I look forward to producing it's own modem chips and the new features that result from this transition.
If they can make a chip on par or better. There's a lot to say against Qualcomm, but technically inept is not on that list. Both Infineon and Intel are world class companies with experience in these types of components and they failed to compete.I would imagine the money saved from not paying Qualcomm's profit margins alone would make it worth it for Apple. If they can make a chip that is on par or better, it makes absolute sense for Apple.
Yes right after they finish acquiring it.Wow, I thought Apple was going to drop Intel.
What's missing in this discussion so far is the reason why it makes sense for modems. Qualcomm pricing is only a minor part of the calculus, I suspect...Profit via vertical integration. Makes sense for modems and processors. This enables the former, catalyst the latter. I think Nadella knows Tim Apple's plan. I think Satya has his own plan. Going to be interesting.
Man, if this happens I hope they pull it off. Their success with the A-series chips suggests they can, but it also sounds like Intel was struggling to pull it together. Does it make sense to go through the effort if the end game is a standards compliant chip with only yourself as a customer?
How can China steal something they already have?Apple will just ship the entire business to China. Everyone is dumping 5G businesses because governments will not hold China accountable for IP theft. Good move for Intel to sell it before China steals it anyway.
Let me get this straight. Apple are trying to acquire the same baseband processor design team that failed to meet their own originally specified deadline ?
Apple will just ship the entire business to China. Everyone is dumping 5G businesses because governments will not hold China accountable for IP theft. Good move for Intel to sell it before China steals it anyway.
Man, if this happens I hope they pull it off. Their success with the A-series chips suggests they can, but it also sounds like Intel was struggling to pull it together. Does it make sense to go through the effort if the end game is a standards compliant chip with only yourself as a customer?
Not much room for differentiation or deeper integration into the software stack as far as I can tell, or am I missing something? Seems foolish if the only points of differentiation are power consumption and reception quality-- Qualcomm the existing players have a huge lead on experience in those areas. And unlike Samsung, Intel and Qualcomm, if Apple doesn't source the parts to 3rd parties they can't amortize the R&D expense across as many parts...
I get both of these points, but why stop here? Why not make their own memory? Roll their own steel? Is the plan, in effect, to pull a reverse-Samsung?
Samsung makes commodity parts, and uses their smartphones to showcase them. Is Apple planning to showcase smartphones and simply produce the parts to build them?
And I'm not sure I'd assume they can even reach parity with Qualcomm. At some point, I'd imagine that monopoly power will degrade Qualcomm's technical dominance, but I see no sign of it yet.
The usual logic is to specialize and focus on your core competence and places where you can differentiate. If it's something that someone else can do as well or better than you, let them. Apple has been pretty disciplined in following that approach, at least in hardware. Software could be debated, I suppose.
It may be because there are too few players in the modem space for this to be a truly commodity part but, if so, someone out there missed an opportunity and Apple is taking a huge risk. You're saying they'll make it up on product margin, but they'll be paying multiples of the R&D cost per unit that the commodity players do-- it seems a strange place to spend it. It seems like it would make more sense for Apple, Samsung, and a few others to go in on a joint venture.
Who else out there is capable of making 5G chips? Qualcomm, Huawei, Samsung? Intel dropped out, obviously. Anyone else in the game?
Cook is an operations guy, I'm sure he's thought this through, but it still seems an odd move.
Because you can differentiate your products with the processor design. I'm not sure how you do that with the modem-- it has to talk to the tower, so it has to be standards compliant. If it's standards compliant, then it's not functionally different from any other standards compliant modem.
Maybe I'm thinking about the wrong device. Maybe I shouldn't be thinking about the phone, but the watch. There might be more room to innovate there?
If they can make a chip on par or better. There's a lot to say against Qualcomm, but technically inept is not on that list. Both Infineon and Intel are world class companies with experience in these types of components and they failed to compete.
What's missing in this discussion so far is the reason why it makes sense for modems. Qualcomm pricing is only a minor part of the calculus, I suspect...
Wow, I thought Apple was going to drop Intel.
Yeah if it was me I’d leave it to the Qualcomm experts.
The thing about Qualcomm modems is that they are designed generally, since it's an item used by many companies. With Apple designing their own chips, they can remove things they deem unnecessary, and add security / privacy enhancements while remaining standards complaint. However, I'm just speculating, I'm not a chip nor communication standards guy. But I highly doubt Apple would produce something so general, which should result in optimizations.
This is the sort of thinking that encourages monopolies to remain unchallenged. While Apple and Qualcomm made peace for now, you can never put the future of your product in one company’s hands. While not the same situation just look at Huawei. They’re getting cut off from all of the stuff they need to sell phones. ARM SoCs, their Android license, Corning Gorilla Glass. The more self-reliant you are the better.
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I think they just want the same or similar performance without having to rely on Qualcomm ever again. Or at least get good enough to have leverage when making the next deal.
Huawei are a state funded spying company, the West just hides the ones it supports to do the same thing, but it has nothing to do with Qualcomm who make the best modems, you don’t want to use the best modems? You’d rather have inferior ones that won’t work as well as proven already?
That’s a strange opinion to take blanketed under the monopoly banner...
They are probably more interested in the IP, but if some top-level baseband experts come with it, why not? Keep the employees they need, integrate them into the Apple team, get rid of the rest.
Huawei, Nokia and Ericsson happen to be the leading suppliers of 5G equipment. The US is desperately trying to kill off Huawei by badgering foreign governments not to do deals with them. However, the options are limited.Apple will just ship the entire business to China. Everyone is dumping 5G businesses because governments will not hold China accountable for IP theft. Good move for Intel to sell it before China steals it anyway.
Ok, that's what I was wondering-- does Samsung sell their part to anyone else, and the answer is apparently no (though this might change for 5g?). So this is different from Samsung's model for displays, memory, etc, in that the modem is only made by them for them, and they've somehow justified the development.Samsung made roughly 250M Smartphone a year. This hopefully answer your amortize question. Samsung cant sell their modem or SoC with modem to others as per the agreement with Qualcomm.
They've dropped out of 5G smartphone modems.And Intel didn't drop out ( yet )
The question of whether Apple should or should not fab their modem is hard, but it does make financial sense for Apple. If Apple leave $10 per iPhone on R&D for Modem, that is $2B. With the scale of Apple it certainly make sense for them to not only make their Modem, but also their own WiFI and Bluetooth Chip. Apple has been slowly working on WiFi and Bluetooth, but whether Apple can make a Desktop / Tablet Class WiFi Chip and Qualcomm Modem remains to be seen. I am personally skeptics.
This is key, I think. Samsung still uses Qualcomm parts for their Galaxy S series, presumably because Qualcomm is still the design to beat on pure performance (and power). I don't know the full details of Samsung's lineup, you might, but I'd guess they ship their own modem in the devices they are trying to save cost on and shipping Qualcomm in their flagships.The problem isn't making a modem that is difficult, it is like making ARM SoC is dead easy if you buy the blueprint. Making a well tested, performant Modem is extremely difficult.
I hadn't heard this-- what a predictable disaster...3. Intel decide to change whatever they had with Infineon Modem ( either ARM or MIPS ) with their own IP, mini x86 Core and FPGA. That saves cost, but you are basically throwing away lots of things and rebuilding them. And one reason why Apple only wants to buy *part* of the Modem IP, and not everything. They have no need for x86 core.