Apple struggles with 5G modems

June 28, 2022

Who knew modem chips were so complicated?

Cupertino has been absolutely killing it with Apple silicon, but is now reportedly struggling to make a 5G modem for upcoming iPhones.

Apple has been trying to move away from Qualcomm's modems for several years now.

Between 2017 and 2019, the two companies famously battled in court over royalties, which led Apple to approach Intel for 5G modem chips in the 2020 iPhones. But that effort failed when Intel couldn't meet Apple's standards.

Apple then purchased Intel's modem chip business to get started on its own in-house efforts, but that too seems to be failing.

Even Qualcomm said last year that it expected to supply just 20% of the modem chips used in iPhones in 2023, but now it looks like it'll be supplying 100% for at least one more generation of iPhones.

For Apple, this looks like an odd misstep from a company that seems to excel in almost everything it attempts, especially a core competency like making chips.

-- Leander Kahney, EIC.

Apple is reportedly unable to produce the 5G modem for the 2023 iPhone as it had hoped. It will instead have to buy the critical component from Qualcomm, a company that Cupertino has quarreled with in the past. Apple already sank more than a billion dollars into this so-far-unsuccessful effort.

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One more thing ...

"I don't think that my role in life is to run big organizations and do incremental improvements." -- Steve Jobs

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