maximum charge in the faulty Galaxy Note 7 to only 60% of maximum? It is because the risk of lithium metal plating heavily depends on the voltage and the maximum charge in the battery. This is evident in the voltage chart of this earlier post: the higher the voltage, i.e., the higher maximum allowed charge, the higher the risk of lithium metal plating.
I will close by reiterating one final thought. The tolerance requirements in the manufacturing of lithium ion batteries have risen sharply with increasing energy density. Short of using new materials (that still do not exist in commercial deployment), increasing the energy density means reducing all the extra space inside the battery that is not made of anode and cathode materials. These are the only two materials that store energy. Everything else is just overhead…i.e., dead weight. They are still needed for other functions and safety, but they do not contribute to storing electrical charge. So battery designers keep reducing this overhead and in the process, make the manufacturing tolerances every so tight….and that is a recipe for many disasters to come unless we start adding a lot more intelligence to the battery to avoid and mitigate these undesired situations.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Cause of Samsung Galaxy Note 7 fires determined, probably
http://www.powerelectronicsnews.com/news/cause-of-samsung-galaxy-note-7-fires-determined-probably
The safety regulators from the U.S. are officially recalling Samsung Galaxy Note 7 phones, even after the company is voluntarily recalling 2.5 million of the phones globally. Read what Sr. Tech Editor Jim Harrison of Electronic Products has to say about what this recall means for phones and other products that use this prevalent battery technology.
Samsung has given out an explanation of the cause of Galaxy Note 7 phone fires as follows: “Based on our investigation, we learned that there was an issue with the battery cell. An overheating of the battery cell occurred when the anode-to-cathode came into contact which is a very rare manufacturing process error. We are working with multiple suppliers to ensure that a rigorous inspection process is conducted to ensure the quality of our replacement units and we do not anticipate any further battery issues.” This according to the site http://wccftech.com.
Some people have said they were confused by this explanation because the charge circuit should have a safety mechanism to shut down charging when the battery voltage is not in the normal range. But, the destruction evident in the problem phones could have been caused by the energy in the battery itself and not involve any circuit design problem at all. The problem may be the quality control of the 3,500 mAh lithium-ion battery.
Lithium-ion cells got a bad rap for starting fires on the 787 Dreamliner, and now this. We better hope lithium-ion is a good thing, because Elon Musk and other folks are in the process of making a hell of a lot of them. The problem batteries here were apparently made by Samsung SDI. Now the Note 7 will switch to Amperex Technology Limited (ATL) batteries that are made in China. ATL supplied around 35% of the current model batteries.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Special Report: Beyond the exploding battery
http://www.powerelectronicsnews.com/technology/special-report-beyond-the-exploding-battery
Lithium-ion batteries catching fire have been in the news recently, causing many customers to reconsider which mobile phones to purchase and even prompting airlines to restrict the devices’ use when flying. It affects all of us who use rechargeable battery devices and certainly is critical to design engineers who create the mobile devices and the surrounding protection circuitry for these millions upon millions of everyday consumer devices.
Samsung gets kicked off the plane
Fires involving lithium-ion batteries are infrequent but not rare. Incidents involving Samsung’s latest smartphone may encourage mobile device makers to reexamine the integrity of their power trains. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) issued an advisory on Sept. 8 effectively declaring the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 — arguably the most feature-laden smartphone ever — a fire hazard. The FAA advisory asked passengers “not to turn on or charge these devices on board [an] aircraft and not to stow them in any checked baggage.”
Cause of Samsung Galaxy Note 7 fires determined, probablyExploding-Battery-Graphic-Bigger
The safety regulators from the U.S. are officially recalling Samsung Galaxy Note 7 phones, even after the company began voluntarily recalling 2.5 million of the phones globally.
Explosions at two Shenzhen LIB factories, caused by high temperatures… or not?
Among the several lithium-ion battery explosions reported this year, battery factory explosions (July 2016) in Shenzhen were the most recent. The cause of the explosion has not yet been determined
Samsung recall: Tech solutions to enhance lithium-ion battery safety
The typical failure modes of lithium-ion batteries can be electrical abuse, thermal abuse, and physical damage.
Samsung’s burning batteries demonstrate the need for lithium ion alternatives
Mehta says that instead of waiting for promises of a safe lithium-ion battery technology, which may be too expensive or too far out in the future, there are safe alternatives available today.
Pushing to the very edge of safe Li-ion charging
An interview with Qnovo about best practices for battery charging designs. Qnovo developed the concept of adaptive battery charging to augment battery performance, and make them safe.
Li-ion is dead
The lithium-ion battery has had 90% of the engineering efficiency of which it is capable already optimized. Anything further may be dangerous and could result in fire or explosion.
A replacement Samsung Galaxy Note 7 phone catches fire
On October 5, 2016 a Southwest Airlines flight was evacuated while still at the gate because of a smoking Samsung Galaxy Note 7 smartphone. This report from The Verge says that the phone in question was a replacement Galaxy Note 7, one that was deemed to be safe by Samsung.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Samsung’s burning batteries demonstrate the need for lithium ion alternatives
http://www.embedded.com/electronics-blogs/say-what-/4442753/Samsung-s-burning-batteries-demonstrate-the-need-for-lithium-ion-alternatives
The trauma faced by consumers and the pain of the Galaxy Note7 recall that Samsung Electronics is going through is unfortunate. The reported incidents of flaming devices highlight both the persistent need for portable energy storage and the problems with our dependence on chemical lithium ion batteries.
