Apple developing own iPhone cellular modem, hirings and insiders say

Intel's iPhone modem with penny for scale

A new Apple job listing is suggesting that the company is looking to break the shackles of Qualcomm and Intel for the iPhone in the future, raising the possibility again that Apple might make its own cellular modem.

In a job listing posted in early December, Apple is seeking a cellular systems architect to work out of San Diego. Why specifically in San Diego isn't clear — other than effectively being Qualcomm's backyard — but sources told The Information that Apple has plans to build a new cellular modem chip out of that location.

While the job listing is new, Apple's intentions to develop its own cellular modem have been fairly clear based on recent hires. In 2014, Apple recruited at least 30 mid and senior-level RF engineers from Broadcom and Qualcomm, suggesting an intent to begin working on its own internal baseband chips.

Executives cited for the project are Bernd Adler, previously of Intel's modem team and Esin Terzioglu, a former vice president at Qualcomm and presently Apple's wireless chip head.

The report from The Information suggests that any Apple-designed chip is three years away from shipping.

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11 Comments

wood1208

said about 5 years ago

Would be nice if Apple can embedded it's own modem into A-series chips in 2021 iPhones. Apple should also develop own WiFi 6 and BT 5 chips. Has to happen to drive the components cost down and avoid IP royalties,issues.

ksec

said about 5 years ago

wood1208 said:

Would be nice if Apple can embedded it's own modem into A-series chips in 2021 iPhones. Apple should also develop own WiFi 6 and BT 5 chips. Has to happen to drive the components cost down and avoid IP royalties,issues.

Apple is definitely working on their own WiFi 6 and BT 5 solution, across every Apple product uses WiFi and BT, and it make sense to bring them in. Although I think that is for 2020. I doubt Apple is making their own Modem though, they are more likely license a fully working Mediatek blueprint and fab it themselves.

tht

said about 5 years ago

I would bet a lot that Apple has been dabbling making their own cellular modems for 6 years now. There’s always going to be argument about what is the value add of doing this. The only value really is less power at comparable signal strength to other modems, more signal at comparable signal strengths, etc. If it performs the same, they aren’t adding much with productising it.

The patent licensing fees don’t really change if they make there own. Just not a lot of advantages. If Apple is able to set licensing fees based on component costs however, watch out! A custom modem than would be low single digit dollars instead of high tens of dollars. That’s big. LTE modems cost about $130 for iPads and tablets. That could drop to basically free if the licensing structure changes.

There isn’t much reason for LTE not to be in virtually all computing devices. They should be in all laptop computers, all tablets, all cars, all GPS devices, etc. The current licensing structure effectively stops this from happening as it is too expensive.

zoetmb

said about 5 years ago

They should do their own, but even if they do, they would have to do so without violating any current patents, otherwise they'll still be in litigation. And you just know that Qualcomm will be looking at whatever they do and will claim that they have violated their patents.

Apple needs to do their own not just to escape Qualcomm because of the legal disputes but because Qualcomm is doing quite badly. They had a net income loss in 2018 of $4.86 billion. In 2014, they had net income of $7.54 billion and it's been trending down since.

Market cap is still about $71 billion which is ridiculous for a company that's losing money big time. If they were still making decent profits, I'd argue Apple should buy them.

hodar

said about 5 years ago

How does Qualcom win in this scenario?

Alienate a major player into creating his own sets of Modems, specific to his needs. This player has more than ample cash on hand, to simply buy you. So, you continue to harass this "customer" until he mixes your product, with your primary competitor. In a year or two, this major source of cell phone revenue will have built his own specific modem, and due to existing technology, he can modular it such that this new product not only serves him; but also can be sold to other existing customers (now at a discount).

This seems like a stupid war, where the best that Qualcomm can hope for, is going bankrupt (or severely reduced in customer base). Because LTE is a STANDARD, they cannot demand royalties on implementing it, only royalties on "how" the protocol is implemented. I do not see Apple utilizing the same techniques as Qualcomm, as they likely already have in-house solutions that will accomplish the tasks required - it's simply a task to organize these patents into a modem tailored to their needs.