Apple Moving From Intel's Infineon to Qualcomm for Next-Generation iPhone Cellular Chip?

[kdarling]

GSM coverage and userbase absolutely dwarfs CDMA by comparison.

For dumbphones, sure. For the costly iPhone+data, it does not. The USA still accounts for close to half of iPhone GSM world sales. A Verizon compatible iPhone could sell just as many as on ATT, making Verizon close to a third of world sales. Throw in Sprint etc and it's a really decent potential.

A question, as you brought up, is would Apple spend more to make a single global model with GSM+CDMA(+LTE).

For that matter, it could make sense to sell a separate CDMA+LTE model, since Verizon will be mass-rolling out LTE sooner than anyone here.

Well AT&T had Unlimited Data plans but now since Verizon stop selling Unlimited Pans, AT&T followed.

Apparently you skimmed some articles and got the misconception that Verizon already went to tiered plans. Nope, not yet anyway.

WCDMA != CDMA2000. They are not compatible. UMTS uses a core network that is compatible with GSM, not CDMA2000. Only the air interface has similarities to CDMA hence the name WCDMA.

UMTS-3G uses whatever core network that it's tacked onto.

UMTS-3G was overlaid on top of GSM 2G networks and made to work with the older core. Likewise, some countries (such as Korea) have done the same and support UMTS-3G on their original CDMA2000 2G/3G networks.

And soon, both GSM and CDMA carriers will be tacking LTE onto their legacy networks. (It doesn't magically work with either older network. The reality is that they all need interfaces to make it happen.)

 

[kntgsp]

Much so more that the CPU benched was a A0 revision, and I am sure Intel will most certainly release either A1, B0 or B1. I don't see them releasing A0 at all.

Have they ever?

Hell as far as I remember the last few years they've only released B revision haven't they?

 

[radcliff]

Cdma?

Man it must suck to live in a country where there are two different cellular network standards. I feel sorry for the American public for having to deal with two standards in the cell phone market. Just choose one already.
Hopefully all us carriers will use the same standards for their 4g networks. But I don't think so.

 

[tobybrut]

CDMA, i.e. Code-Division Multiple Access, is the underlying transport protocol for all 3G technologies. CDMA sends all communications signals in a single stream of data, with each individual call component encoded with a key. When received on the other end, that key is used to decode all signals into their separate calls.

TDMA, which is what old 2G technology in Europe was based on, is a time-division method by which time slices are used to send out individual calls. You can compare CDMA to a room full of conversation where you can use a key to focus in on one conversation. With TDMA, you hear only one bit of a conversation at a time.

All 3G systems use CDMA, so when you say CDMA2000 != WCDMA, that's correct. They are not compatible systems. But underlying both of them is the CDMA transport protocol. That was the system co-developed by Hedy Lamarr (yes, the actress was also an inventor) and adopted by the US military for secure communications . It wasn't until Qualcomm came along that CDMA was made usable as a public communications protocol. Qualcomm owns most of the key patents for CDMA and is also the largest supplier of 3G chipsets, which is why so many phones in the world have a "digital by Qualcomm" sticker somewhere on them, including my daughter's little LG phone she uses over AT&T Wireless. Qualcomm gets paid for every 3G device made, including the current iPhone, whether or not they supply the chipset. The only other chipset manufacturer that comes close is Texas Instruments, the old calculator company.

European WCDMA and American CDMA2000 all use the same method for transmitting signals. But you are correct that they are not compatible. But because the underlying technology is the same, it becomes fairly easy to supply a multi-mode chipset that operates on both systems.

You can almost say that the difference between European 2G and 3G systems is that they gutted the TDMA communications layer and replaced it with CDMA.

Why did Apple choose Infineon over Qualcomm? Nobody but an insider would know that for sure, but an apt comparison between the two companies would be buying a generic over a name brand.

 

[tobybrut]

Man it must suck to live in a country where there are two different cellular network standards. I feel sorry for the American public for having to deal with two standards in the cell phone market. Just choose one already.
Hopefully all us carriers will use the same standards for their 4g networks. But I don't think so.

