Apple brought CPU and GPU development in-house and rumors have been swirling since at least 2019 that it wants to design its own 5G modems. Back then it was believed that the first own silicon modems will appear in 2022 iPhones, but the latest investors note by Ming-Chi Kuo revises that to “2023 at the earliest”.
This lines up with an earlier report by a team of analysts at Barclays who also point to 2023. The modem will support both sub-6 and mm Wave 5G.
Apple first officially confirmed that it has started work on a modem in December 2020. A couple of months ago it announced a €1 billion investment years to build a new R&D facility in Munich, Germany. Its main goals will be developing 5G and future wireless technologies, but it will also explore other technologies. Besides Apple’s desire to control the whole hardware and software stack for its products, the modem business proved quite contentious – a patent dispute caused Apple to drop its long-term modem supplier, Qualcomm, and switch to inferior Intel designs back in 2018.
