Apple Ditching Qualcomm

Apple’s Next Game Plan!..Be aware!

It’s not question apple has shown it can design their own devices, and is now poised to do something potentially even harder : create the chips that enable them to communicate with the internet. Apple as always, aims to start designing the modems of the iphone, ipad and apple watch, doing so could enable a future of always on smart glasses and augmented reality, more wearables, with their own independent connection to cellular networks, mac laptops with 5 G connectivity and faster than ever downloads and streaming on its flagship iPhones.

Overcoming The Impossible

But first the company must accomplish something that has defeated other tech giants. Including Intel: It must show that not only can it design its own wireless modems, but that it can make them good enough to justify switching away from the ones Apple now uses, which are made by Qualcomm, for decades the world’s dominant modern chip maker.

For example: Applications like full augmented reality overlaying a computer generated reality atop the real world , and projecting into our eyes, through smart glasses-will require faster than ever data transfer rates, and lower than ever latency, which is a measure of how long it takes a signal to make a round trip from a device to the internet.

Activating those blistering fast speeds has put unprecedented demands on the creativity of engineers, who have delivered a 100 fold increase in peak data transfer rates in the past 10 years, says Durga Malladi, head of 5G and mobile infrastructure at Qualcomm. And all this has had to happen while keeping phones more or less the same size, and without requiring a comparable increase in the capacity of batteries , he adds.

Apple’s Top Secret

Apple’s keeps details of its chip operation, like much of the rest of its business, closely guarded secrets, and says almost nothing publicly about its aspirations. Johny Srouji, Apple’s senior vice president of hardware technologies and leader of its chip division , discussed how it developed the A series iPhone microprocessors and M-series for Macs, but decline to say anything about future plans, for modems or any other chips.

Intel’s cellphone’s operations are taken over by Apple

There are plenty of signposts showing where apple is heading on modern chips the company agreed in 2019 to acquire the majority of intel’s smart phone modem business, including 2200 employees and since then has continued hiring engineers with related expertise, often with satellites offices in the same cities as its sometimes partners and future competitors in wireless technology. Furthermore, in San Diego, Qualcomm’s home town, Apple’s is advertising 140 positions directly related to developing and integrating cellular modem chips, In Irving California.

Qualcomm’s cutting supplies to Apple

In November 2021, Qualcomm’s Chief Financial Officer says the company expected to supply 20% of the 5 G modems Apple uses in its mobile devices in 2023. Currently Qualcomm’s supply nearly 100 % of these chips. (The exception is the apple watch which in the series 4 model has use an Intel modem).

While is possible that apple could be planning to use 5G modems from another suppliers starting in 2023, analyst are expecting that will be the year it reveals its own, apple design modem.

Conclusion

The great news As apple moves to its own processor for iPhones and macs, designing its own chips cellular connectivity could give the company a number of advantages over competitors. The first is cost says Wayne Lam, director of research at technology consulting firm CCS insight .According to a recent analyst on the cost of materials in the in the newest iphone SE the first version of the most affordable iPhone model with 5G capability the chips that allow the iPhone to connect to cell networks collectively cost as much or more than the chips that make up the brains of the iPhone, the A15 processor and its attached memory chips. So that alone is a tremendous advantage for the company says, Mr. Lam.

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