While portable, high-energy density lithium batteries have been a boon for mobile computing and pervasive sensors in many useful areas in our lives, they continue to be a bane for several undesirable characteristics: long recharge times, which leads to battery anxiety and constant hunting for recharge sockets; low cycle life, which leads to increased burden on landfill waste management; and the unsafe and environmentally unfriendly nature of the chemistry. All of these nagging issues make chemical, rechargeable battery cells troubling and downright dangerous to use, especially when you consider the vast number of these chemical energy storage cells in everything around us.
Lithium ion batteries are, by and large, safe as demonstrated by the millions of devices using them over the years. However, since active chemistry is taking place in these cells, the risk of runaway thermal breakdown is never completely removed. Instead of waiting for promises of a safe lithium-ion battery technology, which may be too expensive or too far out in the future, a new generation of higher energy hybrid-supercapacitors offers a choice available today.
There are certainly other chemical energy storage alternatives that are safer than lithium ion — like zinc-based electrochemical storage batteries — and these should also be considered. Nickel metal Hydride (NiMH) batteries and Nickel Cadmium have also been used for a long time
New developments and advances in hybrid supercapacitors technology have addressed these two main issues, making it more suitable for a wider range of applications.
Commercially available hybrid supercapacitors have various chemistries (using metal oxides such as manganese, ruthenium, lithium-ion to increase electrode voltage and thus energy density) and have demonstrated as much as 10X energy density as compared to previous generation supercapacitors.
Specifically, high energy supercapacitors are a good fit for applications where a two-to-three–minute recharge of the energy storage cell can get the product ready for a few hours of use. The concept of “Energy Snacking” — fully recharging in minutes several times through the day — also makes the long cycle life of supercapacitors (tens of thousands of cycles) a good fit for this type of product usage.
Product manufacturers and consumers need to know that a safer alternative to lithium ion is available today for specific applications where consumer safety is a high concern.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Samsung Ships Flameproof Boxes For Note 7 Returns
https://news.slashdot.org/story/16/10/11/2357233/samsung-ships-flameproof-boxes-for-note-7-returns
Samsung has been forced to cease production of its disastrous Galaxy Note 7 Smartphones because they keep catching fire, but it still has to address the problem of cleaning up its mess. The phone has been recalled twice, and owners now have to send their incendiary handsets back to the South Korean firm. And that poses a bit of a problem: if you need to issue a recall for a phone that is prone to spontaneously combust, you don’t want those phones catching fire in transit. Samsung’s solution is a fancy “Note 7 Return Kit,” and it has sent one to XDA Developers. The kit contains a special “Recovery Box” that’s lined with ceramic fiber paper to provide some protection against incineration.
ike a movie version of “We can remember it for you wholesale” —
Samsung ships flameproof boxes for Note 7 returns
Samsung sending out thermally insulated boxes and protective gloves.
http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2016/10/heres-how-to-return-your-note-7-without-blowing-up-the-mail-service/
Samsung has been forced to cease production of its disastrous Galaxy Note 7 Smartphones because they keep catching fire, but it still has to address the problem of cleaning up its mess. The phone has been recalled twice, and owners now have to send their incendiary handsets back to the South Korean firm. And that poses a bit of a problem: if you need to issue a recall for a phone that is prone to spontaneously combust, you don’t want those phones catching fire in transit.
The kit contains a special “Recovery Box” that’s lined with ceramic fiber paper to provide some protection against incineration. Samsung warns that some people will have a bad reaction to this lining, so the recovery kit also includes some gloves to protect your hands.”
Samsung also includes a shipping label to send the phone back. The box reinforces that flying ban, noting that the devices are only to be shipped by ground, safely within reach of the quenching hoses of the fire department.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Note 7 hazard is not caused from the battery
Samsung Galaxy Note 7 is a huge disaster. Replacing the batteries did not help at all, but the whole production unit is now closed. According to data from the American machine problems do not, however, attributable to the battery, but the processor that attempts to charge the battery too quickly or with too much power.
Note 7 batteries were originally supplied two companies:
Samsung SDI from and Amperex Technology.
The first back-called tranches were all overheated batteries Samsung SDI supplied.
New installment in all the batteries were Aperexilta, but still over-heating problems continued.
This suggests that the battery is not the root cause of problems.
The Financial Times is now quoted information: problem is the changes made to the processor for faster charging and the problem relates to the incomplete testing of the device. Sufficiently comprehensive test would have revealed overheating and Samsung might have avoided billions of dollars to rising losses.
Source: http://etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=5219:note-7-katastrofi-ei-johdu-akusta&catid=13&Itemid=101
Tomi Engdahl says:
Samsung feels heat from Note 7 fiasco
Future of line in doubt with risk of serious damage to larger smartphone brand
https://www.ft.com/content/b5275d1c-8faf-11e6-8df8-d3778b55a923
A popular joke going around the telecoms industry of late is that Samsung has outmanoeuvred Apple in smartphone innovation this year — adding a powerful heater to its Galaxy Note 7 to warm the hands of users in cold winter months.
Yet the smartphone’s overheating safety issues have become no laughing matter for the South Korean company, after it pulled the plug on a model that only a few months earlier had some in the industry arguing it was the best handset they had ever seen.
The unprecedented move to warn consumers immediately to stop using the fire-prone model and then to kill the handset model for good during a frantic 24-hour period, has not only hit Samsung’s share price and reputation but also raised concerns that its standing as the world’s largest phonemaker could be under threat.
