iPhone 3G Hardware Unlocked by TA_Mobile

This entry was posted on Monday, December 1st, 2008 by Aaron Besson
Category: 3G iPhone, Featured, Hardware Unlock (Sim Hacks), What's New.



Tuan Anh Do shows off an unlocked iPhone 3G at one of his cell phone repair shops in Hanoi. (Credit: Dong Ngo/CBS Interactive)

Tuan Anh aka TA_Mobile, Vietnamese cell shop owner and iPhone hacker, has maanged to unlock the iPhone 3G via a crazy hardware hack that involved removing the motherboard from the iPhone 3G, removing the BaseBand Chip (SGOLD) and re-flashing it and then re-fitting it to the motherboard.

TA_Mobile if you remember was the first to extract the 5.8 bootloader form the iPhone 3G via a hardware method, and has now once again proven his hardware skills. This unlocking method is really not for the faint of heart and probably no one but the TA_Mobile shops will be preforming this hack for sometime. It will set you back $80 USD, not much for most of us, but a small fortune for those in Vietnam.

Here are some photos and quotes form the original story on CNet that can be found here. Stay tuned for more about Hardware Unlocking the iPhone 3G and news from the Dev Team about the software unlock:

A technician opens up a brand new iPhone 3G in one of Tuan Anh

First, a technician opened up the phone and stripped it to the motherboard. In his skillful hands, the device seemed much easier to dismantle than I expected.

The technician then extracted the baseband chip, the component that controls the connection between the phone and the mobile network, from the motherboard. (This is a painstaking task as the chip is strongly glued to the phone’s motherboard. A mistake during this process could brick the phone completely.)

Once the chip was extracted, it was Tuan Anh’s turn. He used a chip reader to read information into a file. He then used a Hex editor to remove the locking data from the file, and after that, the chip got reprogrammed with the newly altered file. Now it was no longer programmed to work with only a specific provider.

The phone's motherboard with the baseband chip at the bottom and marked with a red X for viewing's sake. (Credit: Dong Ngo/CBS Interactive)

The phone

The chip then got reassembled into the motherboard, another painstaking process.

As a last step, the technician put the phone back together, and it looked like nothing had been done to it.

However, the phone is now unlocked and can be used with any carrier’s SIM. It can also be synced with iTunes and used with the original carrier and it can perform all other functions without any problem. But it’s not yet jailbroken, which Tuan Anh will do for free. He’ll even add lots of applications and utilities at no additional cost.

The baseband chip (which I marked with a red X to make it more visible) has been extracted from the motherboard. (Credit: Dong Ngo/CBS Interactive)

The baseband chip (which I marked with a red X to make it more visible) has been extracted from the motherboard. (Credit: Dong Ngo/CBS Interactive)
The chip gets glued back onto the motherboard. (Credit: Dong Ngo/CBS Interactive)

The chip gets glued back onto the motherboard. (Credit: Dong Ngo/CBS Interactive)
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