Intel Gets Chip Order from Apple, Its First Major Mobile Win

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-06-10/intel-said-to-get-chip-order-from-apple-first-major-mobile-win

by adventured • 10 years ago

141 58 10 years ago

Woa, that's unexpected.

mtgx• 10 years ago

A little. There have been some rumors that Apple would use an Intel modem for a while, although that kind of seemed nipped in the bud when Intel announced that it will stop making mobile SoCs, so mainly from that point of view it's unexpected.

Intel and Apple probably signed this contract quite a while ago, though, maybe at least 18 months ago. If Intel wouldn't have gotten this, it would've probably shut down the entire mobile operation, including the modem division (it would've probably sold it off).

phire• 10 years ago

People are reading a bit too much into the "Intel killing Goldmount" news, assuming that killing off all publically announced SoCs means Intel are abandoning the SoC market.

In reality, Intel is killing Atom, because Skylake has more or less spec'd it out of existence. Atom was an attempt to do x86 with a low power, smartphone/tablet budget, and it sacrificed a lot of performance in order to fit into that budget. The result is a 2.5w Airmont chip.

Intel have also been focusing on low power with their Sandybridge/Haswell/Skylake Core line. And the result is a 3.5w Skylake chip, that has over twice the performance of the Airmont chip. 3.5w is still a little large for a phone but it's small enough for a tablet. In the next generation or two, intel will shrink the Core architecture down to something which fits in the 2.5w power budget for a smartphone.

Basically, Intel are killing Atom because it's no longer better than Core in any way. They will regroup and launch new SoCs in the future.

bb88• 10 years ago

Can we please stop linking to bloomberg? They're approach to ad blockers is terrible.

tener• 10 years ago

Huh? All I get is a small, not really annoying popup. I have seen stuff that was way more irritating.

jlebar• 10 years ago

For me it has a countdown timer, makes you wait for five seconds.

Of course, uBlockOrigin's "block element" makes short work of this.

chinathrow• 10 years ago

Agreed. I have no adblocker on mobile chrome but DNT on and get the same warning.

mmanfrin• 10 years ago

They've also been appearing a lot recently. Consistently 3-4 of the top 20 links.

philjohn2• 10 years ago

Shock horror, people want to be paid for the content they put out. Wired and Bloomberg are the only sites I have AdBlock disabled for as they keep them unobtrusive.

marklubi2• 10 years ago

I would say that the auto-playing video with controls that aren't focusable or usable is worse. Couldn't stop the video from playing without deleting the object via Firebug.

mikecsh• 10 years ago

I'm more interested in the content of the linked article than whether it offends someone's sensitivities. Bloomberg articles linked here tend to be interesting and of good quality.

bydo• 10 years ago

For modems, for some models (not Verizon or anything to be sold in China, apparently). A lot less exciting than the headline sounded at first.

Still interesting, but not as much as Intel fabbing the A10 would have been.

tsuru• 10 years ago

But yet ARMH still tanked 4.85% and then another 4.80% in after hours.

Cyph0n• 10 years ago

Damn that's a significant hit. Are shareholders that paranoid? I mean, this will in no way affect ARM's total domination of the low power SoC design market, at least that's the way I see it.

These guys basically print money through licensing. It's a dream revenue model imo.

drcode• 10 years ago

Darnit, I hadn't checked my stock portfolio yet today.

subway2• 10 years ago

Which is rather bizarre, considering the majority of Intel's modems ship with multiple ARM cores (One in the X-Gold baseband, and another running the "application" firmware implementing mbim/qmi/whatever.)

agumonkey2• 10 years ago

Even then, it feels like intel got a foot in AAPL's door which is one big door.

gozur883• 10 years ago

And if Apple is using Intel other manufacturers will probably do the same.

FreedomToCreate• 10 years ago

This gives some additional credence to the rumors that Apple has been working with Intel to create an SOC with the modem built in. It would be a big step for Apple and opens up some additional board space on what is arguably one of the most complicated PCBs for a consumer product (if you have a dead iPhone laying around its amazing to have a look at the PCB).

philjohn2• 10 years ago

Could also lead to power savings as well having the model on a SOC with the next Apple CPU.

derefr• 10 years ago

No need for a dead iPhone: https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/iPhone+6s+Teardown/48170#s10...

ROFISH• 10 years ago

So this means we're splitting the iPhone SKUs into AT&T and Verizon again? It's much nicer knowing one phone will work on all carriers. :/

marcusarmstrong2• 10 years ago

They're currently split, ever so slightly, with the 6s. The AT&T model supports a couple extra bands vs. the Verizon.

feld• 10 years ago

Really? I thought there were only two versions in the US: Sprint and Everything Else

gozur883• 10 years ago

It's not just the bands. The 6 is capable of VoLTE, but VoLTE isn't available everywhere on every carrier. So it still has to be able to drop down to 1x, which means CDMA for Verizon, Sprint, and US Cellular, while AT&T and T-Mobile use GSM.

You'd think Apple could put out just one model when the 1x networks go away.

mbell• 10 years ago

I believe they've always been split, as I recall there are 4 different iPhone 6 models supporting different frequencies / protocols.

mhurron• 10 years ago

Verizon supports GSM now?

subway2• 10 years ago

Verizon supports LTE and VoLTE.

gozur883• 10 years ago

At some point all voice calls will go over LTE and Verizon's CDMA voice network will be retired, but they're not going to adopt another 1x technology.

acqq• 10 years ago

"Qualcomm’s modems remain ahead of Intel’s offerings in performance when measured by how much data they can get from the network into the phone."

I hope it's not something that the users (and I) will have to worry, if "Intel is inside." That is, I hope that the difference won't be observable in "normal use."

yread• 10 years ago

Just a heads up the link seems to start an autoplaying video that can't be paused

pwg• 10 years ago

With NoScript and Ublock Origin one gets to read the whole article without any autoplaying video starting at all.

ams6110• 10 years ago

78 requests blocked on that page!

mixedCase• 10 years ago

I did get an anti-ad blocker popup not covered by my anti-anti-ad blocker lists.

Just used the eye dropper and deleted the fullscreen container and good to go.

anonbanker• 10 years ago

I don't know if this is a win for privacy (Qualcomm's modem was known to be compromised), or if Intel's Management Engine (or similar) gets a new home.

matmann2001• 10 years ago

Really? Do you have a reference for that?

wyldfire• 10 years ago

Can you refer me to more info regarding the issue w/Qualcomm's modem?

known• 10 years ago

I smell https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quid_pro_quo

Intel Gets Chip Order from Apple, Its First Major Mobile Win

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