How the Note 7 became a sad footnote in smartphone history
The life and death of a fire-prone smartphone
https://www.ft.com/content/83e3b2f2-9025-11e6-a72e-b428cb934b78
Less than eight weeks after going on sale, Samsung’s fire-prone Galaxy Note 7 has been consigned to history by the company. Here is how a much-praised smartphone became an expensive and embarrassing disaster for the world’s biggest maker of such devices.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Jason Koebler / Motherboard:
Samsung says it won’t refurbish Note7s, choosing to “safely dispose” of them, which creates waste, loses rare earth elements, and could harm the environment — Lost in the hype about Samsung permanently pulling the plug on its exploding phone is this: The failure of the Galaxy Note 7 …
Samsung’s Galaxy Note 7 Recall Is an Environmental Travesty
http://motherboard.vice.com/read/galaxy-note-7-explosion-environmental-impact-recycling
Lost in the hype about Samsung permanently pulling the plug on its exploding phone is this: The failure of the Galaxy Note 7 is an environmental tragedy, regardless of what Samsung decides will happen to the 2.5 million devices it manufactured.
Early Tuesday morning, Samsung announced it has permanently discontinued and stopped promoting the Galaxy Note 7, and has asked its customers to return their devices for a refund or exchange. A Samsung spokesperson told me the phones will not be repaired, refurbished, or resold ever again: “We have a process in place to safely dispose of the phones,” the company said.
This sounds reasonable, but the fact is that besides sitting in your nightstand drawer for eternity (a fate that will surely befall some of these phones) or being thrown into a garbage dump or chucked into the bottom of a river, being recycled is the worst thing that can happen to a smartphone.
“Smartphones are not really recycled.”
There are two main things to consider here: First, though smartphones weigh less than a pound, it was estimated in 2013 by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers estimated that it takes roughly 165 pounds of raw mined materials to make the average cell phone, a number that is certainly higher for the Note 7, being both one of the largest and most advanced smartphones phones ever created. Second, much of that mined material is going to be immediately lost.
This is because we are terrible at recycling smartphones—of the 50-or-so elements that are in a Galaxy Note 7, we can only recover about a dozen of them through recycling. Lost are most of the rare earth elements, which are generally the most environmentally destructive and human labor-intensive to mine.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Sam Byford / The Verge:
Samsung cuts profit forecast by 33% for Q3 from $7B to $4.6B, revenue expectations from $44B to $41.8B, following Galaxy Note7 crisis — Samsung issued earnings guidance last week that suggested the calamitous Galaxy Note 7 recall wouldn’t have a major impact on the company’s bottom line …
Samsung slashes profit forecast by a third following Galaxy Note 7 debacle
http://www.theverge.com/2016/10/12/13254634/samsung-earnings-forecast-cut-q3-2016
Samsung issued earnings guidance last week that suggested the calamitous Galaxy Note 7 recall wouldn’t have a major impact on the company’s bottom line, but the company just released a statement adjusting its forecast significantly. Operating profit for the third quarter of 2016 is now estimated to come in at 5.2 trillion won ($4.6 billion), down 33 percent from the previous figure, while revenue expectations have been slashed by 2 trillion won to 47 trillion ($41.8 billion).
Tomi Engdahl says:
Samsung Needs to Get Transparent
http://www.eetimes.com/author.asp?section_id=36&doc_id=1330614&
Samsung owes its customers and the tech community a clear explanation of what happened with the lithium ion batteries in its Galaxy Note 7 smartphones.
We live in an industry that operates behind closed walls. Most days corporations need to protect their intellectual property carefully, but this is not one of them.
Lithium ion batteries are widely used across the industry in everything from hearing aids to electric cars. The drive for profits from the premium smartphone market drove Samsung to push the limits of how much work the thinnest and lightest of those batteries could do in a high res, multitasking consumer product.
Something went horribly awry and customers and fellow engineers need to know the details.
Whatever lessons Samsung learned about these products needs to be shared with the community—with the same intensity and speed with which the products are designed and built.
I applaud executives who made the hard decision to pull the Galaxy Note 7 from the market entirely. The move slashed and estimated $17 billion off Samsung’s market capitalization and could cost another $2.8 billion in quarterly losses, according to analysts quoted by The Wall Street Journal.
Tomi Engdahl says:
New flaw said to be behind latest Samsung issues
http://www.cnbc.com/2016/10/12/new-flaw-said-to-be-behind-latest-samsung-issues.html
Samsung’s Galaxy Note 7 phones may have an new, separate issue from the one addressed by its original recall, according to unnamed investigators cited by Bloomberg.
Samsung and U.S. safety regulators had pinned the problems to a certain battery supplier, SDI, according to Bloomberg. But a new flaw emerged after Samsung switched to batteries from China’s Amperex Technology, Bloomberg reported.
Bloomberg reports that SDI’s batteries were thought by U.S. regulators to be too large for the phone, crimping the corners and causing them to short circuit. Experts have told CNBC the cause might be thin separators between battery layers, or a manufacturing error
It comes after a New York Times report indicated that Samsung may not even know what the problem is with the phones, because testers were unable to recreate the battery explosions being reported.
Tomi Engdahl says:
What to do if your smartphone goes up in smoke
http://mashable.com/2016/10/12/lithium-ion-battery-safety-tips/#fHFAIn89KkqV
As more and more reports of failing Samsung Galaxy Note7 devices crop up, so, too, do videos of smoking smartphones — a terrifying sight for the vast majority of users.
