Apple is Building Its Own Cellular Modem, Playing 'Long Game' to Drop Qualcomm

Bloomberg's Mark Gruman remembers how Apple's hardware group "allowed Apple to dump Intel chips from its entire Mac lineup." And they're now building an in-house cellular modem:For more than a decade, Apple has used modem chips designed by Qualcomm... But in 2018 - while facing a legal battle over royalties and patents - Apple started work on its own modem design.... It's devoting billions of dollars, thousands of engineers and millions of working hours to a project that won't really improve its devices - at least at the outset... Over the past few years, Apple's modem project has suffered numerous setbacks. There have been problems with performance and overheating, and Apple has been forced to push back the modem's debut until next year at the earliest. The rollout will take place on a gradual basis - starting with niche models - and take a few years to complete. In a sign of this slow transition, Apple extended its supplier agreement with Qualcomm through March 2027... But Qualcomm has said that Apple will still have to pay it some royalties regardless (the chipmaker believes that Apple won't be able to avoid infringing its patents). So it's hard to tell how big the benefits will be in the near term. Down the road, there are plans for Apple to fold its modem design into a new wireless chip that handles Wi-Fi and Bluetooth access. That would create a single connectivity component, potentially improving reliability and battery life. There's also the possibility that Apple could one day combine all of this into the device's main system on a chip, or SoC. That could further cut costs and save space inside the iPhone, allowing for more design choices. Furthermore, if Apple does ultimately save money by switching away from Qualcomm, it could redirect that spending toward new features and components.

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