It seems that talking about Apple charging its iPhone 2020 devices with 5G modems from home could have been premature. On Thursday of last week, a report out of Israel said that Apple had informed Intel that the iPhone 2020 models would not carry an Intel modem dubbed "Sunny Peak", which was supposed to handle 5G connectivity, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth on a single chip. But it turned out that "Sunny Peak" never included 5G connectivity, which means that Intel still expects to sell 5G modem chips to Apple.
This also means the end of the line for "Sunny Peak" since Apple is the main customer of the chip. Those who know know that "Sunny Peak" has since been abandoned, and that those who work on the component have moved on to other projects. And Intel's comments on its roadmap for 5G customers for 2018-2020 clearly show that the chip maker is expecting its modem chips to be in the iPhone until it reaches the end of the day. in 2020. After that, who knows?
In trying to understand why Apple has decided to give a large place to "Sunny Peak", Intel executives have speculated that the engineering problems that the company has encountered could be in fault. Intel hoped that the chip would support a new fast Wi-Fi technology called 802.11ad WiGig, but the aforementioned engineering issues prevented this from happening.
Apple's options for 5G modem chips are wide open. He may decide to go with his own design, stick with Intel and / or Qualcomm, or throw a black horse into the mix. MediaTek, supposed to be in play to replace Qualcomm on the 2018 iPhone models, will receive Apple's orders for Wi-Fi chips to be used on the HomePod smart speaker. This could be an audition that Apple gives to MediaTek, before making a decision as to which company to use to supply 5G modem chips for future iPhone units.