We wish, but the paths have already diverged. For some bizarre reason, Sprint chose to go with Wimax over LTE while just about all other US carriers have chosen LTE. Qualcomm originally had a third version as its natural upgrade from CDMA2000 called UMB, but when Verizon chose LTE for 4G (Vodaphone being its parent company made that choice for them), Qualcomm killed UMB, leaving only Wimax and LTE as the only 4G versions left. LTE was designed as the natural upgrade from WCDMA by the Europeans.

Wimax was originally designed as a long-distance version of wifi and is well-suited as a wifi replacement. As a mobile system, it leaves a lot to be desired, especially in how it handles mobile handoffs between cell towers. Sprint likely chose Wimax because it was out first and wanted that competitive advantage over Verizon and others.

 

[HLdan]

Not to worry. Apple is about to get out of computer business altogether anyways

You have absolutely no idea what you're talking about.

 

[madmax_2069]

We'll see in the coming months when they do more official demos.

One can only hope they finally get their heads out of their asses in regards to GPUs. Problem is if their state of the art, not-yet-on-the-market chip barely beats a 5450, how's it going to fare in the market when it's actually released.

Either way, time will tell.

Isn't that why they was always behind when it came to their (so called) GPUs that was always worse then the last generation (low end) GPU from other companies (AMD/ATI, Nvidia).

 

[LillDrutten]

Nice! Then Apple might be able to get qualcomm to deliver development tools that doesn't require microsoft windows and works within a unix environment.

 

[kdarling]

Not to worry. Apple is about to get out of computer business altogether anyways

You have absolutely no idea what you're talking about.

You must've missed the wink at the end of Lilo's post.

I took it as an obvious riff on the constant gripes around here about Apple dropping "Computer" from its name, and how the mobile iOS devices seem to get all the update attention from Apple.

In other words, humor

 

[KnightWRX]

You have absolutely no idea what you're talking about.

Though as time progresses, the sarcasm is starting to really look like a prediction for the future. It really does seem at times that the Mac is slowly sinking to make place to consumer appliances running iOS.

Just look at the last 3 months of news on Macrumors...

It would be a really sad day if Apple ever comes to becoming an iToy company and drops the Mac line altogether.

 

[DeepIn2U]

The problem has already reared its head in the Macbook (Pro....if you can call it that) 13" model. It's stuck in Core 2 Duo land for the sole reason that NVidia cannot build chipsets around Core-i family anymore. But at the same time Intel's integrated graphics have and continue to blow.

So the only option in that situation was "Stay with Core 2 Duo so we can still get an integrated NVidia GPU", "Watch the graphics performance take a nosedive" or "redesign the chassis".

If they swapped to AMD, custom chipsets with integrated, capable GPUs would not be an issue. But AMD lags behind Intel on the CPU performance side of things.

The issue is with Intel+Apple; since many PC makers, Asus/Acer have a few shipping models with Corei3/i5 with the same NVidia 330M; so I believe its an issue solely with Apple's mobo design for the 13" - recall that the 13"MBP ships with DVD burner, while netbooks or competing 13" laptops do not.

BTW, AMD is way ahead in terms of performance, raw performance vs Intel (even compared to the Core i series), but its performance per watt for low power consumption is where they lag behind Intel. This will change and rapidly late this year.

I seriously advise anyone getting a 13" MBP immediately invest in 3y AppleCare JUST IN CASE.

 

[Liam8]

Good

 

[swiley]

moving from intel?

Think this might mean that apple might be making an architecture change on the mac? (I'v never liked intel)

 

[twoodcc]

so more hints at a verizon iphone? i'm starting to hope that it happens

 

[GamecockMac]

You have absolutely no idea what you're talking about.

No, but as usual, it makes for an excellent troll.

 

[ArmCortexA8]

Interestingly I decided to visit the Qualcomm page and low and behold I found a picture of an iPhone on it under "Incubation Lab" - interesting. Pic attached.

 

[alent1234]

if apple is moving to qualcomm then intel would know. they would know because apple wouldn't be testing unreleased products to help work out the bugs.

it's not like infeneon and qualcomm release a chip and only then manufacturers like apple test it and agree to buy it. they test it during the development phase. any time you buy a company you do due dilligence, look at the books, talk to customers, look at upcoming products, etc.