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Apple Supplier Broadcom Reportedly Phasing Out Wi-Fi Chip Business
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Yes, but I like Narrowcom way better than Basecom.
Intel says they can do this. So we do not need to worry. But my question is this -- As Apple continues to push for system on a chip, will they ever just incorporate it into the Ax chip? Sorry if a dumb question, this is a bit out of my area.
depends... if product A is sold in 100's of millions of units while product B is sold in 10's of thousands and A is sold at a cost 4x of B then I think I would put all my eggs in the A basket.
Apple chooses them for many different components, so they very well could for this as wellApple will love to choose Samsung as a partner aga!n
Rinse and repeat. The greater issue is that even when all the free market competition vanishes and there is but one wi-fi chipmaker left, if they don't see profit they are not obligated to help Apple or other tech companies either...
Maybe this is part of the whole mobile chip from Intel and Apple maybe looking at going completely with Intel for Wifi and ethernet.
This news is bigger than Apple.
broadcom is one of the worlds largest suppliers of Wireless networking parts for integrated systems. There are countless motherboards and daughterboards over the course of probably the better part of decades that feature broadcom networking components.
broadcom is one of the worlds largest suppliers of Wireless networking parts for integrated systems. There are countless motherboards and daughterboards over the course of probably the better part of decades that feature broadcom networking components.
Or a new, thinner and licensed standard called "Ethernet-DD". Don't be fooled by the name, the new connector will be thinner than the USB-C connector and will be easier to break from mundane daily use so more replacements can be ordered faster...
I'm not that clued in on how all this bits are glued together inside an iPhone. The info in this thread implies that the WiFi chip is separate from the cell radio chip. Anybody know why that would be? It seems like it would be natural for those functions to be combined into one chip.
I'm hoping that this does not affect the cell phone functionality. I love the fact that Apple has been able to reduce the number of worldwide versions, and, create a truly international GSM/LTE version that works in almost every country. I wish everybody did this.
Broadcom ethernet switch chips are used in vast numbers of products by many different switch manufacturers.
Super sad news but totally in line with Arago's stated business plan for Broadcom. 802.11 has seen tremendous progress since it first appeared almost 20 years ago -- all as a consequence of the investment Broadcomm and its predecessors put into R&D. All my R&D friends have fled, or are fleeing, Broadcom and Qualcomm and what is really going to happen is much less innovation in this space. Apple is a creature of short product cycles and merciless schedules; although they have been aggressively hiring the Broadcom R&D team, it is unclear that they will achieve much as their culture is one of reaping the fruits of other company's R&D rather than growing their own.
I know that Broadcom has been around for decades and makes pretty solid hardware—BUT—could any of the issues with iOS device WiFi over the past several years be because of issues they were having with these new generations of tiny process, low-power WiFi chips? Again, just speculating and asking? I know that Apple's WiFi stack hasn't always been spectacular and they have fixed things with software updates from time to time. If you're in the know, please respond.
The article has so many errors.
1. Broadcom Inc. didn't acquire Avago Technologies. Avago Technologies acquired Broadcom Inc. for about $40 billion.
2. The stock symbol is still AVGO.
3. Avago Technologies changed it's name to Broadcom Limited
4. The executive team and CEO of Avago runs Broadcom Limited
You would think a "tech" journal would at least get this part right.
If they can't get facts correct that are known and published; how can you trust the rumors or speculation they report?
1. Broadcom Inc. didn't acquire Avago Technologies. Avago Technologies acquired Broadcom Inc. for about $40 billion.
2. The stock symbol is still AVGO.
3. Avago Technologies changed it's name to Broadcom Limited
4. The executive team and CEO of Avago runs Broadcom Limited
You would think a "tech" journal would at least get this part right.
If they can't get facts correct that are known and published; how can you trust the rumors or speculation they report?
They do different jobs on different radio bands with different antennae using different protocols, different FTC regulations to serve different purposes.
The bluetooth radio is also handled separately.
That used to be the norm. But Intel have been all over the place with their AC chips... Broadcom has been the overall best manufacture of WiFi SoC's and NIC's ever since the move to 802.11ac. With 802.11n Intel was the perferred one with Atheros coming in second.
I find this source hard to believe to be honest. Broadcom is basically owning the entire 802.11ac business providing SoC's and NIC's for all the best consumer and prosumer routers and access points currently on the market. Including Apples own AirPort Extreme and AirPort Time Capsules.
They are pretty much the only one pushing the new 4x4 MU:MIMO 802.11ac and provide their very on Tri-Band X-Stream technology to give consumer products enterprise like features like the capability to seamlessly move wireless devices between 2.4GHz and 5.0GHz depending on singal quality, strength, speed and range without dropping the connection.
Seems very awkward for Broadcom to be leading the pack in terms of 802.11ac ever since it's arraival simply to drop the ball completely like this. If that would prove to be the case, lets hope Apple hires most of Broadcom's brilliant minds for their own in house team.
This was always going to happen somewhere, sometime. The semiconductor market as a whole is barely growing in $ terms - it's been like that for nearly 20 years. Volumes have grown massively though - which means average selling prices have dropped, and now we are seeing what has been happening to the smaller players for years, happen to the bigger players - there's not much money to be made in hardware if you engage in mainstream, huge volume FMCG and similar... the relentless push to drive down prices in the supply chain is now bringing disruption to the supply chain in the form of consolidation - some $120Bn or more in M&A activity in the industry in the last 15 months alone... I think that's about the same as the total for the previous 10 YEARS!! Expect a lot more of this sort of thing to happen over the coming next few years - the cost of certain consumer electronics in hardware terms is going to go UP. Not by much. But it will be up. Software is where & how products are differentiated & made 'sticky' - Apple mastered this a long time ago - it's why they take such a massive amount of the profit available in any particular market, relative to the other players...
Do these guys make their routers? I just thought it was the iDevice internals.