Samsung introduces multilayer safety checks for new phones

By Yoon Sung-won

Concluding that a battery flaw was the root cause of the Galaxy Note 7’s fire problem, Monday, Samsung Electronics pledged to solidify the safety check process of the batteries used for its products. It will first be applied to its flagship smartphone Galaxy S8 to be unveiled this March or April.

Samsung Electronics Mobile Communication Business President Koh Dong-jin said the company will introduce what it calls the “eight-point battery safety check” and “multilayer safety measures protocol,” and formed an advisory group composed of external experts to prevent a recurrence of the Note 7 fiasco.

“Samsung Electronics will prioritize quality and safety above all,” Koh said during a press conference in Seoul.

Koh said the eight-point safety check is an upgrade of the company’s existing quality control process. It includes an enhanced random sample procedure as well as newly introduced X-ray and dismantling tests. In the process are total voltage organic compound tests and delta open circuit voltage tests, which checks battery liquid leakage and voltage fluctuation, he said.

“We have introduced special equipments to verify internal problems of battery units and new processes that test charge-and-release of batteries,” Koh said.

The multiplayer safety measures are part of the check process for possible danger factors in the battery design stage, which can preemptively minimize the chance of causing problems, it said.

The company strengthened battery safety design standards too. To this end, Koh said new devices will have extra room around the battery to minimize physical damage on it if the handset accidentally falls.

Koh said the company is considering sharing the eight-point battery safety check and the multiplayer safety measures to other businesses as a way to help consumers get safer products from the market.

The advisory group includes four academic and research experts ― University of Cambridge chemistry professor Clare Grey, UC Berkeley materials science and engineering professor Gerbrand Ceder, Stanford University materials science and engineering professor Yi Cui and Amaz Techno-consultant CEO Toru Amazutsumi.

“We must recognize that batteries have inherent, but generally managed, risks, given the high reactivity of the highly oxidized and reduced materials that are used to generate the high energy densities required by devices,” Prof. Grey said.

“I hope the advisory board will continue to work closely with Samsung to learn important lessons from these incidents and help improve the safety of lithium-ion battery technology for Samsung and the entire battery industry.”

Alongside Koh’s announcement of Samsung’s own investigation results on the root cause of Note 7 problem, executives from three foreign product safety consulting firms ― UL, Exponent and TUV Rheinland ― joined the media event on Monday to release what they have found from their separate researches.

In general, both UL and Exponent agreed that the two types of batteries provided respectively by Samsung SDI and China’s Amperex Technology Limited (ATL) have different flaws, and that they did not discover any flaws other than the batteries.

In their investigation briefing, UL Consumer Business Unit President Sajeev Jesudas and Exponent Principal Scientist Kevin White said Samsung SDI’s batteries had problems on the upper right corner of the negative tab while ATL’s batteries had unnaturally projected welding defects on the positive tab to tear the insulation tape and separation coating to make contact with the negative tap, causing internal short circuit.

While two U.S. companies have focused on the batteries, German-based TUV Rheinland looked into Samsung’s logistics process between Vietnam, China and Korea.

TUV Rheinland Executive Vice President Holder Kunz said its investigation has not revealed problems in Samsung’s handset assembly and logistics processes that might have caused the fire problem.