iFixit

The I/O board is pretty much unchanged from the previous 13" MacBook Air.

The Cirrus 4206BCNZ audio controller was also used in last year's Air, as well as most of the Mac lineup in recent history.

The cable being disconnected in the first picture is the new keyboard backlight ribbon cable.

• The backlit keyboard is a returning feature to the Air lineup. It had been removed in the previous-generation model.

After disconnecting all the cables we could find, we moved on to the T5 Torx screws holding down the logic board.

With that, we can finally remove the logic board from its home.

To strip down the logic board further, we remove the miniscule heat sink from its cozy position on the Core i5 processor.

Surprisingly, there isn't too much excess thermal paste between the processor and the heat sink. This is a nice departure from Apple's recent trend of assaulting processors with gobs of thermal paste.

Major Players on the top side of the logic board include:

• Intel Core i5 Processor-2557M with integrated Intel HD 3000 graphics
• Intel E78296 01PB10 / E116A746 SLJ4K Platform Controller Hub. We're guessing this includes an integrated Thunderbolt controller. It's not this part, but it's similar.
• Genesys Logic 822 SD-slot controller
• DSL2310 L123TA46 Eagle Ridge SFF Thunderbolt controller
• Linear Technology 3857

Shifting to integrated graphics on the processor freed up a lot of room on the board—enough for Apple to add the sizeable Thunderbolt-capable PCH.

If you're interested in more information on Intel's mobile chipsets, Wikipedia has a lot of interesting information.

Chips on the back of the logic board board include:

• Hynix H5TQ2G838ZR 4 GB RAM
• F2117LP 20H RVP
• TPS51980
• SMSC USB2513B USB 2.0 Hub Controller
• Parade PS8301
• MAXIM 15092G

Next, we turn our attention back to the upper case.

Here's a big surprise: the circuit board attached to the back of the trackpad is identical to the one on last year's Air.

A new addition to the upper case is the network of LEDs attached to the keyboard backlight cable. A couple LEDs transmit light through fiber optic channels to evenly illuminate the keys on the keyboard.

The speakers are stuck down to the upper case with some adhesive and can be easily removed.

Nothing new to see here.

We've been impressed with the audio quality in Apple's mobile devices lately. High sound quality from such small speaker cones can be attributed to carefully tuning the speaker enclosure to maximize sound output, hence their odd L-shape.

After cranking out a few T8 Torx screws, the display can be removed from the upper case.

This Air is equipped with the same 1440 x 900 LED backlit display as the previous 13" Air.

The thickness restriction of such a thin display was the deciding factor in equipping the Air with a 640x480 FaceTime camera instead of the 1280x1024 FaceTimeHD model.