What you’ll notice in some of these videos is the sight of people handling the failing device as thought it’s a hot plate of pasta instead of a very dangerous battery that could explode at any moment.
DO
Get away: “The best thing to do is to stand back and let the device burn or smoke — you cannot stop it once it begins,” Jeff Dahn, a professor of physics and atmospheric science at Canada’s Dalhousie University who is currently working with Tesla on battery technology, told Mashable. “The fumes contain toxic gases so you do not want to breathe those.”
That’s the same advice given by electrical engineer John Drengenberg, who also serves as the consumer safety director at UL (Underwriters Laboratories),
“The most conservative thing you can do is don’t breathe the fumes and call the fire department for help,”
DON’T
Extinguish the fire: Contrary to what your instincts might tell you, attempting to put a lithium ion battery fire out like a normal fire might cause more trouble. “Best thing to do is push the device into a bucket of sand,”
Move the device:
“You don’t want to pick it up because you could be injured by a chemical burn,”
Where to move it, if you must:
“It is important not to let the fire spread to other items (papers, house, whatever),” says Dahn. “So putting the phone on a non-combustible surface is a good thing.” Drengenberg suggests an even better solution: “If you have a metal container of some kind and put it in there with a spatula, that would be a good course,”
But despite the aforementioned warnings, the good news is that lithium ion batteries are, for the most part, safe.
“Of the roughly 3.5 to 4 billion lithium ion batteries out there, the failures are about one in 10 million,” says Drengenberg. “So it’s not common.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Nick Statt / The Verge:
Samsung expects to lose about $3B in operating profit from Q4 2016 through Q1 2017 due to Note7 recall — The cost of playing with fire — Samsung says the Galaxy Note 7 discontinuation will cost it around $3 billion over the course of the next two fiscal quarters.
Samsung expects to lose around $3 billion due to Note 7 recall
The cost of playing with fire
http://www.theverge.com/2016/10/13/13280000/samsung-galaxy-note-7-recall-3-billion-cost
Samsung says the Galaxy Note 7 discontinuation will cost it around $3 billion over the course of the next two fiscal quarters. The device, which has a chance of overheating and exploding, has been plagued with problems since its launch back in August. After recalling millions of devices thought to have battery issues, Samsung began issuing replacement Note 7s to customers around the world. However, numerous cases of those replacement units catching fire in the US over the course of the last week prompted Samsung to announce a worldwide recall of all devices and cease production permanently. The company still can’t pinpoint the cause of the problem.
Jacob Kastrenakes / The Verge:
Samsung says it has received 96 reports of overheating Note7s in the US, 23 of which came after the recall
Samsung says 23 Note 7s overheated in the past month
http://www.theverge.com/2016/10/13/13269168/note-7-overheating-23-since-recall-cpsc
Samsung and the US Consumer Product Safety Commission formally recalled the Note 7 overnight, requesting that every single unit immediately be powered down and returned. That’s 1.9 million phones in total — 1 million of the original Note 7, and 900,000 “replacement” Note 7s — that need to go back.
To date, Samsung has received 96 reports of overheating phones in the US, with 23 of those coming after the initial recall. But most of those were the original devices. The CPSC says that it’s only looking into six reports of overheating replacement phones right now. Though it’s aware that there might be more.
At this point, it’s not clear how many Note 7s are still out there. In late September, Samsung said that 60 percent of all phones had been recovered — but that was only out of the original 1 million units. Samsung has since added 900,000 Note 7s back into the marketplace, all of which need to be returned.
Tomi Engdahl says:
So, the Note 7: What Will Happen to Those Recalled Phones?
https://www.wired.com/2016/10/note-7-will-happen-recalled-phones/
Even after two recalls, nearly 100 instances of dangerous overheating, and Samsung’s specific instructions to shut them off because they might catch fire, some people just won’t relinquish their Galaxy Note 7 smartphone.
More than one million people continue using the phones, according to mobile analytics firm Apteligent. That’s after Samsung issued a recall on September 15 and offered replacement phones—and 23 devices have overheated since then. On Monday, Samsung said it will stop producing the phones entirely, and the US Consumer Product Consumer Product Safety Commission announced an expanded recall today.
Getting the volatile phone out of consumers’ hands remains a challenge, but that could be easier than disposing of them. As many as 1.9 million phones in the US alone must be collected, packaged, transported, and recycled.
Although Samsung maintains a phone repair center in the Dallas suburb of Plano, that facility cannot handle large-scale recycling of lithium-ion batteries. For that, Samsung, which has not responded to requests for comment, probably must tap one of the nation’s established recycling pipelines.
The US Environmental Protection Agency says Samsung participates in its sustainable materials management program, which requires the company to send devices to certified recycling facilities.
In the US and Canada, Samsung often uses the nonprofit Call2Recycle for small-scale recycling efforts organized through a nationwide network of drop-boxes.
Generally speaking, a recycler removes the battery from a phone before breaking the device down to recover precious metals and other materials. For every one million phones, recyclers can collect 35,274 pounds of copper, 772 pounds of silver, 75 pounds of gold, and 33 pounds of palladium, according to the EPA.
The challenge is getting the battery out, because Samsung, like many manufacturers, glues them down. Removing it requires carefully opening the phone, removing the glass, and prying out the battery—a procedure so fraught that the engineers at iFixit who tore down a Note 7 likened it to brain surgery with a patient that might catch fire.
