back to article No, it's not Intel's 5G chip Apple is ditching – it's the Sunny Peak Bluetooth, Wi-Fi part

A new ultra-fast-wireless Intel chip will not make its way into next-generation Apple iPhones, and will be axed, the chipmaker confirmed in a roundabout way. The chip, codenamed Sunny Peak, was designed to provide Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity, and was supposed to be a core component of Apple's smartphones shipping in 2020 …

  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    MediaTek?

    They don't make barge poles long enough after my experience of how they treat their chipset customers.

    "Here, use this fancy chipset in your new mobile phone design"

    Less than a year later...

    "Oh, you found some serious bugs in that old chipset? Sorry guys, it's not supported any more"

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: MediaTek?

      Apple doesn't so much want wireless chips, they want wireless IP they can license and include on their SoC. That's not an option with Qualcomm, but Intel was willing to consider it, and I'm sure Mediatek would be as well. If Apple maintains control of software updates then Mediatek's lack of interest in providing updates to their other customers isn't an issue.

      I think Apple's ultimate goal would be to design their own, like they did with CPUs and more recently GPUs, but even though they acquired a lot of LTE patents from Nortel's bankruptcy the wireless world is a patent minefield so probably better to work with others at least until 5G shakes out.

      1. Mage Silver badge

        Re: MediaTek?

        Buy in an RF company?

        Apple bought in the ARM expertise. They started buying Samsung parts.

        So Apple have in a sense done ARM SoC design. The actual ARM core is an ARM design.

        RF is quite different, as Intel discovered. It's taken them a while.

        Qualcomm are a bit of patent troll. They want a royalty because you use it, again on chip and finally based on your price for the system. They also have bought in a lot of IP/Asset stripped small companies.

        Most of Nortel's stuff at this stage is no use to design new chips, but patents so as to be in standards cartels and have FRAND, as per 3G, 4G, WiFi etc. Most of the "5G" patents are "fake" as we have been at the Shannon limit for maybe 15 years.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: MediaTek?

          No, Apple's not done ARM SoC design "in a sense", they've done a from scratch ARM design entirely on their own starting with the A6. it is NOT an ARM design in any way. I thought this was common knowledge, surely there aren't still people who believe Apple is using an ARM core, or somehow relying on Samsung (Samsung hasn't even been fabbing their last few generations of SoC)

          It is true designing a cellular baseband is not simple - Intel has had trouble but they've outsourced the whole project to a team of 1000 engineers in India, which shows the low importance they've placed on it. They don't design their CPUs in India...

          Nortel's IP may not be useful for design, it would be useful however for patent defense - i.e. Apple infringes on patents X, Y, Z of Qualcomm or whoever, but they have patents A and B from Nortel for cross licensing. Qualcomm is the king of CDMA patents, but they are just another player when it comes to LTE, so once Apple decides to dump CDMA (probably not this year, but almost certainly next year since Verizon is dropping it as of Dec. 31 2019) trying to do their own baseband becomes much more feasible patent wise.

          Apple will need to bring in some expertise, like they did with buying two CPU design firms to obtain the engineers necessary to design their own ARM core. They've hired some people, but probably not enough to roll their own. But they didn't go directly to fully custom ARM cores or fully custom GPUs. They started by licensing and modifying existing stuff, so that's probably their most likely path on the cellular side assuming they see value in developing their own.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Drop intel at their peril..

    One of the keys to the Mac's success (especially in SME environments) was due in part to things like bootcamp and parallels, fusion etc. I doubt they will run very well on an ARM CPU..

    Saying that, if they jump ship to AMD, they'll be blessed (chipzilla is too big for its own good)

    1. This post has been deleted by its author

      1. K

        Re: Drop intel at their peril..

        @s2bu - "Are you stoned right now, or did you just not read the article AT ALL?"

        It would appear @AC did indeed read the article, or at least the bit you skipped:

        "it is mulling potentially dropping Intel chips in its ... and desktop computers"

        But either way, if they are stoned, drunk or just delirious with sunstroke, lets not forget It is Friday night, its time to post stupid comments! You should see the horror I'm saving for next Friday (13th)!

  3. Mage Silver badge

    5G

    A lot of hype and hot air. Very little of it is to do with actual realistically usable Mobile bands, but efforts to charge people for in premises use instead of free wifi to their own fibre / cable / xdsl.

    Also about integrating infrastructure

    Intel will not make much money out of 5G. Look how well they did on WiMax?

    1. This post has been deleted by its author

  4. elvisimprsntr

    Original fake news reported directly/indirectly by someone looking to short Intel stock.

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