Does SoC/RAM/LCD binning happen with phone parts?

[zijincheng]

My dad used to work at Fujitsu and he told me that lower level laptop manufacturers will buy "poorer" binned batches of CPUs, LCDs and other binnable components at a lower price.

In detail, a top tier manufacturer only buy batches of Intel CPUs with 0.01% defect rate and won't accept anything less, while lower tier laptop manufacturers will accept batches with higher defect rates in them for a lower price, hence why Acer's reputation for quality laptops was considerably lower than a top tier manufacturer like HP or Dell back in the day.

Does that happen with cell phones? Will Samsung, for example, only accept top binned SD845s and smaller companies like Xiaomi willing to accept lower quality batches?

EDIT: I might be using the word binning in the wrong application here, but here's an explanation of what binning is

 

[psionandy]

Possibly...

but then to complicate things Xiaomi may have higher demands for their flagship ranges.... and Samsung may have a lower specification for their cheaper phones.

 

[dontpanicbobby]

Binning? What's that? I'm just a User.

 

[svim]

I didn't think this was any kind of 'behind closed doors' kind of issue, it's not a secret that higher end components will be in higher end phones, assembled under better quality control. The same principle applies to most things, a house built with more expensive, higher quality materials by a reputable contractor will be more stable, last longer, and require less repair maintenance than a home slapped together with cheap materials built by a team of untrained workers. Even something like a watch (for those who still wear them), there's an obvious difference between a highly crafted Swiss watch and one mass produced in an anonymous Chinese factory.

 

[dontpanicbobby]

Nice. But it doesn't explain binning.
Still confused?

 

[zijincheng]

I didn't think this was any kind of 'behind closed doors' kind of issue, it's not a secret that higher end components will be in higher end phones, assembled under better quality control. The same principle applies to most things, a house built with more expensive, higher quality materials by a reputable contractor will be more stable, last longer, and require less repair maintenance than a home slapped together with cheap materials built by a team of untrained workers. Even something like a watch (for those who still wear them), there's an obvious difference between a highly crafted Swiss watch and one mass produced in an anonymous Chinese factory.

Thanks, however I'm asking about both companies buying the exact same component, but at different quality/tolerance levels. E.g. Samsung buys all the high quality Snapdragon 845s for more money while a smaller manufacturer will buy the lower quality Snapdragon 845s for less money, because of the variance in silicon. And does the same thing happen for LCDs, RAM etc.

Nice. But it doesn't explain binning.
Still confused?

All CPUs are not made the exact same because the manufacturing process is not 100% accurate. Some CPUs are faster, some are slower. So binning is the process by which someone like Intel tests and separates these CPUs into different product categories like Core i7, Core i5. That's why I was wondering if my use of the word binning is wrong in this case.

 

[Hadron]

Binning definitely does happen in the components used in mobile phones. Whether any manufacturer actually pays more to get higher-binned components, and how much difference the binning makes, is a different question.

I've seen XDA threads where S8 owners were discussing and comparing the bins of the Exynos SoCs in their devices, and members were reporting examples of the entire range being found in different phones, so it didn't look like they were even selecting just the better bins of their own SoCs for their own phones.

 

[dontpanicbobby]

Binned. I'll check that out.