Katie MarsalIntel and Infineon announced Monday that they had agreed to the deal, in which Intel will own the wireless business of Germany's Infineon Technologies in exchange for $1.4 billion in cash. The deal pertains to a range of wireless technologies, including Wi-Fi, 3G, WiMAX and LTE.
Infineon makes the baseband chip found in the iPhone, and the company has had a strong partnership with Apple, supplying chipsets for Apple's smartphone since it was first released in 2007.
The relationship between Apple and Intel, however, has not been as rosy, as tension has stemmed from the fact that Apple opted to rely on ARM architecture for the iPhone and iPad. Intel has even publicly slammed the iPhone, stating that the device is not capable of accessing the "full Internet," and asserting that such functionality requires Intel-based architecture.
Apple has also entered into the chipmaking business, through key acquisitions of PA Semi for $278 million in 2008, and Intrinsity this year for $121 million. Those purchases set the stage for Apple to make its own custom A4 processor, based on the ARM architecture, found in the iPad and iPhone 4.
On the other hand, Intel has pushed its low-power, low-cost Atom processor for mobile devices, including smartphones, but the chips still cost more and use more power than their ARM competitors. The Atom was even pegged to be coming to Apple products in 2008, though it never came to be.
A deal between the Intel and Infineon has been rumored for the last month, though previous reports had alleged the company's wireless chip division could go for a price as high as $2 billion.
Andrew Orr
Wesley Hilliard
Christine McKee
Appleinsider Staff
Malcolm Owen
49 Comments
let's see if Intel makes customers put Intel Inside stickers on their phones
This could be interesting. What if they were to take the technology and merge it into their mobile processor so that there's no other option than to use their chip? Are their any other companies out their like infineon?
:-/ I kept saying apple should buy this company. People said infineon would never sell because German companies don't do that... It's not how they do business. Guess they were wrong.
Hope it means nothing more than am aquisition.
What a shame SJ didn't snap this company up, 1.4 B is small change to Apple. This is not good news for Apple I would have thought as it puts Intel in the position of control and making it hard if not impossible for special versions designed with and for Apple that no one else gets. Are there rival companies Apple could acquire to bring this technology in house as they have with the A4 chip I wonder?
This could be interesting. What if they were to take the technology and merge it into their mobile processor so that there's no other option than to use their chip? Are their any other companies out their like infineon?
:-/ I kept saying apple should buy this company. People said infineon would never sell because German companies don't do that... It's not how they do business. Guess they were wrong.
Hope it means nothing more than am aquisition.
Yeah Apple should have brought them as companies sell all the time its just not the norm for German companies as they will let you have a share but keep majority control...guess it just depends on if its that important to them...maybe if it were a auto company it would be different
What a shame SJ didn't snap this company up, 1.4 B is small change to Apple. This is not good news for Apple I would have thought as it puts Intel in the position of control and making it hard if not impossible for special versions designed with and for Apple that no one else gets. Are there rival companies Apple could acquire to bring this technology in house as they have with the A4 chip I wonder?
Are there any reports that Apple uses truly customized radio processors for Macs, iPhones, and iPads? My assumption has been those are essentially off-the-shelf parts they've buying from Infineon. If true, this deals matters little if anything to Apple.