Apple Building Chip Team to Bring More Wireless Component Production In-House

[MacRumors]

Apple is creating a new office that will focus on wireless chip production as the company works to bring more of its chip development in-house, reports Bloomberg.

Apple is hiring a few dozen engineers for an office in Southern California to develop components that may eventually replace parts that are currently sourced from companies like Broadcom, Skyworks, and Qualcomm. The office is located in Irvine, California, which is close to Los Angeles and where major chip makers are located.

Based on job listings, Apple is seeking employees who have expertise in modem chips and wireless semiconductors, and at the facility, employees will work on wireless radios, radio-frequency integrated semiconductors, and semiconductors for connecting to Bluetooth and WiFi.

"Apple's growing wireless silicon development team is developing the next generation of wireless silicon!" one job listing says. Another says employees will "be at the center of a wireless SoC design group with a critical impact on getting Apple's state-of-the-art wireless connectivity solutions into hundreds of millions of products."

Apple in 2020 signed a multi-year deal with Broadcom, which was set to last for three and a half years, which means it will expire in 2023. Under the terms of the deal, Broadcom supplies Apple with "range of specified high-performance wireless components and modules."

When the contract expires, Apple will no longer need to use Broadcom components and can instead rely on its own components.

Apple has been working to bring more of its chip production in-house to reduce its reliance on third-party suppliers. Apple is fairly far along on its development of a 5G modem chip, for example, and when work on that chip is complete, the company will be able to stop sourcing 5G chips from Qualcomm.

Current rumors suggest that Apple's modem chips will be ready for use in the 2023 iPhone models, so Apple will continue to use Qualcomm chips for the iPhone 14 lineup.

Longtime Apple supplier TSMC will manufacture the Apple-designed 5G modems for the 2023 iPhones, and Qualcomm has already acknowledged that it expects to supply only 20 percent of the modems for the 2023 iPhone, with Apple largely relying on its own 5G chips.

Article Link: Apple Building Chip Team to Bring More Wireless Component Production In-House

 

[TheYayAreaLiving 🎗️]

Thinking about applying for the job. Thanks.

In-house chipset. Hopefully for the new iPhones? Let’s get it!!!

See you in another world Intel and Qualcomm. It’s game over!

 

[DelayedGratificationGene]

And the beat goes on….

 

[_Spinn_]

Should be interesting to see what Apple can do with its own wireless chips.

 

[rgeneral]

yes please create your own wifi chip too

 

[jz0309]

Not so good news for Broadcom and Skyworks as they both have large offices in Irvine. So Apple will want to own wifi as well as RF front end, interesting as those chips are low cost so what else is coming in-house?

 

[sahni130]

Personally would love a MacBook pro with built-in cellular. Hotspot works fine but why the heck not.

 

[guzhogi]

Personally would love a MacBook pro with built-in cellular. Hotspot works fine but why the heck not.

That would be useful for if/when I'm traveling.

Not sure how/where the DAC is located in Macs, iPhones & iPads, but I really hope these chip people can upgrade it to support 24-bit/192KHz audio. It's embarrassing how Apple Music supports 24 bit/192KHz audio, but not the hardware considering how many resources Apple has. Maybe also upgrade some of the headphones to have some form of wifi so they can support high res lossless while still being wireless.

 

[GMShadow]

A lot of Macs seem to lose support once Broadcom decides they don't want to deliver new Wi-Fi drivers, so it'll be interesting to see if in-house chips change that from a support cycle standpoint.

 

[bobmans]

Not so good news for Broadcom and Skyworks as they both have large offices in Irvine. So Apple will want to own wifi as well as RF front end, interesting as those chips are low cost so what else is coming in-house?

In an ideal world everything inside an Apple device would be designed in-house. So everything except manufacturing I guess

 

[DelayedGratificationGene]

In an ideal world everything inside an Apple device would be designed in-house. So everything except manufacturing I guess

Apple will get there..

 

[rpmurray]

Should be interesting to see who sues Apple for patent infringement once these chips are used in their devices.

 

[MBAir2010]

what good is a great processor when one can't use other products like a Bose Sundtouch or older software?

 

[jz0309]

In an ideal world everything inside an Apple device would be designed in-house. So everything except manufacturing I guess

I’m not convinced that designing every low cost part themselves is a good move, I think that headcount would be better suited for other things, those things that don’t exist today…

 

[ducknalddon]

I’m not convinced that designing every low cost part themselves is a good move, I think that headcount would be better suited for other things, those things that don’t exist today…

I don't know, modems look strategic for a phone company that owns half of the market.

