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Apple's Recent Hires from Broadcom Boost Rumors of In-House Baseband Chip Development

cell towers are old news :)

Casiotone said:
Not sure what your concern is about. iPhones need to communicate with carriers using cell standards. A proprietary protocol would have no use, unless Apple decides to install their own cell towers.
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Cell towers are so 21st century:D
Think different!
 
jayducharme said:
I'm curious to see where this will lead. If Apple does go it alone and make their own RF chips, there's a possibility that they might slip back into proprietary (and eventually incompatible) technologies, as they did in the '90s. I don't understand what Apple could bring to the table compared to what Broadcom and Qualcomm are already doing. And I don't see how Apple could do it more cost-effectively. There must be something else they're after that Broadcom and Qualcomm don't or won't offer.
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Think "Custom", not proprietary. Most likely finding ways to shave off some extra power requirements and push out some more usefulness in performance per watt. Broadcom/Qualcomm are not going to care much about Apples specifics when it comes to building there chips. Since they sell more broadly to many customers. Apple wants to have chips that do more with less and excel at exactly what it needs to. There by shrinking power requirements, and making the overall device smaller/lighter, ect.
 
This will probably hurt jailbreakers as most of the hacks leverage baseband vulnerabilities.
 
I don't think Steve Jobs would have liked Apple Hires to be so easily found on LinkedIn.

I think he would OK a signing bonus to keep Apple off your Linked In profile.
 
samcraig said:
Well not that it's really likely to happen - but if they created a newer/better standard and convinced networks to update/upgrade their infrastructure in the future, they'd pretty much have a lock on a revenue stream. FRAND no doubt, but still a powerful revenue stream.
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Network standards tend not to come from OEMs as they may in other industries. Apple also has a lackluster track record at creating standards. Firewire saw good adoption, but Facetime as a standard fell on its face.

I agree their best path (other than creating great technology) is to get some patents in this sector and leverage those for FRAND licensing against the heavy hitters and make those royalty/suit problems go away.
 
jayducharme said:
I'm curious to see where this will lead. If Apple does go it alone and make their own RF chips, there's a possibility that they might slip back into proprietary (and eventually incompatible) technologies, as they did in the '90s. I don't understand what Apple could bring to the table compared to what Broadcom and Qualcomm are already doing. And I don't see how Apple could do it more cost-effectively. There must be something else they're after that Broadcom and Qualcomm don't or won't offer.
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I think they want to make their own chips to be more energy efficient, smaller in size, and maybe, if possible, put on the same chip as the cpu?

It's not like Apple is going to create Apple iLTE. Then again, it is Apple.
 
chrmjenkins said:
Network standards tend not to come from OEMs as they may in other industries. Apple also has a lackluster track record at creating standards. Firewire saw good adoption, but Facetime as a standard fell on its face.

I agree their best path (other than creating great technology) is to get some patents in this sector and leverage those for FRAND licensing against the heavy hitters and make those royalty/suit problems go away.
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I agree - which is why I said it was unlikely.

Facetime not becoming a standard is all on Apple though. Since they never released the APIs/etc - not only has their own developer community suffered without integration, but the industry overall hasn't even been able to do a thing with it.

Jobs said that the plan was to make it a standard. I wouldn't consider it a standard if the only company that has access to it is Apple.
 
MikeDTyke said:
iPhone 7s at the earliest, ie 2016
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Ageed. Even 7s may be optimistic, it takes years to build a team like this and get to the point where there is any finished product especially anything as complex as a baseband chip. It took them a long time to start designing A series processors in house and that was after taking over whole companies with ready built teams and IP.
 
Am I the only one who remembers that Apple also has hired people away from other companies to do nothing but work WITH vendors to push Apple's agenda?

Remember when Apple hired Graphics Chip designers from ATI (AMD) to do nothing but work with Intel to get better Intel GPU's? Why couldn't they just be hiring these guys to work with Broadcom and Qualcom to push Apple's agenda in their RF chips?
 
Apple will also introduce eSIM tech with this baseband .

