Samsung blames battery for Note 7 fires

Galaxy S8 won’t be unveiled at MWC 2017

By Yoon Sung-won

Samsung Electronics said Monday that design and manufacturing flaws in battery cells provided by two separate suppliers were the main cause of the Galaxy Note 7’s fire problems.

The world’s largest smartphone maker released the results of its internal investigation into the cause of the Note 7 fiasco the same day.

It told customers and business partners that design and manufacturing defects caused the first batch of Galaxy Note 7 phones and a second batch of replacements to overheat.

The battery unit’s cathode (negative) and anode (positive) were separated by a coating to prevent short circuiting.

“The first batch of batteries made by manufacturer A had their cathodes crammed too tightly into the upper right corner causing some of them to bend toward each other creating a short-circuit,” Samsung Electronics Mobile Communications Business President Koh Dong-jin said at a press conference. (A in the remark refers to the electronics maker’s battery affiliate Samsung SDI).

In the rush to produce batteries for replacements, the second batch, supplied by China’s Amperex Technology Limited (ATL), had welding defects that penetrated insulators allowing the cathodes and anodes to touch and short-circuit, he said.

During the announcement, he said those made by ATL showed poorly controlled welding of the anode, which penetrated through the separating coating to make contact with the cathode. Some of ATL’s batteries also did not have the proper insulation taping.

The company pledged to improve the safety of batteries used for its smartphones through an enhanced quality control procedure.

“We deeply apologize to customers, telecom companies, distributors and all other partners for causing inconvenience and concern,” Koh said.

Admitting the company’s responsibility in failing to control the product quality of batteries supplied for its handset, the mobile business chief said the company will not take legal action against its suppliers.

“We have gone through a very tough time after discontinuing the Note 7 and suffered from financial losses, but they are still our partners. We will continue to work with them,” Koh said. “As a set maker, the ultimate accountability of failing to verify the reliability and quality of the component is ours. As such, it would not be right to make them take any legal responsibility.”

Koh also said the company will not unveil its new flagship smartphone Galaxy S8 at the upcoming Mobile World Congress 2017 scheduled to open in Barcelona next month.

Following its ambitious global launch of the Note 7, Aug. 19 last year, Samsung Electronics was forced to launch the first global recall two weeks later amid a series of reports about fire problems. At that time, the company pointed to the battery as the cause of the problem.

But even the Note 7s with replacement batteries continued to catch fire. Consequently Samsung Electronics announced Nov. 11 that it would discontinue the sales and production of the ill-fated model. It also promised to uncover the cause of the fire problem regardless of the discontinuance.

About 96 percent of 3.06 million Note 7s that the company has sold around the globe have been returned through its recall program so far, Koh said.

Koh also said he apologizes for disappointing Chinese consumers when the company excluded China in its first global recall.

At the time, Samsung Electronics provided Note 7s with ATL’s batteries in China. Because the fire problems were mostly in products in Korea and the United States with Samsung SDI’s batteries, the company did not recall Note 7s in China, he explained.

“Looking back, we should have communicated with Chinese customers better and provided them with a more detailed explanation. I deeply apologize for the inconvenience that Chinese customers might have gone through,” Koh said.

“Samsung Electronics is not doing well in China. We will make better efforts to those who favor Samsung’s brand and the Note series.”

During the last five months, rumors had spread that the fire problem was caused not only by a flawed battery but also due to the internal structure of the handset crammed with the large capacity battery and new components such as an iris scanner.

Koh said the company has thoroughly looked into the complete process from design, manufacturing, assembly, storage and logistics.

It set up a large-scale testing facility where about 700 researchers and engineers replicated the incidents by testing more than 200,000 fully-assembled handsets and over 30,000 batteries.

The mobile business chief said they tested all possible factors including rapid and wireless charging features, waterproofing, iris scanning, USB type-C port and use of certain mobile applications to discover if they have caused the fire problem.

“Most of these tests resulted in no abnormalities, confirming that they were not related to the fire problem,” he said.