Smith says the scale of the Note 7 recall presents a unique challenge. “Anytime there are multiple devices, there could potentially be a chain reaction unless all materials are packaged safely,” he says. “The Note 7 device would be classified as ‘damaged, defective, recalled’ and therefore must comply with the special packaging, labeling and shipping requirements.”
Although Samsung offers a Take Back & Recycling program that lets you return phones using a pre-paid postage envelope, you shouldn’t use it to return a Note 7. A normal envelope doesn’t comply with federal regulations.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Li-Ion Tech Staring Into the Abyss with Note 7 Failure
http://hackaday.com/2016/10/14/li-ion-tech-staring-into-the-abyss-with-note-7-failure/
With over 2.5 million devices in existence, it’s creating quite a headache for the company and its consumers.
They quickly tied the problem to faulty Li-ion batteries and started replacing them, while issuing a firmware update to stop charging at 60 percent capacity. But after 5 of the replacement phones caught fire, Samsung killed the Note7 completely. There is now a Total Recall on all Note7 phones and they are no longer for sale. If you have one, you are to turn it off immediately. And don’t even think about strapping it into a VR headset — Oculus no longer supports it. If needed, Samsung will even send you a fireproof box and safety gloves to return it.
It should be noted that the problem only affects 0.01% of the phones out there, so they’re not exactly going to set the world on fire. However, it has generated yet another discussion about the safety of Li-ion battery technology.
It was just a few months ago we all heard about those hoverboards that would catch fire.
Check out what happens when you drop pure lithium into water.
Long story short — lithium is highly reactive because it loses electrons so easily and forms positive ions. And this comes in handy when we want to make electrical current!
Using lithium for a battery is a no-brainer. You can find lithium ion batteries almost everywhere these days.
They’re constructed by making many layers of cathode/anode pairs, with the cathode being a lithium metal oxide and the anode being graphite. The electrolyte is a lithium salt dissolved in an organic solvent. Each cathode/anode layer is separated by what is known as a separator.
The separator is a permeable membrane that allows the tiny ions to pass, while keeping the anode and cathode physically separated
The biggest fail point is obviously the separator. If a problem occurs with the separator, allowing the anode and cathode to touch, bad things will happen. Add to this the fact that the electrolyte is an organic solvent (most organic solvents are flammable) and you’ve got trouble.
Samsung reported a manufacturing error that “placed pressure on plates contained within battery cells, which brought negative and positive poles into contact.”
One glaring oversight is that the battery in the Note 7 is not consumer replaceable. Imagine how easy the fix would be just to send everyone new batteries and set up a collection process for the old ones. Instead, Samsung now needs to recycle all components in the entire phone… 2.5 million times.
More industry-changing solutions include using safer forms of lithium derivatives, such as lithium iron phosphate. LFP batteries have a 14% lower energy density than typical Li-ion batteries, but are much safer.
But the consumer phone market is a blood-sport, and battery life is usually the number one complaint of Android phone users.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Department of Transportation:
US Department of Transportation bans Samsung Galaxy Note7 devices from planes, even if turned off; passengers evading ban may be fined or face criminal charges — WASHINGTON – The U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT), with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and the Pipeline …
http://www.transportation.gov/briefing-room/dot-bans-all-samsung-galaxy-note7-phones-airplanes
Tomi Engdahl says:
Nick Statt / The Verge:
Samsung expects to lose about $3B in operating profit from Q4 2016 through Q1 2017 due to Note7 recall
Mobile
Business
Samsung expects to lose an additional $3.1 billion due to Note 7 recall
The cost of playing with fire
http://www.theverge.com/2016/10/13/13280000/samsung-galaxy-note-7-recall-3-billion-cost
Samsung says the Galaxy Note 7 discontinuation will cost it another $3.1 billion over the course of the next two fiscal quarters, following a significant reduction in its Q3 earnings guidance. The device, which has a chance of overheating and exploding, has been plagued with problems since its launch back in August.
“The company already allocated the expected direct cost from the discontinuation of Galaxy Note7 sales in its third quarter earnings guidance revision announced on October 11th, but expects the drop in revenue from the discontinued sales to continue to have a negative impact on operating profit for the next two quarters,” reads Samsung’s statement. “The negative impact is estimated in the mid-2 trillion won range for the fourth quarter of 2016 and at approximately 1 trillion won for the first quarter of 2017.” At current conversation rates, 3.5 trillion won translates to around $3.1 billion.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Did Processor Cause Samsung Note 7 Blowup?
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1330616&
It’s far from clear what exactly caused Samsung Note 7 to catch fire at this point. Samsung isn’t talking until after it finishes its own investigation.
But a new report emerged Wednesday that the culprit might not be the lithium-ion batteries themselves, which Samsung initially suspected. Rather, the problem might reside in the underlying technology — tweaks made to the processor in the smartphone.
Attributing an unnamed source who has spoken to Samsung chiefs, the Financial Times reported, “Problems with the phone appeared to have arisen from tweaks to the processor to speed up the rate at which the phone could be charged.”
The source told the U.K. newspaper, “If you try to charge the battery too quickly it can make it more volatile. If you push an engine too hard, it will explode. Something had to give.”
Samsung’s Note 7 comes in two versions, with one using Samsung’s own Exynos 8893 processor and another based on Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 820 processor.
Giving some credence to the new theory — putting the blame beyond the battery itself — are explosion incidents that have surfaced with replacement phones using new batteries produced by another company.
