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Apple Reportedly Shifts to In-House Modem Engineering Led by Johny Srouji
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VERY exciting news, just look at how awesome their in house CPUs are, Android phones can't even keep up with last years A11 lol Question is will this raise or lower the price of future iPhones and how long before we see an Apple modem in a phone
Their first fully-designed chip, the A5, was problem-free and a year ahead of the competition in performance. That was their first iteration.
Qualcomm holds a lot of patents but not a huge majority.
https://www.ipegconsultancy.com/we-do-ip-brokerage/
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Edited to add: more information later in this thread (post #92):
https://forums.macrumors.com/posts/27075871/
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they will license the necessary patents, under FRAND, like everyone else. They have to pay the license fees either way - may as well do so with their own silicon.
I think the comment was referencing Apple releasing hardware that is not that good, thermal throtling, removing ports, and everything on a thinner more bendable package.
Eh, remove the notch and give us a full edge to edge to display. No one cares what is inside although more ram would be nice.
I see plenty of vacancies in the Apple legal department in the not too distant future. QC and all the other Mobile patent holders will have already ordered dozens and dozens of legal pads and will be preparing law suits as we discuss this very topic.
This area of technology is a patent minefield or rather should be called "abandon hope all ye who dare challenge the patent owners'.
No mater how many agreements are put in place there will always be some that will be missed somewhere.
This area of technology is a patent minefield or rather should be called "abandon hope all ye who dare challenge the patent owners'.
No mater how many agreements are put in place there will always be some that will be missed somewhere.
Again, how is it different than now? QC demands they pay the same license fees regardless of whether they buy QC chips, Intel chips, or design their own chips.
With their hardware track record their chips will support 5G, but nothing else.
Sure. Just like the A5 cpu only support addition and not subtraction.
Apple's SoC's are the opposite of quality? Must've missed that. I think we have to at least set our expectations at what we have now from Apple's chip team, which has been doing a pretty stellar job.
This is non-sense; does Apple control digital cameras (iSight anyone)?, home back-up (time machine)?, monitors (cinema displays)?, wireless networking (Airport base stations)?
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The 5G standard hasn't been ratified yet; it's impossible for Apple to support a standard that doesn't exist yet.
Apple can use it's expertise from designing the T2 chip.
Now the iPhone will not feel left out and can also get bridgeOS errors.
Now the iPhone will not feel left out and can also get bridgeOS errors.
There is a world of difference between designing a system chip comprised of a number of designs supplied by ARM and Imagination and designing a whole new modem and rf circuit from whole cloth. Indeed, Apple did not attempt to design their own cores until the iPhone 8, where they designed their own GPU - but still used ARM cores for the CPUs. Apple is still pretty novice at designing its own cores. Designing a modem, with all the rf circuits, is very very complicated.
Look at Intel. I'd say they're the best in the industry (not Apple) - and they're totally vertically integrated: they design and fab. If Intel, with all their might and R&D resources can't match QC modem quality after 3 or 4 iterations, then Apple certainly won't be able to on their first attempt.
"Fully designed" by Apple? No. Apple put together two ARM Cortex-A9 CPU cores and one Imagination Technologies PowerVR SGX543MP2 GPU core, and then Samsung fabbed and packaged it. Not trying to imply what Apple did was easy - it is still an amazing feat on a first attempt. But to say they "fully designed" that is laughable.
As I said above, the first time Apple "fully designed" a complex IC was the iPhone 8 where Apple designed the GPU cores.
That was probably the exact pitch Apple made to him if he really was considering leaving lol
This will still be years out before we reap the benefits (late 2021 release maybe?). In the mean time we have Intel and those deemed less desirable for 2019 and the initial 5G release in late 2020.
Looking at this the 2019 iPhone release should be our most refined Intel 4G release.
Looking at this the 2019 iPhone release should be our most refined Intel 4G release.