Apple Considered Purchasing Intel's Smartphone Modem Chip Business

[lec0rsaire]

Qualcomm is just good at what they do and they focused on 5G earlier than everyone else. Same with Huawei. It’s totally possible that they hold too many important patents that would make equaling or surpassing the quality of their modems very difficult.

However, it’s always bad when one company controls some tech. Lack of competition is always bad for the consumer so I’m not happy that Intel is exiting the business although I understand why it’s not worth it for them to pursue 5G. They have other priorities like perfecting their 10nm and future 7nm chips as well as competing with nVidia and AMD with their upcoming discrete Intel Xe GPUs. If Intel succeeds GPU prices will come down and each generation should see even greater performance gains than we see now.

I’m just glad that Apple settled with them and iPhones will again have the best modems available. I made sure to buy the 7 Plus with the Qualcomm.

 

[PickUrPoison]

Apparently Tim Cook disagrees with you otherwise he wouldn’t have needed to settle.

Apple didn’t settle with Qualcomm because they needed 5G, they settled because they got everything they needed/wanted without having to go through the trial process. No reason not to settle at that point, it’s best for both parties.

It would have been nice if they could have come to an agreement years earlier instead of at the courthouse steps, but negotiations came to an impasse quite some time ago and Apple decided to apply maximum pressure. That’s the way business is, and Cook is an exceedingly tough negotiator.

 

[lec0rsaire]

Logical fallacy. Here, let me try another one.

If 5G was so critical, then the 2019 iPhone should come with 5G and Apple shouldn't wait until the 2020 iPhone to add it.

Apple has delayed moving to the new gen in the past. The released the OG iPhone with Edge when they could’ve waited a year to launch it with 3G. They released the 4S with “4G” HSPA+ and introduced LTE on the 5 which was heavily criticized at the time.

To be fair the 4S speeds were in line with the lower range of 4G speeds on the competition at the time. LTE took a few more years to mature.

 

[PickUrPoison]

Intel was likely not completely forth coming about its 5G plans and issues it was having, thus difficult for Apple to commit to a 5G modem supplier with less than all the information. So Apple suggests an acquisition opportunity, which it knows will take years of negotiation, and had no real intention of an acquiring. Once Apple gets access to the real technical and financial details of the business, internally they make a decision it is cheaper to settle with Qualcom than to try to acquire and fund their own 5G modem development and manufacturing.

That Machiavellian theory makes no sense, because Apple is proceeding with developing their own baseband chip. They’ll buy Qualcomm’s and/or Samsung’s until theirs is ready.

They may or may not buy all or part of Intel’s 5G mobile chip business, depending on whether they think it will be beneficial to them; it might give them a leg up, or it might just saddle them with poor design decisions that are technological dead ends. Apple’s got some really smart folks who I’m sure will figure out whether what Intel has is worth having.

 

[BigBoy2018]

Thank god they didn’t
[doublepost=1556309759][/doublepost]
The original iMac shipped with 4gb of storage. Needs change over time. Sure 5G might not be “necessary” now, but who knows what our needs will be 5 years from now. Maybe I’ll want to watch live tv in 4K on my tablet. Sure it’s not possible today, but you never know about the future.

Read the post directly above this one. If 5g doesn’t translate into notable real world, noticeable gains, then it’s borderline useless. Period.

 

[0947347]

Qualcom’s paten trolls.... I mean lawyers would probably go through every single transistor to make sure it’s patents wouldn’t be infringed upon.... probably a good move to just let that be for the moment

Trollwyers

 

[kaycrystal626]

It’s bad for the industry if there is only one supplier.

There is always Samsung and Huawei.

 

[BuffaloTF]

Not surprising. Intel focuses on the big revenue wins almost exclusively. This is also why they don’t play in the APU game, the margins are too low for their tastes... so they yield that market to AMD.

 

[PickUrPoison]

There is always Samsung and Huawei.

