Apple has repeatedly been rumored to be in talks with Intel about providing modem chips for the iPhone, and now new reports have surfaced that certain models of the ‘iPhone 7’ will include the 7360 LTE chipset.
Sources told VentureBeat that the chip would be included in selected models of the next iPhone, targeted at emerging markets in Asia and Latin America. That would be a major boost to Intel’s wireless credibility, since the modem products it acquired with Infineon Wireless have tended to be successful with lower cost, lower profile handset makers. Apple did use Infineon 3G modems in some earlier iPhones, but not since the Intel acquisition.
Although Intel’s really strategic smartphone products are the Atom processors and the SoFIA integrated system-on-chip, there is obviously no potential to sell those to Apple, which has its own CPU. Nonetheless, the modem slot is an important one, and one which has been monopolized by Qualcomm in recent years. Having to share its most famous, and one of its largest, baseband customers with Intel would be a severe blow to the San Diego firm, which is seeing its massive domination of LTE smartphone chips – its share was still around 90% last year – being eroded.
It’s been a good run – competitors took longer than expected to produce credible alternatives to Qualcomm’s LTE and multimode smartphone modems, and it has stayed ahead of the field in successive 4G upgrades, as well as seeing off some challengers such as Broadcom/Renesas and Nvidia, both of which exited the field last year. Indeed, Qualcomm often boasts that its modem expertise is what, above all else, keeps it in its mobile leadership position, because it is “just so bloody difficult” to play in this market and integrate more and more connectivity into the chipsets – as witnessed by the string of casualties.
However, MediaTek, Spreadtrum and Marvell are among the companies which are getting their acts together in this field, and so a major Intel victory would just add to the pressures on this most core of all activities for Qualcomm.
The Intel chip in question, the 7360, supports LTE Category 9/10 with triband carrier aggregation and peak speeds of 450Mbps. The report says Apple engineers are spending time at the Intel/Infineon facility in Munich, Germany, to work on integrating the chip with the iPhone’s application processor.
Apple often tries to diversify its supply chain, if only to improve its negotiating position with key vendors and ensure its control of key component availability. It has been trying to introduce alternatives to Samsung in the areas of touchsceens, memory and the manufacturing of its processors – with varying degrees of success, though it does have second and even third partners in all these areas now, in addition to its Korean frenemy. Indeed, some of the earlier rumors about potential deals with Intel revolved around the production of the CPUs, with talk that Intel would manufacture some iDevice processors as it expands its foundry activities, in return for getting Atom into some of Apple’s future products – or at least keeping the inhouse, ARM-based chips out of the Intel-based Macs.
Another Intel swipe against Qualcomm’s modem dominance is seen in its investment in Chinese companies Rockchip and Spreadtrum. As if the wireless giant did not have enough issues in China, with its recent antitrust probes (now settled) and licensing disputes, it is facing a powerful rearguard action from Intel in the country.
The world’s largest chipmaker made its first realistic challenge to ARM-based rivals in the mobile space when it announced a joint manufacturing and sales deal with China’s Rockchip last year. Then it followed that with similar agreements with two other Chinese players which were, until then, fully focused on the ARM architecture for handsets. In October, it announced it would invest up to $1.5bn in a 20% stake in Tsinghua Unigroup, which controls Spreadtrum Communications and RDA Microelectronics (and is in the process of converging them). This not only helps Intel adapt its traditional economics and product offerings to the norms of Chinese device makers, but deploys its huge resources to strengthen some of Qualcomm’s rivals and to lure them, at least partially, into the x86 camp.
All three deals see Intel pushing its x86 architecture into the portfolios of companies which have focused entirely on ARM designs for their modem/processor combinations. None of Intel’s Chinese partners will abandon ARM, but they will be persuaded to add Intel-based products to their families. “Spreadtrum will jointly create and sell a family of Intel Architecture-based SoCs,” Intel said at the time of the announcement. “Initial products will be available beginning in the second half of next year and will be Intel Architecture-based SoCs sold by both companies.”
Intel is developing a specific variant of SoFIA with its new partners, targeted at specific low cost product categories such as low end tablets. CEO Brian Krzanich said the companies are “bringing a speed and execution and proliferation that would otherwise not get done.”
The power of the Chinese market may well save Marvell in the smartphone modem game too. Success in China is likely to make the firm the second largest LTE chipset supplier this year, according to Forward Concepts, after Qualcomm, and it has also sold its Armada Mobile PXA1908 five-mode LTE modem and processor to Samsung for its new low end Galaxy J1 smartphone.
There are rumors that Marvell may merge its wireless activities with a large Chinese player, which would create an even bigger headache for Qualcomm, especially since the debut of the latest Armada Mobile units, which vye with the US company’s own capabilities. As well as the PXA1908, last autumn saw the launch of the eight-core PXA1936, also supporting five LTE modes (essential for China), plus ARM Cortex A53 processor cores and 64- bit- all packed into a midpriced SoC for mass market devices.
Marvell says it can get the economics right because it has such a mature and well-trusted LTE modem architecture. It already has the number two position in LTE modems in China (about 30% share), and has been building mobile products and alliances in the country since it acquired Intel’s ARM-based XScale business as the basis for a processor/modem SoC. The integration is an important aspect of its price competitiveness, as it is for Qualcomm – for instance, the PXA1936 processor is implemented on the same die as the LTE/TD-SCDMA modem, while MediaTek’s rival SoC still uses a separate TD-LTE chip. Marvell also puts GPS, Bluetooth and WiFi on the same die and has its own LTE RF transceiver chip, plus a power management chip with integrated codec and charger. This combination of elements into one SoC is matched only by Qualcomm, which has also invested heavily in incorporating its own connectivity and RF elements alongside its more established processor/modem offerings.
Marvell’s LTE modem has been certified by Verizon, AT&T and China Mobile and is being tested by NTT Docomo and others. However, it is the Chinese market which is mainly responsible for boosting the company’s cellular baseband market share. It is still hardly enough to worry Qualcomm – 4% in global terms in the second quarter, according to Strategy Analytics, but this was up from 2.4% in the year-ago quarter.
But in China it did far better. In the TD-SCDMA/apps processor sector, the key indicator in 2013 before 4G licences were officially granted, Marvell was fourth, with 12%, behind Spreadtrum on 39%, MediaTek on 30% and Qualcomm on 14% (according to Forward Concepts). With the three Chinese operators now deploying TD-LTE at pace, Marvell’s claim that it will leapfrog Qualcomm and achieve 30% share in Chinese TDD modems is “not outlandish”, Forward Concepts’ Will Strauss told EETimes late last year.