Apple will use its own 5G baseband and RF chip in 2023

Abstract: Recently, Taiwan's Business Times quoted supply chain news that the core chips of the iPhone 15 series that will be released in 2023 will all use Apple's self-developed chips for the first time, in addition to the main chip Apple A17 will use TSMC's 3nm process, its self-developed 5G baseband chip will also use TSMC 5nm, and the self-developed RF chip will use TSMC's 7nm process.

Recently, Taiwan's Business Times quoted supply chain news that the core chips of the iPhone 15 series to be released in 2023 will all use Apple's self-developed chips for the first time, in addition to the main chip Apple A17 will use TSMC's 3nm process process, its self-developed 5G baseband chip will also use TSMC 5nm, and the self-developed RF chip will use TSMC's 7nm process.

According to the report, apple's self-developed 5G baseband chip and supporting radio frequency chip have been designed and completed, and trial production and sample delivery are being carried out recently, and it is estimated that field tests will be conducted with major telecom manufacturers in 2022, and it is expected to be put into production in 2023.

It is worth noting that at the Qualcomm Investor Day meeting in November last year, Qualcomm revealed that the business of supplying 5G baseband chips to Apple will shrink in the next two years, and only about 20% of iPhones will use Qualcomm baseband in 2023, which also means that in 2023, Apple will begin to commercially develop its own baseband chips.

From the previous news, Apple's self-developed baseband news can be traced back to 2014, in 2019 Apple and Qualcomm on the patent licensing fee dispute reached a settlement, Apple began to resume the purchase of Qualcomm's baseband chip, Intel also helplessly gave up the 5G baseband (XMM8160) research and development, and then the smart phone baseband chip business, at a price of $1 billion sold to Apple, Apple also took this opportunity to obtain a large number of patents in the baseband accumulated by Intel. Including 8,500 cellular patents and connected device patents, 2,200 Intel smartphone baseband chips employees join apple. In addition, Apple has also recruited some research and development talents from Major Manufacturers in Qualcomm and other industries.

Editor: Xin ZhiXun - Lin Zi