Apple 5g chip failure? Expert analysis: how difficult is the self-developed chip
2022-06-30
Because of the 5g baseband chip, Apple has been pushed to the forefront again. Recently, guomingpei, a well-known researcher of Apple's industrial chain and an analyst of Tianfeng international, said that Apple's own iPhone 5g baseband chip development may have failed, so Qualcomm will continue to be the exclusive supplier of 5g chips for the new iPhone in 2023, with a supply share of 100% (Qualcomm previously estimated that it was 20%). Affected by this news, Qualcomm's share price was once $136.45 higher in regular trading today, up more than 7%. The apple 5g chip research and development failed . For a long time, in order not to be controlled by others in the chip sector, Apple has been making great efforts in developing its own chips. It has also made recognized achievements in A-Series and M-series chips. Now, however, Apple's self-developed 5g baseband chip has failed. Behind this, how difficult is it to develop a 5g baseband chip? What impact will the failure of Apple's self research have? 5g baseband chip has made apple fall into trouble for several times In the comment area, the discussion about the failure of Apple's self-developed 5g chip has exploded. Among the many discussions, in addition to complaining about the poor signal of Apple mobile phone, everyone also praised Huawei's 5g baseband capability. Many netizens said that "Apple's signal problem is real garbage" and "I have to feel that China is a real cow." Some netizens directly said, "this technology is a long-term accumulation process, and it is not just money that can be developed." At present, the core technology field of 5g chips in the world is mainly controlled by Qualcomm, Samsung and Huawei. Around 2020, due to the patent fee dispute with Qualcomm, the progress of apple and Qualcomm in purchasing 5g baseband chips has been slow. Apple's demand for purchasing 5g baseband from Samsung could not be effectively promoted due to Samsung's limited capacity supply. At that time, apple even heard that it was considering using Huawei's 5g baseband, and apple was once criticized as "falling behind in the 5g era". In order to cope with the difficulty in supplying 5g baseband, apple tried to cooperate with Intel to purchase 5g chips and baseband. However, after using the 5g baseband developed by Intel, its product performance was not friendly. In the end, Apple had to turn around again, choose to settle with Qualcomm, and pay patent fees. During this period, Apple also invested US $1billion to acquire most of Intel's mobile baseband (modem) business, and merged about 2200 employees under Intel's name into apple, opening the way for self-development of 5g baseband. Unfortunately, now, with the news of the failure of Apple's self-developed 5g chip, Apple will continue to pay high procurement costs to Qualcomm. The beautiful vision of self-development and independence is hopeless in the short term. M series chips have made breakthroughs repeatedly. Why did 5g chips fail? At present, Apple's self-developed 5g chip has indeed failed. However, guomingpei also firmly believes that Apple will not give up the research and development of 5g chips, "it may take more time to complete relevant technical research and other work, and then mass produce after testing 'perfect' and realize commercial use in iPhone." In fact, in order to get rid of the dependence and influence of the chip sector on suppliers, Apple has been committed to chip research and development in the past few years. Since the first A4 processor of the iPhone 4, Apple has embarked on the road of self-developed chips. Subsequently, M1 and M2 series chips were introduced. These processing platforms not only showed outstanding energy consumption performance, but also caused a sensation in the consumer circle. They also successfully separated apple from the "clutches" of mobile platform suppliers. Apple's R & D capability in chips has also been recognized by the outside world. So why did apple, which has made breakthroughs in A-Series and M-series chips, get stuck in the 5g baseband chip? According to KOL zhangguobin in the semiconductor communication industry, in fact, 5g baseband chips not only have very complex algorithms, but also have strict requirements in terms of RF, computing power and energy efficiency. In addition, they also have to adapt to the frequency bands of various countries around the world. After they are developed, they have to do field testing and optimization around the world. At the same time, they are compatible with the previous 4G and 3G GSM standards. This leads to a great challenge in the research and development of 5g baseband chips, which is far more difficult than the development of ordinary chips. "It can be said that the baseband chip is not one chip, but several chips, which has greatly increased the difficulty of research and development. M2 is actually a simple processor. As long as the balance between power consumption and computing power is grasped, its difficulty can not be compared with 5g baseband chip." Zhangguobin said. Just finished a lawsuit with Qualcomm, and will be dependent on Qualcomm again Most mobile phone manufacturers now pay a certain patent licensing fee to Qualcomm for each mobile phone they sell. After Apple failed to develop 5g chips, Qualcomm was the biggest beneficiary. According to guomingyu's analysis, due to Apple's failure to replace Qualcomm, Qualcomm's revenue and earnings per share from the second half of 2023 to the first half of 2024 may exceed market expectations. "Apple will continue to develop its own 5g chip, but when Apple succeeds in developing and can replace Qualcomm in the iPhone, Qualcomm's other new businesses should have grown enough to offset the negative impact of the loss of iPhone 5g chip orders." Guo said. An interesting thing is that on June 27, the U.S. Supreme Court also rejected Apple's patent appeal against Qualcomm, and did not support Apple's appeal against Qualcomm on two smartphone patents. These two patents are two of the tens of thousands of Qualcomm patent licenses that Apple reached in 2019 when seeking to obtain Qualcomm's supply of chips. According to the US Supreme Court judge, "as the two companies have reached a settlement agreement, apple is no longer qualified to pursue this matter." (Xinhua News Agency)
Edit：Li Jialang Responsible editor：Mu Mu
Source：ithome.com
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