Intel Will Reportedly Land Apple As a Modem Chip Customer

itwbennett writes After so many years of spinning its wheels, Intel is reportedly about to make a big step into mobile by providing Apple with LTE modem chips for its hot-selling iPhone. The news comes courtesy of VentureBeat, which cites two separate sources of the plans. The story says Apple will begin using Intel's new 7360 LTE modem processor in place of a Qualcomm chip, which has been there for a few generations.

Comments

Re:Intel chip better than Qualcomm?

[Kjella]

Yes, it's certainly in some ways better:
Max speed 150 Mbps -> 450 Mbps through more aggregation.
Supported bands from "up to" 20 to "up to" 29.
Reception? No idea.
Power consumption? No idea.
Size? No idea.
Price? No idea, but clearly it's a premium chip.

But I'm guessing Intel really wants to break into this market so they might have given Apple a good price, after all they get to ship in a huge volume. Assuming this is actually true though, I'll call it speculation until it actually launches.

Re:Intel chip better than Qualcomm?

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course it doesn't. Because, you know - the chip doesn't have to filter out noise and stuff that isn't a relevant part of the signal on accompanying bands/harmonics.

Genius indeed.

Re:Intel chip better than Qualcomm?

[macs4all]

Probably cheaper. Apple is shaving a few cents off which are not passed to the customers.

"Cost Reduction" in a BOM is NEVER directly passed-on to customers.

Stop with the hate, will ya?