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 Broadcom chips.
We’ve known for a long time that Apple is trying to get rid of its subcontractors, to regain control over the development and manufacturing of components for its iPhones, iPads, Macs and MacBooks. The opportunity also to put an end to tense relations, even more so in a difficult economic context. Analyst Ming-Chi Kuo says that according to his information, Apple ” has discontinued development of its own Wi-Fi chip for some time in a Medium post.
No Apple Wi-Fi chip for the iPhone 15s
He clarified that this only refers to 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“. Therefore, the suspension of this development should delight Broadcom, which benefits from a further postponement. Apple represents a client of close to 7,000 million dollars a year for the manufacturer, or 20% of its turnover.
Apple would have resigned itself to stopping the development of such a chip. In fact, the iPhone 15 is expected to switch to Wi-Fi 6E. The rest, “in 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 integrated circuit design resources to processor development“particularly the A16 Bionic and the M2. Only here, this has led to a lack of resources for its 5G chip: Qualcomm is also expected to take care of 5G on the iPhone 15.
This concentration of resources on processors would also have had an impact on the development of Apple’s Wi-Fi chip, the visibility of which “it is even weaker than its own 5G band chip“. For his part, Mark Gurman of the dailyBloombergremains convinced: Apple is developing a chip that combines Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, such as reaffirmed it on Twitter.
In 2023, Apple will (surely) 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 available data on them.
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