Apple's Smartphone 5G Modem Leads Before Battle Settlement with Qualcomm

Umashankar Thyagarajan, Intel's lead developer for 5G phone modems, was unveiled in February, just weeks before rival chip supplier Qualcomm burst in April, according to a report in the Telegraph Sunday.

Hiring was apparently not a well-kept secret (Thyagarajan now mentions an "Architecture" position at Apple on his LinkedIn page). But it was a major victory for Apple, who would have long pondered a change in the production of its own chips internally.

Embroiled in a controversial dispute between Antarctic and patents, Qualcomm, Apple relied much more heavily on Intel, using Intel as the exclusive provider of the iPhone XS, XS Max and XR. However, shortly after Thyagarajan's departure for Apple, the tech giant resolved his fight against Qualcomm, accepting terms including a payment by Apple to Qualcomm, a six-year license agreement and a chip supply contract. This left Intel's 5G chip project without a primary client, and a few hours later, Intel announced that it was abandoning its ambitions for the 5G mobile.

The Telegraph wrote that internal emails showed that Thyagarajan was a major player in Intel's iPhone XS and XR projects, and his move to the Apple team was perceived as a big loss:

The departure of Mr. Thyagarajan would have been a setback for Intel's efforts, forcing the company to revamp the 5G project. Shortly after, Intel said that it could not release a 5G smartphone chip until 2020, more than a year after Qualcomm.

According to an email sent to Intel staff, written by executives Messay Amerga and Abhay Joshi, Mr. Thyagarajan reportedly "played a key role" in the Intel chip featured in iPhones last year and he had been the project engineer to develop its 5G chip known as XMM 8160.

Thyagarajan's appointment will add to rumors that Apple is planning to make its own smartphone modem instead of buying it from partners.

The Telegraph also noted that rumors had circulated that Apple was planning to fully buy back the rest of Intel's smart modem business.

According to sources quoted Friday by the Wall Street Journal, Intel was still considering selling some of its modem chip business to "Apple or another purchaser", but the discussions had cooled down at the time of the Apple-Qualcomm settlement. . Moor Insights & Strategy chief Patrick Moorhead told the newspaper that Intel's modem chip business cost him about $ 1 billion a year and that his "value was going down by a second." "Other" that passed without a sale, although other potential buyers were Broadcom, ON Semiconductor Inc., Samsung or the Chinese company Unisoc Communications Inc.

Fast Company announced in early April, before the settlement, that a source reportedly told Apple "a team of 1,000 to 1,200 engineers working on modem chips for future iPhones" in San Diego, attracted by Intel and Qualcomm. However, this report also noted that it was "possible that Apple employees build the iPhone modem chips in this installation, and that they be manufactured by TSMC or Samsung" , which will probably only happen in years. The source of Fast Company said that the company's best choice was to return to Qualcomm, which seems to be what happened, even though Apple did not appeal to Intel's talent.

[The Telegraph]