
Apple dropping Intel as radio chip supplier, killing off the product – report - walterbell
https://9to5mac.com/2018/07/05/apple-radio-chips-intel/
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dogma1138
Apple really used Intel well. They used them to squeeze a better deal from QC
then pitted them against each other if frivolous lawsuits to get even better
terms and then dumped Intel after using and abusing it. The only thing left
for Intel is to the walk of shame.

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ricw
The writing is on the wall. Apple will use an in-house developed solution to
cut out and integrate another chip into their A-series processors. Just like
they did with their GPU from imagination technology last year...

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ahartmetz
Well, this sucks for Germany. Intel's GSM radio division is formerly Infineon,
AFAIK still located in Germany. There wasn't much state of the art
microelectronics left in Germany anyway (correct me?).

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kken
Depends on what you call "State of the art"? Cutting edge logic processes are
a domain of Intel, TSMC, Samsung, GF and the incumbents in China.

But for everything else, like IoT, Sensors, Power, you can find plenty of
companies and subsidiaries in Germany: Infineon, Bosch, GlobalFoundries, NXP,
Dialog, Elmos, Melexis, Xfab, AMS, IDT (ZMDi), TI, Intel, TDK (Micronas) and
many smaller ones.

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ksec
Assuming the design of next gen modem from Intel are done on 10nm, which is
highly likely so, it shouldnt be surprise Intel will fail to deliver it on
time.

Given Intel had precisely one customer to serve and failed to meet their
demand, I highly doubt Intel will win back whatever they loss.

I also doubt Apple "used" Intel, more like given an opportunity to Intel.
Which they really need to get into the 4G/5G value chain. I hope Apple has
back ported their latest 4G design to 14nm+++.

Things are looking very ugly.

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orev
This seems to explain the rumors of Apple supposedly moving Macs away from
Intel better than that rumor, which doesn’t really make sense, certainly not
on the timescale of 2020. If supply chain orders to Intel declined, it makes
much more sense if it was for radio chip orders than CPUs.

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xt00
When the Intel based modems first launched a couple years ago there were tons
of reports of worse performance. Unfortunately, I ended up getting one of
those phones -- pretty confident it was worse than the qualcomm based
versions. So, it does worry me that Apple will in the process of developing
their own solution repeat some of the same mistakes Intel and Qualcomm
(probably years ago) made and we will have a couple of years of slightly worse
modems in our phones.. so not looking forward to that..

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thinkythought
They never had a competitive product. Look at any of the head to head reviews
of the QC vs intel radios.

Anecdotally, my intel modem equipped iphone has worse signal performance than
any phone i've owned in the past 10 years, pretty much.

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tinus_hn
So what are the other brands using? It also sounds kind of unlikely Apple
would go all-in on their own design without a backup plan.

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avs733
Any guesses on if this was the proposed "real reason" behind the CEO's recent
departure?

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wmf
This is a fairly small failure by Intel's standards. The 10 nm fiasco is far
larger.

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spiritcat
Been wondering if this is on purpose. Internally they know 10nm is gonna be
the last process step and they need to milk each generation as long as
possible/stall until new wondertech.

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wmf
Intel isn't even following their own roadmaps (even the watered-down PAO). If
it was planned, they'd at least make it look less embarrassing.

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robdachshund
Intel has gone to shit. I'd be happy to see laptop mfgs stop using their awful
wifi radios as well.

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chatman
The decline has begun. It will soon be time for Intel to shut shop.

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mikeyouse
I mean, they missed a few trends and are having some scaling issues on their
next generation of transistors but they made like $60 billion in revenue last
year and the company is worth ~$240 billion. I _think_ they're going to be
around for a few more years.

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whitepoplar
The taller they stand, the harder they fall.

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_jal
No, actually. In tech, the typical path of a failed giant is slow decline for
a while, a few wild gyrations, and finally patent trolling and brand
necrophilia.

