The Note 7 incident was one of the biggest (and disappointing) news of 2016, causing Samsung to issue a worldwide recall of all units and an exchange program to compensate.
Now, the Korean tech firm has finally released its official findings on the incident. And based from what was written in the documents, the overheating issue seems to be a case of poor battery design.
Photo: Samsung
Main Causes
- There was not enough room between the battery’s internals and the protective pouch around it. The phone’s extremely compact design, caused some electrodes in the upper right corner of the battery to come into contact, therefore causing a short circuit.
- Insulation tape was missing on some batteries, and high welding burrs penetrated the insulation tape and separator (which was already thin to begin with) between the negative electrode and positive tab. Thus, increasing the chances of a short circuit.
The findings were announced after conducting rigorous tests involving 200,000 devices and 30,000 batteries in a special facility.
While Samsung did not disclose its procedures for quality control prior to the incident, the company claims that it has overhauled its safety testing procedures.
Photo: Samsung
Photo: Samsung
Emman has been writing technical and feature articles since 2010. Prior to this, he became one of the instructors at Asia Pacific College in 2008, and eventually landed a job as Business Analyst and Technical Writer at Integrated Open Source Solutions for almost 3 years.