Initially, Samsung did not observe the overheating issues among Note 7 using ATL batteries. Therefore, after the first recall, as a temporary solution, Samsung asked ATL to step in and supply batteries for the replacement phones.
However, as it turns out, on Monday, the replacement phones with ATL batteries also started blowing up.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Samsung Needs to Get Transparent
http://www.eetimes.com/author.asp?section_id=36&doc_id=1330614&
Samsung owes its customers and the tech community a clear explanation of what happened with the lithium ion batteries in its Galaxy Note 7 smartphones.
We live in an industry that operates behind closed walls. Most days corporations need to protect their intellectual property carefully, but this is not one of them.
Lithium ion batteries are widely used across the industry in everything from hearing aids to electric cars. The drive for profits from the premium smartphone market drove Samsung to push the limits of how much work the thinnest and lightest of those batteries could do in a high res, multitasking consumer product.
Something went horribly awry and customers and fellow engineers need to know the details.
Customers deserve an answer because they implicitly trusted the company with products they put in their pockets and held up to their faces. It’s not just Samsung’s credibility at stake here; any maker of smartphones now faces the consumer backlash these phablets created.
Engineers across the supply chain need to understand what happened if they are to prevent it happening again. We are a long way from any other mainstream battery chemistry at a time when the volume of smartphones, cars and other products using lithium ion are rapidly on the rise.
Whatever lessons Samsung learned about these products needs to be shared with the community—with the same intensity and speed with which the products are designed and built.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Samsung Self-Tested Batteries in Galaxy Note 7 Phone
Apple, other handset manufacturers use third-party labs certified by U.S. wireless industry’s trade group
http://www.wsj.com/articles/samsung-self-tested-its-batteries-1476659147
The batteries used in Samsung Electronics Co.’s troubled Galaxy Note 7 were tested by a lab that belongs to the South Korean electronics giant, a practice that sets it apart from other smartphone manufacturers.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Proper Lithium-Ion battery charging and safety
http://www.edn.com/design/power-management/4405282/Proper-Lithium-Ion-battery-charging-and-safety
PowerStream inputs– Every lithium ion battery pack should have a safety board or IC which monitors the charge and discharge of the pack, and prevents improper conditions. The specifications of these safety boards are dictated by the cell manufacturer, and may include the following:
Reverse polarity protection
Charge temperature–must not be charged when temperature is lower than 0° C or above 45° C.
Charge current must not be too high, typically below 0.7 C.
Discharge current protection to prevent damage due to short circuits.
Charge voltage–a permanent fuse opens if too much voltage is applied to the battery terminals
Overcharge protection–stops charge when voltage per cell rises above 4.30 volts.
Overdischarge protection–stops discharge when battery voltage falls below 2.3 volts per cell (varies with manufacturer).
A fuse opens if the battery is ever exposed to temperatures above 100° C.
From Walt Kester and Joe Buxton, Analog Devices–Li-Ion Charging: Li-Ion batteries commonly require a constant current, constant voltage (CCCV) type of charging algorithm. In other words, a Li-Ion battery should be charged at a set current level (typically from 1 to 1.5 amperes) until it reaches its final voltage. At this point, the charger circuitry should switch over to constant voltage mode, and provide the current necessary to hold the battery at this final voltage (typically 4.2 V per cell).
The main challenge in charging a Li-Ion battery is to realize the battery’s full capacity without overcharging it, which could result in catastrophic failure. There is little room for error, only ±1%. Overcharging by more than +1% could result in battery failure, but undercharging by more than 1% results in reduced capacity. For example, undercharging a Li-Ion battery by only 100 mV (-2.4% for a 4.2-V Li-Ion cell) results in about a 10% loss in capacity. Since the room for error is so small, high accuracy is required of the charging-control circuitry.
Overcharging Lithium-ion from Cadex Electronics Battery University
Lithium-ion operates safely within the designated operating voltages; however, the battery becomes unstable if inadvertently charged to a higher than specified voltage. Prolonged charging above 4.30V forms plating of metallic lithium on the anode, while the cathode material becomes an oxidizing agent, loses stability and produces carbon dioxide (CO2). The cell pressure rises, and if charging is allowed to continue the current interrupt device (CID) responsible for cell safety disconnects the current at 1,380kPa (200psi).
Should the pressure rise further, a safety membrane bursts open at 3,450kPa (500psi) and the cell might eventually vent with flame. The thermal runaway moves lower when the battery is fully charged; for Li-cobalt this threshold is between 130–150C°C (266–302°F), nickel-manganese-cobalt (NMC) is 170–180°C (338–356°F), and manganese is 250°C (482°F). Li-phosphate enjoys similar and better temperature stabilities than manganese.
Texas Instruments has the bq24314C which protects against:
Input overvoltage, with rapid response less than 1 us
User programmable overcurrent with current limiting
Battery overvoltage
Tomi Engdahl says:
Sui-Lee Wee / New York Times:
Samsung’s uneven handling of the Note7 fiasco in China has angered many, as it initially claimed the phones in that market were safe before issuing recall — TIANJIN, China — Zhang Sitong was saving a friend’s phone number on his Samsung Galaxy Note 7 smartphone when it started to vibrate and smoke.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/19/business/samsung-galaxy-note7-china-test.html
James Vincent / The Verge:
Samsung is setting up Note7 exchange booths at high traffic terminals in select airports around the world
Samsung is setting up Note 7 exchange booths at airports around the world
They’ll give you a new phone and swap over your data
http://www.theverge.com/2016/10/18/13314864/samsung-note-7-flying-safe-airport-exchanges
Samsung is setting up Galaxy Note 7 exchange booths in airports around the world, hoping to stop customers taking the dangerous device onto flights at the last minute. The first of these new “customer service points” appear to have been introduced in South Korean airports, but Samsung has confirmed the booths are opening in airports across Australia, with reports of the desks appearing in the US as well.
