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By Roger Fingas
Sunday, April 28, 2019, 12:19, Paris time (15:19 ET)
Intel's departure from the 5G modems sector may have been dictated not only by the settlement between Apple and Qualcomm, but also by its poaching of Intel's main 5G modems developer in 2019.
Apple recruited Umashankar Thyagarajan in February, no more than two months before the Qualcomm settlement, The telegraph said Sunday, citing a leaked email involving Intel executives Messay Amerga and Abhay Joshi. Thyagarajan would have played a key role in the development of the Intel 4G modem for the 2018 iPhones and would be a project engineer for the 5G-compatible XMM 8160.
After his departure, Intel would have been forced to "rework" the development of 5G. The chip maker announced its departure of the 5G modems the same day as the Apple v. Qualcomm.
It is generally thought that Apple was not satisfied with the pace of Intel's work on the 5G. Some 5G-compatible smartphones are already on the market, but analysts have noted that Apple is fast approaching the deadline for choosing a 5G provider for the 2020 iPhones, not to mention the 2019 models.
This may have been a key, if not paramount, factor in the move to a settlement. Recently, however, evidence from the Apple v. Qualcomm have been made public, revealing that Apple had been aiming for several years to reduce its royalty payments. To achieve this goal, Apple intended to "financially harm Qualcomm", "to jeopardize Qualcomm's licensing model" and even to deliberately license low-cost patents to make claims look excessive. from Qualcomm.
It is believed that Apple is designing its own 5G modem under the senior hardware manager, Johny Srouji. This will probably not reach the shipping iPhones before 2021 at the earliest.
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