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Intel to Supply Up to 50% of Faster LTE Chips for iPhone 7
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But faster LTE chip also means better efficiency (from having tremendous headroom) and better signal reception which will help battery life.
Intel have decided to stop making their Atom processors for mobiles so if they are wanting to do processors it will be a U turn.
Maybe I'm growing cynical in my old age, but I doubt that the cellular companies will upgrade their service to anywhere near those speeds any time soon. Heck, only AT&T has coverage where I work. Everyone else has to stand by a window or go outdoors to get signal, much less one that fast. I guess a part of it is people not wanting huge cell towers where I live, but even then, I doubt the providers would even want to spend that kind of money. Only reason they would would be to make you reach your caps quicker and put on overage charges. Ahh, the joys of capitalism!
HobeSoundDarryl
macrumors G5
Cynical? How about this: there seems to be a yearly drive to increase the speeds at which we consumers burn data and yet, at the same time, tiers tighten limiting how much data can be burned without reaching into our wallets for more money. I'm guessing eventually we get LTE20 or something where it's so fast, you can burn an entire tier in 1 minute.
Else, I'm not sure what's the point as long as there are tight(ening) tolls on LTE service. All I see here is faster ways for the likes of AT&T, Verizon, etc to empty our wallets.
Else, I'm not sure what's the point as long as there are tight(ening) tolls on LTE service. All I see here is faster ways for the likes of AT&T, Verizon, etc to empty our wallets.
Max theoretical speed doesn't seem to mattery very much. I'm more curious if the new chips are significantly more power efficient. Anything to improve battery life would be welcome.
Many reasons. One of them is that the next iPhone could only be made w Intel chips. Qualcomm for older models. When that happens there will be a small transition and a huge drop. Meaning a finite contract.
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Considering most people don't upgrade their tv sets every two years and that most cable companies don't even have 1080 channels i don't think 4K should be the top priority.
But that's not what the article says. We can "what if" 'til the cows come home but that doesn't change the fact that 30%-40% of something is, by definition and logic, not "primary".
Lots of people complaining that they get rubbish download speeds on their handsets and that this upgrade is pointless, however the reason you get rubbish download speeds is usually backbone contention from the cell tower to the communications providers core network, not the cell tower to your handset.
Increasing the speed that your handset communicates with the cell tower is good, because it shortens the transmit and recive windows for data to or from your handset, this:
* Reduces the power consumption of your handset
* Decreases latency
* Allows cell towers to have a greater number of subscribers (i.e. a higher density of connections)
Not to mention that generally replacing the modem chip with a newer chip, usually means that the chip moves to a newer manufacturing process that is smaller, this also reduces the power consumption of the chip and helps to extend battery life.
Increasing the speed that your handset communicates with the cell tower is good, because it shortens the transmit and recive windows for data to or from your handset, this:
* Reduces the power consumption of your handset
* Decreases latency
* Allows cell towers to have a greater number of subscribers (i.e. a higher density of connections)
Not to mention that generally replacing the modem chip with a newer chip, usually means that the chip moves to a newer manufacturing process that is smaller, this also reduces the power consumption of the chip and helps to extend battery life.
In much the same way as modern CPUs are configured for mobile devices, the paradigm is currently is to be as fast as possible at the task to get the chip back to it's idle state with is extremely power efficient. So in this case a faster modem chip is actually more power efficient as a result of it's speed.
While I dislike the use of gate on everything I was going to comment about the use of different vendors for parts and people swapping to get the parts. You're referring to the current processors. Using different vendors while smart for diversity of supply opens up the opportunity for comparison of performance. I think you're right, get ready if only some devices will have the part in them.
Intel doesn't have a good process for analog/radio type applications. They are highly tuned for low power/fast digital. A radio is a very different problem.