 

[mannyvel]

I foresee huge interoperability issues when Apple moves to its own wireless chips. Apple tends to write to the spec, which is technically correct but tends to cause problems with broadcom et al because the other chips are so ubiquitous that everyone just works around their issues.

A company I worked at had SDK access to some broadcom product lines, and they (broadcom) didn't even seem know what source control meant. A substantial part of engineering's time was rolling bug fixes backwards and forwards in various revisions of broadcom-supplied code.

 

[jz0309]

I don't know, modems look strategic for a phone company that owns half of the market.

We’re not talking modem here, but wifi and RF front end, both commodity items…

 

[NMBob]

Will this be another new office that no one will be required to come to work in?

 

[827538]

Makes a lot of sense given Apple's volume. Integrating all RF like Bluetooth, 5G, GNSS, WiFi onto a single chip built on the latest node offers economies of scale (savings) and reduces power consumption over having a number of different chips for each RF technology. I can't imagine those X60 modems from Qualcomm come cheap.
Also makes it cheaper and easier to throw those chips into MacBooks and iPads.

If Apple can match Qualcomms 5G modems performance I will be massively impressed. In some ways it's a harder challenge than building a world class processor.

I also don't believe it will cause interoperability issues providing Apple makes a good modem, if anything it should make things simpler as you have a single modem across vast numbers of devices for the infrastructure guys to work with. It's not in Apple's interests to have anything other than 'it just works'. I'd argue the days when they are mixing Qualcomm and Intel modems in the same iPhones would cause far more of an issue.

 

[ApfelKuchen]

A natural part of a continuing trend. The H- and W-series chips are several generations along.

I think the key here, as it is with all Apple silicon, is to deliver Apple-specific/Apple-unique features to further strengthen brand distinction and ecosystem capabilities. As with the W-series chips - Bluetooth compatibility for non-Apple products, but extended capabilities (simpler pairing) when used with other Apple products.

The trick with a cellular modem is that it must be 100% compatible with the "outside" world. Apple does not make the equipment at the other end of the wireless connection. The goal here would simply be a better mousetrap - better connectivity, fewer dropped calls, etc. However, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, and other near-field communications leave room for greater creativity - more examples of multiple Apple products working better together than when used with non-Apple products.

 

[coolfactor]

The office is located in Irvine, California, which is close to Los Angeles and where major chip makers are located.

Apple has a new multi-million dollar campus that's not being fully utilized due to staff working from home, and they need to add yet another office? Seems puzzling to my. Why is close proximity to other chip makers important?

 

[Unregistered 4U]

By the time Apple gets to their “glasses” vision, it’s going to be clear to see where they’d been headed all along. Other companies may be able to cobble together disparate parts to match Apple’s features, but no one will be to match their performance, size, weight and battery life.

 

[827538]

I’m not convinced that designing every low cost part themselves is a good move, I think that headcount would be better suited for other things, those things that don’t exist today…

Cutting edge cellular modems are anything but low cost. These are not commodity chips, there's essentially a single vendor (Qualcomm) producing cutting edge 5G modems with excellent performance, and everyone else like Mediatek is playing catch up. Even Intel couldn't catch Qualcomm.

There's a lot of commodity chips for things like Bluetooth, WiFi, power regulation etc etc. Integrating these into a single RF chip actually makes a ton of sense. Less power usage, hopefully better performance, less space on the PCB, less diodes and capacitors feeding those individual chips. It all adds up. Also I bet Apple is paying more for Qualcomms X60 than they are paying TSMC to produce their A15.

I doubt they'd integrate the A chip with a cellular chip as the die size would hurt yields. But having an A series processor and say a C series modem/RF chip is 100% where Apple is heading. They've been steadily integrating chips together, like a T2 chip incorporating a SSD controller, decryption etc etc then incorporating that into the A/M chips,

 

[Unregistered 4U]

Why is close proximity to other chip makers important?

For employee acquisition? If there’s already a bunch of folks knowledgeable about chip production that are already comfortable enough living where they are, you could get a lot of folks jumping ship without having to move people from across the country or world.

 

[827538]

Apple has a new multi-million dollar campus that's not being fully utilized due to staff working from home, and they need to add yet another office? Seems puzzling to my. Why is close proximity to other chip makers important?

Close proximity to where chip engineers live. Easier to poach talent when the talent doesn't have to move.