Creative Zen Air adopts a new design in appearance, equipped with a 10mm neodymium sound unit. Support Bluetooth 5.0 and AAC audio decoding. Built-in 4 microphones, support ANC mode, ambient mode, ENC call noise cancellation. Support SXFI holographic surround sound effect, and use it with supported TVs to bring immersive spatial audio effects. In terms of charging and battery life, the comprehensive battery life of 6H+12H supports wireless charging.
We have previously teardown Creative products including: Creative SXFI THEATER, Creative SXFI AIR, Creative SXFI GAMER, Creative OUTLIER AIR and Creative SXFI TRIO. Let’s take a look at the detailed teardown report of this product.
01/ Creative Zen Air charging case teardown
Pry open the charging case and take out the internal charging cabin structure.
The bottom structure of the cabin is fixed with a wireless charging receiving coil.
The structure on one side of the cabin is fixed with a battery, wrapped in insulating paper, and isolated from the lower main board by a sponge pad.
Remove the wireless charging coil and battery, and there are two PCB boards fixed at the bottom of the cabin, which are connected through FPC. All components on the cabin include: battery, motherboard, wired power input motherboard and wireless charging receiving coil.
The bottom structure of the cabin is equipped with 5 magnets to absorb earbuds and charging case cover.
The charging case has built-in lithium battery without silkscreen parameter information, and is equipped with a circuit protection board wrapped with insulating tape.
The circuit on one side of the circuit protection board is equipped with a lithium battery protection IC, a MOS tube, and a thermistor for detecting the battery temperature.
The lithium battery protection IC of the silkscreen DW01L is responsible for the protection of the battery from overcharge, overdischarge, and overcurrent.
Silkscreen 8205A MOS tube, working with lithium battery protection chip.
The circuit on one side of the power input mainboard is connected to the FPC with a ZIF connector.
The circuit on the motherboard side of the charging case.
The circuit on the other side of the charging case motherboard.
LY ICP1106 power management chip integrates switch charging, Boost synchronous boost, power path management, binaural independent plug detection, two-way communication, OVP, OCP protection and other functions. It has the characteristics of powerful performance, high integration and simple peripheral circuit.
The charging voltage, charging current, and output voltage of ICP1106 can be flexibly configured through I2C, which can easily realize TWS fast charging and efficient charging. Support power line carrier two-way communication and UART two-way communication, can reliably meet the information interaction requirements of charging case and earbuds, and realize intelligent control of earbuds and charging case. Support transport mode, the lowest standby power consumption can be 1uA. Support 0V, 2.4V, battery voltage and other voltage output standby modes.
The boost inductor cooperates with the power management chip to boost the battery to charge the earbuds.
Bluetooth pairing function button.
An unmarked MCU microcontroller is used for charging case control.
COPO CP2022 is a single-chip, advanced, flexible, secondary-side wireless charging transmission chip that can provide up to 3W of power for portable applications. It has the advantages of high integration, high efficiency, and low power consumption, and complies with the Qi V1.2.4 standard.
SiliconWisdom SWU254N N-pole micro-power Hall-effect switch is a micro-power consumption, high-sensitivity N-pole unipolar Hall switch sensing device. The internal circuit includes a Hall sheet, a voltage stabilization module, a signal amplification processing module, a dynamic offset elimination module and a CMOS output stage.
02/ Creative Zen Air earbuds teardown
Enter the teardown part of the earbuds and remove the back cover of the headset stem.
The inner structure of the cover is equipped with a bluetooth antenna and a touch detection patch.
The acoustic structure of the noise cancellation microphone is sealed with a rubber ring to improve the radio performance.
The main board unit structure inside the cavity is fixed by glue.
Open the earbud head cavity along the dieline.
The structure of the speaker unit inside the front cavity. There are magnets fixed on the wall of the cavity for fixing with the charging case.
