Apple building 5G modems for future iPhones

Apple executive reveals work already underway on modem development. Anders Lundberg & Karen Haslam report

Apple is starting to build its own modems to be used inside future iPhones. Chief technology officer Johny Srouji has revealed that the firm is working to build its own 5G modem has now begun, following last year’s acquisition of Intel’s modem business.

Back in 2019 Intel gave up and stopped trying to compete with Qualcomm in the 5G modem market. At the same time Apple entered into a settlement with Qualcomm and established a multi-year contract for Qualcomm to supply modems to it for the next six years.

But Apple’s long-term ambition is to design these chips itself.

It bought Intel’s modem business for $1 billion in 2019 and has since

built up a working group with the expertise required to design modems.

That development has now begun. Srouji revealed that work on Apple-made modems are underway during one of Apple’s Town Hall meetings, reports Bloomberg.

According to Bloomberg, Sroui told Apple staff: “This year [2020], we kicked off the development of our first internal cellular modem which will enable another key strategic transition. Long-term strategic investments like these are a critical part of enabling our products and making sure we have a rich pipeline of innovative technologies for our future.”

Apple is already developing several other circuits for wireless communication (such as the W1 and U1 ultra-wideband chips) and thus already has some experience, even though mobile networks are very different from Wi-Fi and Bluetooth

This technology could potentially find its way into the iPhone 13, although Srouji gave no indication as to when Apple-designed modems would be used in its iPhones.

Regarding the iPhone 13 handset, according to analyst Ming-Chi Kuo the iPhone 13 will not face delays as the iPhone 12 did in 2020. He believes that we can expect a launch in September. (Via MacRumors) Among the new features we can count on in the iPhone 13 are a faster A15 processor, based on 5nm technology, and improved cameras.