Re:It's your device, you should be able to repair it
by neop1x on Saturday May 01, 2021 @05:56AM
(#27004907)
Yes, it is often impossible to source things like Intel CPUs or chipsets. They sell them to device manufacturers only in millions. Even if you have IR rework station and can solder BGA chips you have no reliable source of these chips. It is even worse with Apple devices where they often use parts not publicly available at all (custom-made for them) and sometimes if they use a common STM32 micro, there is no firmware available to program it and it won't work without the firmware.
Apple went as far as to prevent genuine, that is, salvaged parts, from legitimately bought phones, from being used to replace camera units [2,3,4], or lock phones with replaced batteries.
[1] https://youtu.be/w4eHZCuHob8?t=175 Louis talks about part availability
[2] https://www.theverge.com/2020/10/30/21542242/apple-iphone-12...
[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AnG3h3Jewq4
[4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ez3f1HgOa1o