Apple switching to its own modems

[Cmaier]

Qualcomm predicts it will supply only 20% of modems for 2023 iPhone | AppleInsider

Qualcomm will only provide a fifth of the modem chips for the 2023 iPhone range, the company has predicted, with Apple thought to be using other means to acquire 80% of the modems it needs.

appleinsider.com

Sounds like that purchase of Intel’s assets is going to bear some fruit. Hopefully they are as successful as the SoC team.

 

[mr_roboto]

I'm guessing the anticipated 20% is just the fraction of Apple's 2023 production which will be previous-generation devices sold as budget options.

 

[Cmaier]

I'm guessing the anticipated 20% is just the fraction of Apple's 2023 production which will be previous-generation devices sold as budget options.

Probably. I don't think they want to go back to vastly different phones for different markets.

 

[citypix]

I'm cheering for Apple, though I'm skeptical their modem performance will match or exceed Qualcomm's. Hope I'm wrong on that. In the end I think it will depend on IP licensed from Qualcomm.

 

[mr_roboto]

Yeah, Apple actually used Intel modems in several iPhone models with mixed results.

iPhone XS Crushes X in LTE Speeds, But Still Falls Short of Qualcomm

Exclusive: In lab and crowdsourced tests, we found that the iPhone XS has better LTE performance than the iPhone X, but that the Samsung Galaxy Note 9 still beats it.

www.pcmag.com

At least it looks like there was clear progress from the generation used in iPhone X to that used in XS.

 

[Cmaier]

I'm cheering for Apple, though I'm skeptical their modem performance will match or exceed Qualcomm's. Hope I'm wrong on that. In the end I think it will depend on IP licensed from Qualcomm.

When you license IP from Qualcomm they don’t give you anything. It just means they won’t sue you for patent infringement.

 

[citypix]

When you license IP from Qualcomm they don’t give you anything. It just means they won’t sue you for patent infringement.

And that's critical as most communications-oriented signal processing techniques and algorithms (used in different cellular air interface standards' architectures, as well as blocks used in modulation/demodulation techniques, decoders, error-correction, beam forming, RF power management, etc,) which modem chips embody, are out there in published papers and patents (over 125,000 from Qualcomm alone).

Does Apple have a deep well of internal communications theory expertise and experience to develop novel algorithms to push performance boundaries going forward? I know Qualcomm does, based on their history going back decades and huge number of patents.

 

[Cmaier]

And that's critical as most communications-oriented signal processing techniques and algorithms (used in different cellular air interface standards' architectures, as well as blocks used in modulation/demodulation techniques, decoders, error-correction, beam forming, RF power management, etc,) which modem chips embody, are out there in published papers and patents (over 125,000 from Qualcomm alone).

Does Apple have a deep well of internal communications theory expertise and experience to develop novel algorithms to push performance boundaries going forward? I know Qualcomm does, based on their history going back decades and huge number of patents.

Apple has the team from Intel, as well as their own folks. They’re no Qualcomm, but this isn’t their first rodeo.

 

[citypix]

Apple has the team from Intel, as well as their own folks. They’re no Qualcomm, but this isn’t their first rodeo.

It will be interesting to watch. As I said, I'm rooting for Apple - as a happy customer, and also as an AAPL holder. But I suspect communications theory-based algorithm development pushing for fractional dBs of improvement in performance or creating novel signal processing architectures is much different than CPU development. Though, as an aside, it seems Ted Hoff understood both.

 

[Cmaier]

It will be interesting to watch. As I said, I'm rooting for Apple - as a happy customer, and also as an AAPL holder. But I suspect communications theory-based algorithm development pushing for fractional dBs of improvement in performance or creating novel signal processing architectures is much different than CPU development. Though, as an aside, it seems Ted Hoff understood both.

Before apple designed A4, apple didn’t design CPUs. They’ve shown a capacity for learning.

 

[Pumbaa]

Before apple designed A4, apple didn’t design CPUs. They’ve shown a capacity for learning.

And a capacity for buying and hiring.

 

[Cmaier]

And a capacity for buying and hiring.

That’s often how a company learns.

 

[SuperMatt]

 

[Cmaier]

That’s gotta be worth something

 

[citypix]

That’s often how a company learns.

Another way of learning...teaming with and rubbing shoulders with one of the top three leaders in cellular telecom (at the time), to develop a handset. And then after soaking in a ton of knowledge regarding air interface standards, how to interpret requirements and specifications (that's tricky), seeing how things are done, etc, develop your own handset with superior features. A brilliant move. One of Jobs' best.

 

[SuperMatt]

That’s gotta be worth something

We had a 300 baud modem in our Apple ][+ but I don’t know if it was the Apple model or a 3rd-party one. I was too young to remember, but I do remember we had access to the Dow Jones information service, probably through an account from my Dad’s work. Soon after, I think CompuServe became a thing.

 

[Cmaier]

We had a 300 baud modem in our Apple ][+ but I don’t know if it was the Apple model or a 3rd-party one. I was too young to remember, but I do remember we had access to the Dow Jones information service, probably through an account from my Dad’s work. Soon after, I think CompuServe became a thing.

I had a Hayes modem. Yay Hayes.

 

[citypix]

We had a 300 baud modem in our Apple ][+ but I don’t know if it was the Apple model or a 3rd-party one. I was too young to remember, but I do remember we had access to the Dow Jones information service, probably through an account from my Dad’s work. Soon after, I think CompuServe became a thing.

A fun story on that subject:

A looong time ago there was a company in the SF Bay Area called DataSpeed. They offered a subscription-based portable device about the size of a radio, and real-time stock quotation service which was broadcast on a commercial FM radio station's SCA subcarrier (centered at 67 kHz from the station's main carrier frequency, using FSK modulation), with quotes displayed on their device's screen, and could enter a few stock symbols to monitor.

A couple of friends and I worked at a medium sized aerospace company in Sunnyvale that among other things, specialized in receiving, demodulating, and processing unknown signals of interest. For fun we made it our off-work time mission to collect and demodulate DataSpeed's framed data, and then decode the data within a frame to get real time quotes, which was then displayed on a PC. I made a pitch to DataSpeed, with printouts of quotes, suggesting they could expand their market with a PC card demodulator, and eventually met one of their engineers demonstrating my setup at home. Though it never went anywhere, they were shocked a couple of guys in their mid 20s could tap into their system and snag their data for free. I believe that caused them to encrypt after that.

 

[Hrafn]

We had a 300 baud modem in our Apple ][+ but I don’t know if it was the Apple model or a 3rd-party one. I was too young to remember, but I do remember we had access to the Dow Jones information service, probably through an account from my Dad’s work. Soon after, I think CompuServe became a thing.

In '85, I was using a 300 baud modem to hit local bbs's after the family had gone to bed. Good times!

 

[Joelist]

I expect the thrust of Apple's modem designs is going to be power efficiency - so decent performance but top of the line PPW. They would like to solve the usual drawback of LTE and 5G modems of being power wasteful.