According to analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, Apple has abandoned the development of its own Wi-Fi chips for the iPhone 15. The future series of smartphones will adopt Wi-Fi 6E, but thanks to chips from Broadcom.
We have known for a long time that Apple is trying to get rid of its subcontractors, to regain control over the development and manufacture of components for its iPhone, iPad, Mac and MacBook. The opportunity also to put an end to tense relations, all the more so in a difficult economic context. Analyst Ming-Chi Kuo states that, according to his information, Apple ” has discontinued development of its own Wi-Fi chip for some time in a post on Medium. If Apple manufactured its own Wi-Fi chip, it would also be to take the greatest care of it and we can find ourselves dreaming of new functionalities, increased reliability or even better performance on future iPhones.
No Apple Wi-Fi chip for the iPhone 15s
He clarified that this only concerns the Wi-Fi chip and not a chip that combines Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. The design of the latter is more complex and, like most of the brand’s products, “it would be even more difficult to replace Broadcom’s combo chips with its own if Apple decides to do so“. The suspension of this development should therefore delight Broadcom, which is benefiting from an additional reprieve. Apple represents a client close to 7 billion dollars per year for the manufacturer, or 20% of its turnover.
Apple would have resigned itself to stopping the development of such a chip. iPhone 15s are expected to upgrade to Wi-Fi 6E. Moreover, “over the next two or three yearsApple could even integrate Wi-Fi 7 into its products. It would be risky for the brand to introduce its own chips as the connectivity standard changes.
Apple focused too much on M2 chips
The analyst goes on to state that Apple has “devoted most of its IC design resources to processor development“, in particular the A16 Bionic and the M2. Only here, this has caused a lack of resources for its 5G chip: it is also expected that Qualcomm will take care of 5G on the iPhone 15.
This concentration of resources on processors would also have affected the development of Apple’s Wi-Fi chip, whose visibility “is even weaker than that of its own 5G band chip“. For his part, Mark Gurman of the newspaperBloombergremains convinced: Apple is developing a chip combining Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, as he reaffirmed it on Twitter.
In 2023, Apple will (certainly) present its new iPhone 15, iPhone 15 Max, iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Ultra. Price, release date, technical sheet… We take stock of the first information available about them.
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