Apple’s supposedly using Samsung in a dual-source arrangement with Qualcomm for 2020, but I have my doubts whether it’s true.

Huawei is an option for other manufacturers but not for Apple. They do provide competition though, which affects the overall market, and helps keep a lid in prices (even though Apple won’t be using them).

 

[goobot]

Apple didn’t settle with Qualcomm because they needed 5G, they settled because they got everything they needed/wanted without having to go through the trial process. No reason not to settle at that point, it’s best for both parties.

It would have been nice if they could have come to an agreement years earlier instead of at the courthouse steps, but negotiations came to an impasse quite some time ago and Apple decided to apply maximum pressure. That’s the way business is, and Cook is an exceedingly tough negotiator.

Correct me if I’m wrong but Apple’s new deal is worse than their old one. Seems like to me Apple folded because of 5g.

 

[farkingdom]

You have the think of the big picture. 5G isn’t going to be big for phones it will be big for everything else internet connected.

I live in Australia where most the population lives on the coast line. Or in small isolated towns in the middle. But most the middle isn’t populated. This makes wireless connectivity far easier to implement then rolling out hundreds and hundreds of miles of fibre optic cable to give the small towns decent internet speeds.

We already have an awesome phone network that already covers theses areas. An upgrade to the tower means that town gets fast speeds, not for phones but for internet on their computers, remote hospitals etc.

Also think of the application with drones flying and relaying information back. With more data steam more information can be sent back to a remote location.

5G isn’t for phones. It’s building a network for more than just phones.

Except that you forgot that 5G requires rolling out fiber to build and connect more mini base station, as higher frequency cannot penetrate buildings as easily compared to previous 4G or 3G.

As for those who are scared of living near a cellular tower, whelp at least now we know 5G is going to increase the number of cellular towers all over the place. Meaning more exposure to RF radiation for us.

Why didn’t we conduct more study on technology like 5G’s high frequency wave towards human skin. Why are we rushing this when 4G is already fine for most of us?

 

[PickUrPoison]

Correct me if I’m wrong but Apple’s new deal is worse than their old one. Seems like to me Apple folded because of 5g.

Not sure what you’re referring to, I don’t see any way in which Apple’s worse off.

 

[bollman]

Very much this. As much as one supplier wants to control the entire market, that makes for more constraint, driving prices higher. There needs to be multiple suppliers in the long run creating diversity.

Oh how I love MacRumors. Of course, when Apple needs something, there should be an endless amount of suppliers where Apple can pick and choose the greatest tech (or whatever they're shopping for) more or less for free (because the supplier should be oh so happy Apple is doing business with them).
But if someone threatens Apples stranglehold on something, ridicule to the offender and death to regulators looking into it.

"There can be only one..."

 

[0924487]

Consider that a 50 ms round trip latency means car traveling at 70 mph will move 5 ft even before any decisions can be made.

26 ms is good for humans but about 10x too slow for AI.

The point is synchronous decisions should be made asynchronously in case of cars. You send instructions for directions not how to drive. That’s fine by drive computers. Otherwise what do you do when you are in a tunnel? What do you do when you are driving by a motorcade with signal jammers? You crash. If there is a possibility of failure, your design should assume that it will happen.

 

[homegrownhero]

I’m seeing a 26ms ping on my LTE on my 2017 iPhone X. I just ran Speedtest from inside the office building I work in.

Seems fine, pretty darn low latency really.

I mean I'm pretty sure your grandparents back in the dial up days also thought "meh this is enough".

The idea is to have the same level of good wifi speeds *everwhere*.
Also one thing on the top of my head: the future facilitation of cloud computing? Like if *everything* in your phone/computer is hosted then you'd want minimum latency and maximum data/s etc. Like the kind of latency that would make competitive gamers moist.

 

[Degerz]

Again, not going to happen since Intel are interested in using their modem unit for other businesses ...

Apple is not going to be able to keep up because radio access technology moves at a very fast pace of innovation. Apple licensing Qualcomm's patents aren't going to change this one bit so that means that their still currently behind Intel in this field which also license the same patents from Qualcomm ...

