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Intel Seeking to Woo Apple Away From Qualcomm for Cellular Baseband Chips

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Intel is hoping Apple will turn to the California company for the cellular baseband hardware in future mobile products, says Intel Korea President Lee Hee-sung in a statement reported by the Korea Herald. The baseband manages the radio functions of an iPhone or cellular-capable iPad, allowing the device to communicate with the carrier's mobile network.
"Chances are high that global smartphone makers such as Apple and LG Electronics will use Intel's baseband chips in their products down the road," said Lee Hee-sung, the president of Intel Korea, at a press meeting on Thursday.

Such collaborations are highly likely given that the world's largest smartphone maker, Samsung Electronics, has recently announced its midrange premium handset the Galaxy Alpha, which contains Intel's XMM7260 baseband modem."
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Apple had originally used Infineon baseband hardware in early models of the iPhone, but after Infineon was purchased by Intel in 2010 Apple shifted to using communication chips from market leader Qualcomm. Intel has, however, been hard at work at improving its baseband chips, as evidenced by the design win in the new Galaxy Alpha.

Apple and Intel are of course already partners for the complete line of Mac processors, but Apple will undoubtedly focus on technology and pricing considerations in weighing any potential switch for its mobile products.

Article Link: Intel Seeking to Woo Apple Away From Qualcomm for Cellular Baseband Chips
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2014/09/11/intel-apple-baseband-chips/
intel inside would finally make since considering the iPhone naming convention.
 
Anandtech piece on the 7160 (and 7260).

No CDMA, still using TSMC, so no process advantage. Maybe in a couple of years, then.
 
Lead by example! If you want Apple so bad, then stop dragging your feet with Advancing processors ! Even Steve Jobs was beside himself with how slow Intel was delivering new processors! May we look now at the delays of Broadwell?? All Macs laptop and desktops are delayed with these "little" speed bumps! Get real!! Step up Intel!!! Then You get rewards!!
 
Wasn't Intel a leader in research for software defined radio? Where all the analog components of a typical receiver / transmitter were done in DSP processors?

If they build that into a baseband chip they may be able to do all signal bands without multiple hardware versions.

Just a thought.
 
Apple has the A chips (ARM) and the M chips (motion) in their phones. Now they need the B chip (Baseband). No Intel, No Qualcomm. Time to double down Tim.
 
Might be just me, but I believe Intel can take cellular chip to the next level. I hope Apple will start discussions with them to see where it leads.
 
ricci said:
Lead by example! If you want Apple so bad, then stop dragging your feet with Advancing processors ! Even Steve Jobs was beside himself with how slow Intel was delivering new processors! May we look now at the delays of Broadwell?? All Macs laptop and desktops are delayed with these "little" speed bumps! Get real!! Step up Intel!!! Then You get rewards!!
Click to expand...

It's not about speed with Broadwell/Haswell, it's about power efficiency. Intel is attempting to compete with ARM in the mobile space. They don't presently have any competition in terms of performance, with AMD lacking significantly behind.

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Cuban Missles said:
Apple has the A chips (ARM) and the M chips (motion) in their phones. Now they need the B chip (Baseband). No Intel, No Qualcomm. Time to double down Tim.
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The problem with such a solution is that it could become a competitive disadvantage if Apple's in-house chipset falls behind competitors in terms of performance. Apple wouldn't be able to easily switch between in-house and outsourced solutions without suffering a big hit to PR and eating the overhead and R&D cost.
 
My original iPhone just quit working one day - no damage or drops, just dead. Tried a lot of things to get it working again and eventually concluded the baseband chipset had failed. So Infineon made that chipset and now they are Intel? Do not want.
 
kenroberts83 said:
The problem with such a solution is that it could become a competitive disadvantage if Apple's in-house chipset falls behind competitors in terms of performance. Apple wouldn't be able to easily switch between in-house and outsourced solutions without suffering a big hit to PR and eating the overhead and R&D cost.
Click to expand...

Since the standards they need to support are known ahead of time and shared, falling back in terms of features seems less important. I imagine Apple is rather insensitive to R&D cost if they believe they are on a path to a competitive solution. The nice thing is that they don't need to build for flexibility like their competitors, so they can consolidate more into a single package and design their PCBs in tandem with that solution.

I imagine if they do get a solution such as that, even if they manage to fall behind in performance or compliance in a meaningful way, the cost savings and design advantage may still outweigh some of those drawbacks. They've never been on the cutting edge of wireless standard adoption, anyway. First iPhone lacked 3G, LTE took over a year, CA is after competitors now, etc.
 
ricci said:
Lead by example! If you want Apple so bad, then stop dragging your feet with Advancing processors ! Even Steve Jobs was beside himself with how slow Intel was delivering new processors! May we look now at the delays of Broadwell?? All Macs laptop and desktops are delayed with these "little" speed bumps! Get real!! Step up Intel!!! Then You get rewards!!
Click to expand...

If you think the Intel updates are slow, you should of been around for the IBM/MOTO G5/G4 DAYS.
 
The XMM7260 wouldn't work with Verizon. So they'd need phones with different hardware for the U.S. market or pull out of Verizon support. I don't think either is going to happen.
 
I would love to see somebody break the Qualcomm monopoly. As somebody rightly said already in this topic, competition is a good thing. So, I for one welcome Intel into the market. It will be interesting to see if they can actually produce superior parts. If they can, then I'm sure Apple will use them. If they can't, then Apple will stick with Qualcomm. Seems pretty straightforward to me, and there's no reason why Apple would have to get locked in to a particular company from one model to the next.
 
Splunger said:
My original iPhone just quit working one day - no damage or drops, just dead. Tried a lot of things to get it working again and eventually concluded the baseband chipset had failed. So Infineon made that chipset and now they are Intel? Do not want.
Click to expand...

Your sample size of exactly "one" tells nothing about reliability of a six year old phone.

It could be a cold solder joint or most anything assembly related and not even the chip.
 
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