Apple Acquiring the Majority of Intel's Smartphone Modem Business

[BootsWalking]

It's the check in the checkmate. Apple got Qualcomm's lawsuits off their back, paying less for the modems than they would have for a years long lawsuit and potential settlements while giving Apple 5G chips in the near future and buying themselves time to develop their own in house solution. Best possible outcome.

That's quite a favorable spin you put on an outcome that was decidedly different in reality:

"Qualcomm just pummeled Apple over patents and technology because, well, it appears the scales tipped in Qualcomm’s favor. SemiAccurate has been saying that Qualcomm would prevail and since we first started covering this suit and Apple’s tactics, and now they have. If you read our last piece on the suits it was pretty obvious that Apple was in the wrong, allegedly caught red handed, and dug the hole deeper with their petty and vindictive reactions. Qualcomm claims to have multiple emails where Apple gave sensitive trade secrets to a competitor, then refused to allow Qualcomm to exercise their contractual audit rights. While there may be some more evidence not presented publicly, it sure looks like Apple was in the wrong. So rather than fixing their alleged wrongs and making Qualcomm whole, they appear to have withheld legitimate royalty payments and launched a barrage of somewhat specious trade and patent related counter-suits along with lowball press sniping."

Source: https://www.semiaccurate.com/2019/04/16/qualcomm-just-beat-apple-into-sumbission/

 

[NickName99]

I personally don't care about the engineering behind it. It's about being able to actually make and receive phone calls. When the iPhone XS Max that is sitting on my table continually says "call failed" when I try to answer it, yet the iPhone 7 doesn't, that's enough conclusion for me that Intel modems are garbage. I'm not the only one that has that problem either.

I would be happy to swap my 256MB iPhone X for your iPhone XS, as long as yours has at least 256MB. I’ve got a Qualcomm modem in mine, it works great!

 

[ksec]

What stolen qualcomm designs?

He is referring to Qualcomm Code and email forwarded to Intel employees. Which likely to be less than 0.01% of the total Qualcomm Modem design.

 

[ghostface147]

They have a lot of work to do since the Intel modems aren't exactly the best.

 

[csurfr]

I would be happy to swap my 256MB iPhone X for your iPhone XS, as long as yours has at least 256MB. I’ve got a Qualcomm modem in mine, it works great!

I'll do you one better! It has 256GB !

It's about to get handed to a friend who has an iPhone 6 though. Otherwise I'd have been all over it. Even with the decrease in screen size.

 

[cmaier]

He is referring to Qualcomm Code and email forwarded to Intel employees. Which likely to be less than 0.01% of the total Qualcomm Modem design.

No no. The code for the test bench is 100% of the design, don't you know.

 

[realtuner]

If they're able to integrate the modem into the SoC, this will be great for our battery life.

I always wondered about this. Perhaps @cmaier can chime in on this topic.

Are two separate chips performing two different functions suddenly going to continue to perform those same two functions at significantly less power if they happen to be on a single die?

I would think the advantage of a separate cellular modem is you have freedom in design (placement of the modem compared to the amplifiers and antenna) in your device. Further, with Apple designing both they could create their own interconnect between processor and modem for optimum transfer speeds and power (maybe?).

 

[citysnaps]

For sure. The same plan they had with Siri.

Seriously? The manager who released Siri (and Maps) to market was canned years ago.

You greatly underestimate Johny Srouji and his team.

 

[ksec]

No no. The code for the test bench is 100% of the design, don't you know.

Yes, but that is assuming 100% of the code, I remember it was code snippet or some manual. I cant be bother to search for that news again, but it was what the previous poster was referring to. I doubt that ( code sharing ) actually happened. As Apple and Intel will get sued to oblivion.

 

[realtuner]

That's quite a favorable spin you put on an outcome that was decidedly different in reality:

"Qualcomm just pummeled Apple over patents and technology because, well, it appears the scales tipped in Qualcomm’s favor. SemiAccurate has been saying that Qualcomm would prevail and since we first started covering this suit and Apple’s tactics, and now they have. If you read our last piece on the suits it was pretty obvious that Apple was in the wrong, allegedly caught red handed, and dug the hole deeper with their petty and vindictive reactions. Qualcomm claims to have multiple emails where Apple gave sensitive trade secrets to a competitor, then refused to allow Qualcomm to exercise their contractual audit rights. While there may be some more evidence not presented publicly, it sure looks like Apple was in the wrong. So rather than fixing their alleged wrongs and making Qualcomm whole, they appear to have withheld legitimate royalty payments and launched a barrage of somewhat specious trade and patent related counter-suits along with lowball press sniping."

