Daniel Leithinger

My laptop has been a trustworthy travel companion for many years until it died a few days ago. Dead is actually the wrong word, as it still lives in a state of analogue coma:

Anyways, that gave me the chance to take it apart and try to find out the origin of the individual internal components. The Figure shows how they are roughly put together and what the labels said:

According to the labels, the laptop components were assembled in the following countries:
* China: frame, case and keyboard, modem
* Taiwan: graphics card circuit, mainboard, CPU heatsink, touchpad, network card, buttons
* Korea: IC’s on mainboard and graphics card, RAM, DVD drive and case
* Japan: battery, speakers

After putting it back together, I discovered that no screws were leftover. Very strange, usually I always end up with a few spare parts. At least the machine shows the same nice effects on the screen as before.

If you are interested in laptop supply chains, check out Leonardo Bonnani’s website: Unraveling the Reach of Product Design