Oliver Haslam·

Apple’s 2018 iPhone Lineup To Feature Pre-5G Baseband Chips From Intel For Faster Data Speeds

A new report by KGI Securities claims that Apple’s 2018 iPhones will include new, and noticeably faster baseband chips when compared to existing handsets.

Both Qualcomm and Intel will be used to source the chips, although the belief is that the latter will be the main supplier. This comes as no big surprise given the deterioration of relations between Apple and Qualcomm, with the chip maker having sought to have iPhones banned in the United States and China at one point this year.

According to the report, anything up to 80% of the chips will be sourced via Intel, meaning the slice of the share available to Qualcomm will be much smaller. The most important point here though is the speed of those chips, and while there has been no specific mention of what we can expect from them, the pre-5G chips will offer 4×4 MIMO technology. This alone should allow for an increase in speeds when compared to the current 2×2 MIMO configuration.

With Intel and Qualcomm signed up for the 2018 iPhones’ chips, KGI has again reiterated that Apple is working on being able to build its own baseband chips in the future. This would not only reduce costs for the company, but would also remove the reliance on a third-party for chips, something that Apple likes to do. Supply constraints and a lack of control over pricing and availability are factors that would push Apple towards bringing baseband chip manufacturing in-house, something it has already done with other key components of the iPhone in the past to great results.

A new report from earlier today however contradicts with KGI’s claim, saying Apple is working with Intel on 5G modems for future iPhones.

With 2017 drawing to a close, and new iPhones having only just been released, we are still a long way from knowing what the 2018 lineup will look like. Rumors have already begun to circulate however, and we expect another bumpy ride as we already count down to September 2018.

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