The booths are located in “high-traffic terminals” before security screening, says Samsung, and allow Note 7 owners to swap their phone for an unspecified exchange device.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Samsung Forced YouTube To Pull GTA 5 Mod Video Because It Showed Galaxy Note 7 As Bomb
https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/16/10/20/0430229/samsung-forced-youtube-to-pull-gta-5-mod-video-because-it-showed-galaxy-note-7-as-bomb
The Galaxy Note 7 wasn’t just recalled, it was cancelled. For good. And that makes Samsung very cranky indeed. So when YouTube user HitmanNiko created a video showing a Grand Theft Auto 5 mod in which Galaxy Note 7 handsets can be used as grenades, it’s perhaps somewhat understandable that someone inside Samsung took offense to the idea.
Samsung Forced YouTube To Pull GTA 5 Mod Video Because It Showed Galaxy Note 7 As Bomb
http://www.redmondpie.com/gta-5-mod-video-showing-galaxy-note-7-as-bomb-has-been-pulled-by-force-from-youtube-by-samsung/
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Fatal Mistake That Doomed Samsung’s Galaxy Note
http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-fatal-mistake-that-doomed-samsungs-galaxy-note-1477248978
On the verge of challenging Apple’s mobile phone dominance, the South Korean company made a rushed decision, based on incomplete evidence, that later forced it to kill the model.
After reports of Galaxy Note 7 smartphones catching fire spread in early September, Samsung Electronics Co. executives debated how to respond.
A laboratory report said scans of some faulty devices showed a protrusion in Note 7 batteries supplied by Samsung SDI Co.
It wasn’t a definitive answer, and there was no explanation for the bulges. But with consumers complaining and telecom operators demanding answers, newly appointed mobile chief D.J. Koh felt the company knew enough to recall 2.5 million phones.
That decision in early September—to push a sweeping recall based on what turned out to be incomplete evidence—is now coming back to haunt the company.
Two weeks after Samsung began handing out millions of new phones, with batteries from the other supplier, the company was forced to all but acknowledge that its initial diagnosis was incorrect, following a spate of new incidents, some involving supposedly safe replacement devices. With regulators raising fresh questions, Messrs. Lee and Koh decided to take the drastic step of killing the phone outright.
The Galaxy Note series helped make Samsung a smartphone leader, and the Note 7, its most advanced phone ever
it looked like the Galaxy Note could win over users of Apple Inc. ’s iPhone
Instead, as a result of the flammable phones and the botched recall Samsung’s leaders are now struggling to salvage the company’s credibility.
Samsung still doesn’t have a conclusive answer for what’s causing some Note 7s to catch fire.
Outside experts have pointed to a range of possible culprits, from the software that manages how the battery interacts with other smartphone components to the design of the entire circuit.
Big product recalls are never easy.
Samsung executives have delayed the development of the Galaxy S8 device by two weeks
Meanwhile, investors have shaved off roughly $20 billion in Samsung’s market value. The company has said the recall would cost it $5 billion or more, including lost sales.
evacuation of a Southwest Airlines Co. flight in early October because of a smoking Samsung smartphone.
Top executives from major telecoms operators, including Verizon Communications Inc. ’s Lowell McAdam, urged Mr. Lee to quickly kill the Galaxy Note 7 smartphone
decision to abort the Note 7 has halted the damage for now
“There are few things in life I’m reasonably confident of predicting; one of those is….we’re going to have yet another issue of lithium ion batteries catching fire” from a range of devices, said CPSC commissioner Robert Adler. “This is just a massive problem.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Wall Street Journal:
Samsung’s rushed replacement of Galaxy Note7 before finding the root cause of fires doomed the smartphone — On the verge of challenging Apple’s mobile phone dominance, the South Korean company made a rushed decision, based on incomplete evidence, that later forced it to kill the model.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-fatal-mistake-that-doomed-samsungs-galaxy-note-1477248978
Tomi Engdahl says:
Engage Tinfoil Hat: Samsung Note 7 Battery Theory
http://hackaday.com/2016/10/24/engage-tinfoil-hat-samsung-note-7-battery-theory/
I have a plausible theory, won’t you don your tinfoil hat and follow me down this rabbit hole?
Remember Stuxnet? It’s a computer virus that infected and took down the centrifuges Iran was using in its uranium enrichment program.
The process involves software that continually tweaks the balance of the centrifuge
Why am I bringing up Stuxnet now? I started to think about the Samsung battery fires and the horrible effect it is having on the world. It certainly has put Samsung in a rough position — perhaps the most respected and trusted maker of Android phones got the battery tech in this phone wrong… twice. How could that be? Perhaps it was corporate espionage. But of course it wasn’t — if anything you’d have to call it corporate sabotage.
How Can You Sabotage a Battery?
Lithium batteries have monitoring circuits built into them. These are responsible for cutting off the cell before it gets too flat (which will damage it), and maintaining acceptable temperatures and constant current profiles during charging.