Inside the rear cavity is a soft-packed button battery, and the positive and negative nickel sheets are wrapped with high-temperature insulating tape. Battery model: HJ 12540, nominal voltage: 3.7V, energy: 0.222Wh, production date: November 24, 2022, from HJ.
The battery and speaker are connected to the motherboard in the headset stem by wires respectively.
The internal structure of the headset stem has a magnet at the end and a sealing structure for the call microphone.
One side circuit of the earbud motherboard.
The circuit on the other side of the earbud motherboard.
Two metal copper pillars for earbud charging.
BES BES2300IU bluetooth audio SoC. There are multiple versions of BES2300 series, and the configurations are different with different suffixes. BES2300 series supports Bluetooth 5.0 and IBRT bluetooth technology. Support the third-generation FWS full wireless stereo technology, dual microphones, etc. Using 28nm HKMG CMOS process, BGA package.
Silkscreen C88 FG9C IC.
The MEMS microphone of laser carving ME38 D143 is a noise cancellation microphone. It is used for ANC, call noise cancellation, and environmental mode to pick up external environmental sounds, from MEMSensing.
Another MEMSensing MEMS microphone of the same model is used for voice call function to pick up human voice.
Pogo pin connector to connect the bluetooth antenna.
A 26.000MHz crystal oscillator is used to provide the clock.
Connect the Pogo pin connector of the touch detection sensor.
LY ICP1205 is a linear charging IC that supports two-way power line communication, and it is a headphone analog front-end designed for TWS earbuds system. ICP1205 integrates functions such as programmable linear charging, power path management, carrier and transparent transmission communication, earphone transport mode, etc. – with extremely low operating power consumption and standby function. The chip supports multiple perfect protection functions, and supports bluetooth main control firmware upgrade and data transmission functions.
ICP1205 is paired with ICP1106 to support efficiency charging mode. The output voltage of the charging case can be adjusted according to the earbud battery voltage, increasing the conversion rate of the charging case battery capacity by about 20% – provide assistance for TWS earbuds ultra-long standby time, reduce the size of charging case, and save battery cost.
Silkscreen 781 2C touch detection IC.
The front of the dynamic speaker is protected by a metal cover.
In the middle of the back of the dynamic speaker is the tuning hole for improved audio performance.
After actual measurement, the size of the speaker is about 10mm, which is consistent with the official propaganda.
All components of Creative Zen Air true wireless earphones.
03/ Summary
As Creative’s new generation of TWS earbuds, Creative Zen Air takes “light and stylish” as the theme, and provides consumers with a light and portable product with excellent texture and brand characteristics. Brand-new exterior design, the charging case made of piano varnish technology, has a thick texture. The handle-shaped in-ear earbuds are rich in layers, comfortable to wear and skin-friendly.
In terms of main internal configuration, the charging case supports both wired and wireless input power. Wired charging uses a Type-C interface, and the LY ICP1106 power management chip is responsible for charging the built-in lithium battery, and integrates a Boost synchronous boost to boost the built-in battery to charge the earbuds. It also supports power path management, plug detection, two-way communication, OVP, OCP protection and other functions. Wireless charging adopts COPO CP2022 wireless charging transmission chip, which can provide 3W charging power and is compatible with Qi V1.2.4 standard. Equipped with a SiliconWisdom SWU254N N extremely micro-power Hall effect switch for opening and connecting functions.
The earbud is equipped with a 10mm neodymium sounding unit and two MEMSensing MEMS microphones. Built-in soft pack button battery, capacity 0.222Wh, from HJ. The motherboard uses LY ICP1205 linear charging IC, which integrates rich functions. Equipped with the internal ICP1106 power management chip of the charging case, it supports efficient charging mode and improves the battery capacity conversion rate of the charging case by about 20%. The main control chip is BES BES2300IU bluetooth audio SoC.
Source: 52audio
Check the Creative Zen Air price:
- Check latest price on Amazon US
- Check latest price on Amazon Germany
- Check latest price on other Amazon countries