Apple are clearly going to have to hold out beyond 2021 to be able to self source their own modems. It is arrogance on the part of Apple enthusiasts to believe otherwise ...

Apple should rectify this mistake in the future once the next generation radio access technology is under development so that they make sure to participate constructively at 3GPP ...

 

[0924487]

The point is that at the END of the process
(a) You can have a more performant device. You can use lower power by moving the logic onto the SoC (right now it's a separate chip on the PCB). And if Apple chooses to prioritize performance over area (like they have done with their CPUs and GPUs) you can devote more area to things like Viterbi decoding, which translate into higher performance.

(b) You can save money. Yes, whatever you do you owe QC royalties. But right now, you're ALSO paying QC to buy those modems. If you make your own modems, you're not paying QC that money, and it's not costing you as much if it's just another 10% or so of the SoC die.

No, I don’t agree. Huawei owns the majority of the SEPs standard essential patents. Even QC would have to pay Huawei for those. Of course Huawei needs to pay QC some as well. So if Apple heavily invest in 5G chip building with SEP, basically they can cut all patent fees that is not SEP

 

[KGBguy]

One word:
Latency

Exactly, 1.5 ms vs 60 ms is huge.

 

[goobot]

Not sure what you’re referring to, I don’t see any way in which Apple’s worse off.

I think their royalties are higher.

 

[chatin]

Something is clearly amiss at Intel. When the CFO gets to run the company it's in a death spiral.

 

[rafark]

Such worldwide tech should not be allowed to be held hostage by a single company, if that is indeed the case.

Why not? If Qualcomm invested and invented new technologies to have better Internet, then it deserves to have full rights to these new technologies its team has created. Qualcomm is a for profit organization, this is how capitalism works and every company should be rewarded for its inventions/discoveries.

Qualcomm deserves to have the rights to its modems, the same way apple deserves to have the rights to its A* chips.

 

[fokmik]

"
Apple Considered Purchasing"

So considered...why we still debating how it will be since they didn't purchase ?

 

[Degerz]

Why not? If Qualcomm invested and invented new technologies to have better Internet, then it deserves to have full rights to these new technologies its team has created. Qualcomm is a for profit organization, this is how capitalism works and every company should be rewarded for its inventions/discoveries.

Qualcomm deserves to have the rights to its modems, the same way apple deserves to have the rights to its A* chips.

Could not have said it better myself and until Apple starts setting standards at 3GPP it'll stay the way it's supposed to be which is Apple continuing being a follower of the standards ...

Qualcomm were one of the pioneers of 2G/3G/LTE and their one of the pioneers of 5G NR today. I have nothing other than respect for Qualcomm's contributions to radio access technology so they deserve to reap the benefits of being an innovator in full ...

 

[0388631]

This is one of the times Intel shouldn't be complacent and sell it to Apple.

 

[dwaite]

What is so special about 5G? Sure its faster but LTE is already fast so why is everyone obsessed about 5G? Also, it will take years before the coverage is present so surely there is no rush

Lots of technical things are different. A big one is a common protocol across all the frequency ranges. Another is that the tower equipment is being built so that a 5G tower can handle a mix of LTE and 5G phones on the same frequency (and even older technologies back to 2G), making upgrading infrastructure easier and getting a lot more value by leveraging all those frequency ranges.

For cellular users, they will probably care more about reliability and coverage than a higher top speed at this point. Wireless signals behave differently at high and low frequencies, and carriers can take this into account by using high frequencies to offer higher bandwidth and service ultra-dense areas (such as say a stadium), and lower frequencies to cover larger areas and penetrate buildings.

There are a lot of non-cellular use cases. For instance, for very low speed, low power devices it sounds like it could eventually be in the <$1 chip, $1/yr charged usage range. At the higher performance end, cellular companies may start competing with the DSL/cable ISPs for home internet access.