from Hacker News

Apple to acquire the majority of Intel's smartphone modem business

by kennethfriedman on 7/25/19, 8:02 PM with 70 comments

  • by ksec on 7/25/19, 8:53 PM

    Intel has a history of acquiring company and then sell it for less ( e.g McAfee ). The Wireless Modem was acquired from Infineon in 2010 for $1.4B. It had 3500 employees then, compared to only 2200 moving to Apple now along with lots of Wireless patents that Intel has contributed to LTE and 5G NR over the years. The $1B sounds like a very good deal.

    My guess is that the recent Intel BaseBand modem design are worth very little to Apple. It is based on Intel's 14nm ( and 10nm for the 8160 5G NR Modem ) , since Intel is winding down their Custom Foundry, and Apple has a much better relationship with TSMC, the chance of Apple fabbing their Modem with Intel is close to Zero. The last TSMC Intel Modem was Intel XMM 7480 used in iPhone 8 / X.

    But even if the Modem is literally worthless, I would have thought the patents are worth a little more than $1B?

    I am wondering if part of the deal is making sure Apple sticking to x86 and Specifically Intel's x86 CPU on the Mac for at least another 5 years. No ARM or AMD Mac.

    Edit: On another note. The Honor 9x [1] is selling in China for $280 VAT inc. If that is $250 excl VAT, the iPhone XR selling at $750 is 3x the price. Apple got a lot of explaining to do for the market to justify its price tag. And privacy alone, which is what they are pushing is not enough.

    [1] https://www.anandtech.com/show/14667/honor-unveils-9x-9x-pro...

  • by dang on 7/25/19, 8:18 PM

  • by lyttlerock on 7/25/19, 8:11 PM

    According to Intel's latest quarterly report[1], 2,200 employees is ~2% of their entire employee base. Kinda reminds me how massive these companies are.

    [1] https://www.intc.com/investor-relations/investor-education-a...

  • by sanguy on 7/26/19, 12:27 AM

    Apple has a pattern here. Started with CPU's (PA Semi) and moved into flash controllers (AnoBit), GPS (coherent), GPU's (Imagine Tech), and now cellular modems. The prior have been well integrated to give us the latest Axx designs.

    It's only a matter of time for the cellular modem to be integrated tightly as Apple takes it in house.

    Qualcomm will be pushed out; it is only a matter of time now. Not if; but simply when.

  • by duxup on 7/25/19, 8:18 PM

    It worries me that this effectively ends up behind the Apple wall and everyone else is stuck with the status quo.

  • by ChuckNorris89 on 7/25/19, 8:15 PM

    With this aquisition, this will be apple's second or third office in Munich.

  • by baybal2 on 7/25/19, 8:11 PM

    More than a modem, they also get a gigantic patent portfolio to fight off Qualcomm's trolling

  • by MrVitaliy on 7/25/19, 8:13 PM

    Is Apple finally going to build significant presence in Silicon Forest?

  • by lawnchair_larry on 7/25/19, 8:18 PM

    Considering how awful Intel modems are, this is disappointing. I was hoping they would stick with Qualcomm.

  • by elsonrodriguez on 7/26/19, 12:10 AM

    So basically Apple gets Qualcomm to agree to a settlement for all their lawsuits, then Apple buys Intel's modem business once there's no legal ramifications.

    I'd be willing to bet Apple dumps Qualcomm at soon as the multi-year deal is up in favor of their in-house chips.

    Well played.