Source: https://www.semiaccurate.com/2019/04/16/qualcomm-just-beat-apple-into-sumbission/

This article was already debunked and I see you’re still reposting it.

 

[xnu]

It was a telegraphed move.

Seriously, I think getting 2200 engineers is a good thing. Hopefully they can continue to work with Intel to come up with some exciting new products.

 

[csurfr]

US has the least Cell tower to capita in the developed world, even within Cities, Cell Tower density are still lower. In perfect condition Intel isn't that much different to Qualcomm. It is those lower signals and edge cases where it shows the Strength of Qualcomm solution.

Exactly. Especially when it comes to CDMA, when most of the world is on GSM. I'm in a pretty major city, not in the country, so signal quality for all of the carriers should be top notch, but unfortunately the XS Max just doesn't seem to hold onto one.

 

[cmaier]

It was a telegraphed move.

Seriously, I think getting 2200 engineers is a good thing. Hopefully they can continue to work with Intel to come up with some exciting new products.

Working with Intel how?

 

[Michvuee]

Wonder if Apple can make Intel chips better than Qualcomm and let's be honest Intel chips are bad. I hope they can since their CPU already dominates the smartphones. I don't see this happening until a couple years down the line

 

[Solomani]

Didn’t Apple just sign a long-term contract with qualcomm?

It will take at least a couple of years before Apple sees the benefits of this Intel acquisition. In the meantime, Kissy-Kissy with Archenemy Qualcomm.

 

[H2SO4]

This makes the most sense. Apple is the perfect fit for this acquisition. I can see the 5G modem being integrated into the system on a chip in a few years. This will result in superior speed and energy efficiency while keeping the price low. That kind of advantage is something even Qualcomm won't be able to rival.

Price low for who though, you and I?
Don't bet on it.

 

[BootsWalking]

This article was already debunked and I see you’re still reposting it.

I see you're still claiming it was debunked.

 

[ksec]

Questions I have in my mind right now.

1. iPhone 8 uses Intel Modem 7480, unlike the newer version this one is still done on TSMC 28nm, will Apple pick this up and Fabb it themselves?

2. While Apple made 5G Modem will likely be another 3 - 4 years away. How fast can Apple ramp up a 4G solution for their lower end iPhone? Or even Apple Watch.

 

[realtuner]

I see you're still claiming it was debunked.

As long as people post incorrect information I will continue to call them out. Perhaps you should concentrate on facts instead of “feel good” sound bites that stoke your dislike for Apple.

Apple is paying less for modems than they were before. Not sure how anyone could think of that as a loss for Apple or a win for Qualcomm. That’s just for starters....

 

[netdudeuk]

It’s not good news when a company with massive financial resources can go and buy what it wants. This builds a more dominant company which can keep down the competition. The time is right for Apple to be investigated.

 

[MRrainer]

There was an article a while ago, before the Qualcomm settlement, where an anonymous source relayed how furious Johny Srouji was towards an Intel manager over the fact that Intel didn’t deliver and was over time and budget.
Now, he has to deliver.

 

[creediddy]

Wow Apple just hit a grand slam.

 

[Sasparilla]

Nice to see. They can take Intel's 5G work and bring it out when its ready, in the meantime using Qcomm's stuff for initial 5G. 5G is looking like such a beast of a technology (this is a paywall but the video should be playable) from a smartphone standpoint (3 different frequency areas, microwaves, mid range and low range) that I would not be surprised if Gen 2 5G phones are not that great (battery etc. wise). Seems like a bigger rock to swallow than the 3G to 4G transition was, but we'll see.

Stumbled on this PCMagazine article which analyzed how things were going for Intel modems from X to Xs. They made alot of progress, got most of the way to Qcomm's performance and would expect the 2019's to be even better.

 

[Glockworkorange]

Could they build 5G into MacBooks with this purchase? I mean, not today, I get that.

 

[Premium1]

As I said before, blame your provider with weak signals/coverage, I have no issue here as many others in Europe.

Lol it isn't the provider when it worked fine with the Qualcomm modems.