These battery-tending circuits run software, of course. Just last month we saw all the secrets for the controller of a laptop battery unlocked. Smartphones usually have a single cell, but there is still data there — a third conductor that can transfer data like temperature from the battery to the phone.
What if a very carefully crafted virus were able to rewrite the battery charging code of a carefully targeted phone and cause it to fail on purpose? With so many of this particular model in the wild — 1M of the 2.5M manufactured — a virus could be programmed to delete itself 99.99% of the time to avoid detection. The other 0.01% it would go into action — pushing the temperature of the cell past the failing point and thereby destroying the evidence in the fiery process. That would equate to about 100 incidents which is very close to the 112 being reported.
It’s a surprisingly enticing “what-if” and this thought process even opens up my mind to other possible industrial sabotage scenarios. Toyota’s uncontrolled acceleration, for instance. But the simplest answer tends to be the correct one: these are engineering failures.
This is All a Load of Bull
Even if phone batteries have rewritable firmware or the phone’s charging code can be attacked, it would be incredibly hard to get at that functionality from user space on an unmodified OS — then again there were a lot of people sideloading malware-laden versions of Pokemon Go.
Motive. There is very little motive for someone to target Samsung.
Some people like to watch the world burn… could it be a lone wolf hacker? Again, very unlikely.
No, it’s just a promising plot for a sci-fi novel.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Se Young Lee / Reuters:
Samsung: South Korean customers who exchanged their Galaxy Note7 for an S7 will be able to trade for Galaxy Note8 or S8 next year at 50% of the cost of their S7 — Samsung Electronics Co Ltd said on Monday it is offering an upgrade program to Galaxy Note 7 customers in South Korea who trade …
Samsung offers upgrade program for South Korea Note 7 customers
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-samsung-elec-smartphones-idUSKCN12O0GP
Samsung Electronics is offering an upgrade program option to Galaxy Note 7 customers in South Korea who trade in their recalled device for a Galaxy S7 phone, marking its latest attempt to retain customers.
In a statement on Monday, Samsung said customers who trade in their Note 7 phone for either a flat-screen or curved-screen version of the Galaxy S7 can trade up for a Galaxy S8 or Note 8 smartphone launching next year through an upgrade program.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Hooyeon Kim / Bloomberg:
Amid Note7 fiasco, hundreds file class action lawsuits against Samsung, and new Vice Chairman Jay Y. Lee faces pushback from investment groups
Samsung’s Note 7 Crisis Sows Seeds of Rebellion on Home Turf
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-10-24/samsung-s-note-7-crisis-sows-seeds-of-rebellion-on-its-home-turf
Samsung Group, for decades the corporate champion of South Korea, is now facing a revolt at home.
On Monday, hundreds of owners of Samsung Electronics Co.’s fire-prone Galaxy Note 7 filed a class-action lawsuit demanding compensation. Hours earlier, a South Korean investment advisory firm recommended shareholders vote against Vice Chairman Jay Y. Lee joining the board
The twin setbacks come as the phonemaker grapples with the most serious crisis in its 47-year history
“Samsung may have become a bit too conceited over the years. A lot has happened that would never have happened at Samsung in the past,”
Samsung has previously said the Note 7 fiasco, which originated in part because the company rushed a device to market ahead of arch-foe Apple Inc., will cost more than $5 billion and the phone unit will probably pay a steep price. The division has often received the biggest bonuses within Samsung Group, typically about half of base salary, but employees now suspect they may get nothing. Some senior executives will likely lose their jobs too.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Samsung Chips Offset Smartphone Disaster
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1330692&
Samsung Electronics, the world’s largest maker of smartphones and the second-largest chipmaker, said strength in its semiconductor business offset the impact to its mobile phone business caused by exploding batteries in its flagship Galaxy Note 7 products.
South Korea’s largest company said today in a press statement that operating profit for the third quarter this year was 5.20 trillion won ($4.6 billion), down 2.19 trillion won from the same period a year ago. Samsung originally forecast a 7.8 trillion won profit but cut its expectations to reflect losses from the cancelation of the Note 7 smartphones.
The company’s mobile product earnings plunged 98 percent from a year earlier to the lowest since the fourth quarter of 2008.
Samsung’s chip division posted a 3.37 trillion won profit for the third quarter, its highest since the same period a year ago. Samsung’s semiconductor business grew on demand for memory chips in high-performance mobile and server products. Samsung said demand was strong for its 14nm foundry products as well as mid-to-low end SoCs and image sensors.
Tomi Engdahl says:
IDC Survey Looks to Assess Damage to Samsung Brand After Note 7 Recall
http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20161028005698/en/IDC-Survey-Assess-Damage-Samsung-Brand-Note
Results from a recent International Data Corporation (IDC) survey, U.S. Smartphone Owners’ Reaction to Samsung Galaxy Note 7 Recall (Doc #US41878416), show that Samsung faces some short-term challenges but nothing that will darken its long-term prospects.
“As challenging as the Note 7 recall has been for Samsung, the data in this survey indicate that most consumers are unaffected by this, which should be good news for Samsung,” said Ramon T. Llamas, research manager, Wearables and Mobile Phones. “For the minority of Samsung customers who are unlikely to purchase a Samsung smartphone in the future, the company has to win back consumer trust. Thus far Samsung has offered monetary incentives but, at the heart of the matter, consumers want to learn the root causes of the problem and how Samsung intends to fix them.”
“The Note 7 recall along with all its repercussions, represents a significant event in the world of consumer electronics,”