It’s in 2023 that the iPhone could hook up 5G networks with a home-made network chip, according to the latest note from Blayne Curtis and Thomas O’Malley, two generally not too ill-informed Barclays analysts. A somewhat surprising launch window, since it brings the end of the agreement signed between Apple and Qualcomm forward by one year: it indicated that the former was committed to using the latter’s modems at least until 2023. The text provides that the iPhones that will be released that year will use the founder’s X70 chip. It was not until 2024 that Apple would have free rein.
We will see what the next few years hold in store for us in this regard. Last November, Bloomberg had reported the words of Johny Srouji, vice president of hardware technologies, who confirmed that the development of the 5G chip had started in 2020 (read: Apple is indeed working on its own network chip).
The manufacturer relies on teams from Intel’s mobile modems division, which have joins Cupertino in December 2019. Even if this represents an enormous work and heavy investments, the development of a network chip is strategic for the manufacturer who likes nothing so much as to control everything.
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