Informed sources said that Apple and Intel engineers have been working together on the 5G technology research work. 5G is the next generation wireless broadband technology standards. At the same time, Apple and modem industry leader - Qualcomm - limited communication.
Qualcomm's modem chips offer operators more features, such as uplink carrier aggregation, but insiders say many features will not be widely adopted by operators, and Apple engineers believe Intel's modems will reach the future of the iPhone Request.
Although Intel lags far behind Qualcomm in the modem market, the company has a small team that is developing "5 Thousands" for 5G and now sees the 5G modem for iPhone as a "must-have".
Intel announced its own 5G modem at this year's International Consumer Electronics Show and today released a press release saying the company has successfully completed its '' full 5 'end-to-end 5G call based on the early 5G chipset,' and sees it as a company developing in the modem An important milestone in history, Intel's move is in line with Apple's plans to launch a 5G version of the iPhone in 2019 or 2020.
Intel said in a statement: "Although we do not comment on our customers' products, our press release today demonstrates that Intel is making rapid progress in accelerating the 5G universal 5G roadmap."
QUALITY TO QUALCOMM Qualcomm has been supplying modems to the iPhone and has a more mature and fully functional 5G modem since 2011. Qualcomm announced the world's first 5G modem in October last year after investing heavily in research and development - Snapdragon X50.
Intel has been ordering Apple's modem since last year's iPhone 7. The company has always been willing to customize its products for Apple in a way that Qualcomm may not agree with.Apple has been using Intel modems on the T-Mobile, AT & T GSM / LTE Web Edition iPhone, Because Qualcomm modems are better suited for CDMA networks, they are being used in the iPhone for Verizon and Sprint Web.
However, this pattern may change as carriers begin to migrate to 5G, for example Verizon has announced plans to no longer require new devices to connect to legacy CDMA networks by late 2018 or early 2019. Although Sprint , US Cellular and other overseas carriers still support the CDMA network, but the CDMA ecosystem started to collapse.
Without the hardcore requirements of connecting to the CDMA network, Apple would not have to rely on Qualcomm modems anymore, and the relationship between the two parties has deteriorated over the past year as Apple and Qualcomm disputes over royalties escalated.
All this suggests that Apple may choose Intel as the exclusive supplier of future iPhone 5G modems, and many insiders said Apple's ultimate goal will be to integrate Intel modems on an integrated system-on-chip (SoC) Including the CPU, GPU and other iPhone parts.The system will be jointly designed by Apple and Intel, the Intel factory production.Some people believe that Apple may soon embrace Intel faster.According to the Wall Street Journal quoted insiders, Apple Already working on an iPhone prototype that uses only Intel 3G / 4G modems, the report said Apple may also choose MediaTek as the second vendor for its modems.