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everything-i said:
Ageed. Even 7s may be optimistic, it takes years to build a team like this and get to the point where there is any finished product especially anything as complex as a baseband chip. It took them a long time to start designing A series processors in house and that was after taking over whole companies with ready built teams and IP.
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everything-i said:
Ageed. Even 7s may be optimistic, it takes years to build a team like this and get to the point where there is any finished product especially anything as complex as a baseband chip. It took them a long time to start designing A series processors in house and that was after taking over whole companies with ready built teams and IP.
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Yes it took at least 3 years to do baseband,but apple already passed 2 and half years in design baseband.
 
splitting hairs, ok a few corn rows

MH01 said:
Apple never did it alone.

1994-2006 was the PPC era.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIM_alliance
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I stand partially corrected - Apple JOINTLY designed and manufactured their own chips for their brand. They still had more control and achieved a powerful chip that outperformed PC in those days. Intel is still sitting up in their chairs, calculating the expected revenue loss and destabilization in financial resources.
 
samcraig said:
I agree - which is why I said it was unlikely.

Facetime not becoming a standard is all on Apple though. Since they never released the APIs/etc - not only has their own developer community suffered without integration, but the industry overall hasn't even been able to do a thing with it.

Jobs said that the plan was to make it a standard. I wouldn't consider it a standard if the only company that has access to it is Apple.
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FaceTime not becoming a standard is not all Apples fault, there is a lawsuit blocking them at the moment.
 
yellowtruck said:
Good! With this whole Intel-Broadwell debacled delay, I bet they are really sitting up in their chairs now after reading this. Apple use to make powerful chips in their day, back in 2000 and they were not subject to outside manufacturers delay. I assume they will design chips that are perfectly compatible with PC software. :apple:
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incredulity.jpg


Sign me up for whatever rose-tinted glasses you're wearing.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/1999/06/04/powerpc_g4_delayed

http://news.cnet.com/Motorola-chip-delay-compromises-Apple-comeback/2100-1001_3-241001.html

http://forums.appleinsider.com/t/5207/dual-1-42ghz-powerpc-g4-z079-4-6-weeks-still

http://arstechnica.com/apple/2004/09/g5/

http://www.theregister.co.uk/1999/07/01/apple_g4_box_slips/
 
Gasu E. said:
Not exactly true. But it is true that it is a transferable skill, that is not tied to a specific technology.
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I guess Apple needs such skill to push around Engineering staffs to meet schedules, but not sure if they're of importance to end up on front page to Macrumors.
 
jayducharme said:
I'm curious to see where this will lead. If Apple does go it alone and make their own RF chips, there's a possibility that they might slip back into proprietary (and eventually incompatible) technologies, as they did in the '90s. I don't understand what Apple could bring to the table compared to what Broadcom and Qualcomm are already doing. And I don't see how Apple could do it more cost-effectively. There must be something else they're after that Broadcom and Qualcomm don't or won't offer.
Click to expand...

Yes, because Apple deciding to build their own baseband chips MUST mean they're going to also build an entirely proprietary cellular networking technology and build an entirely new network.....

They're just building baseband chips, that will likely operate on the currently existing standards (LTE, HSPA, etc). I don't think we need to worry about that.

This can only result in good things, so long as they actually create something better and more efficient than the rest. And I doubt they would do this unless they were convinced they could. Energy efficiency seems to be one of those top level priorities with Apples hardware teams at the moment. Better solution than just shoving a larger battery inside the phone.

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chrmjenkins said:
Apple also has a lackluster track record at creating standards. Firewire saw good adoption, but Facetime as a standard fell on its face.
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WebKit and OpenCL would disagree with you ;)
 
Now they are going to make networking hardware?

Is it just me or is it not a good idea for a company that has to come out with three updates per generation of networking chips/devices just to get networking working correctly (if that's even enough updates) to start making networking hardware? I get why, but I got a bad feeling about this.
 
yellowtruck said:
Good! With this whole Intel-Broadwell debacled delay, I bet they are really sitting up in their chairs now after reading this. Apple use to make powerful chips in their day, back in 2000 and they were not subject to outside manufacturers delay. I assume they will design chips that are perfectly compatible with PC software. :apple:
Click to expand...

No... Apple creating their own baseband doesn't mean they can move their computers from Intel, baseband literally only works with Radio frequency, aka communication standards. chill.
 
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