Samsung finally explains why its Galaxy Note 7 exploded

2016 was a bit of a tough year for Samsung mainly due to its flagship device the Galaxy Note 7 “exploding” and the resultant global recall of all the devices with even our own local airline Air Zimbabwe banning the device from its planes.

The news of Samsung Note 7s catching fire/exploding spread across the world as Samsung failed to contain the issue resulting in them confirming the incidents and stopping production on what was meant to be its flagship 2016/2017 device before the release of its S8 range.

Now Samsung, staying true to its promise to explain what really happened, has released its findings on the incident, as we all speculated it was the battery! Samsung batteries for the Note 7 came from two manufacturers, Samsung SDI and Amperex Technology (both with defects).

In the case of batteries sourced from Samsung SDI:

• the most likely root cause for the thermal failure of cells was determined to be unintended damage to the negative electrode windings consistently in the corner of the cell closest to the negative tab providing multiple potential routes to internal cell faulting and thermal failure

and in the case of the Amperex Technology batteries:

• the most likely root cause for the thermal failure of cells was determined to be internal cell faulting between positive electrode tab welding defects and the copper foil of the negative electrode directly opposite the defective welds.

Samsung released a simple infographic which explains the causative factors which you can view below: