“At least two high-level baseband hardware engineers have left wireless semiconductor company Broadcom for new positions at Apple this year, adding weight to speculation that the iPhone maker is planning to design and build its own baseband processors,” Shane Cole reports for AppleInsider.
“Former Broadcom principal engineer Paul Chang joined Apple as a senior program manager in February after more than 11 years at the chipmaker, AppleInsider has learned,” Cole reports. “While at Broadcom, Chang was RF hardware lead for the development of baseband transceivers that made their way into mobile devices from both Nokia and Samsung.”
“Another longtime Broadcom engineer, Xiping Wang, joined Apple in January after serving over 10 years as a design engineer and hardware development manager with Broadcom,” Cole reports. “All together, Apple has assembled at least 30 mid- and senior-level baseband software and hardware engineers from Broadcom and current iPhone baseband vendor Qualcomm over the past three years. Apple is also advertising more than 50 additional openings related to RF chip design, an indication that the build-up is not yet complete. ”
Read more in the full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Bill” for the heads up.]
Related article:
Apple to design its own LTE chips for iPhone 7; to be stamped by Samsung and GlobalFoundries, sources say – April 8, 2014
what is “baseband”?
A better question than I thought initially! It looks like broadband is used to contact towers (broadcast your request to communicate on multiple frequencies hoping for a tower that can respond because it isn’t busy on all of its frequencies), and then actual communication is done over baseband, or a single frequency.
thanks.
Sure glad the Silicon Valley anti-poaching employment issue has been squared away.
When I read these Apple broadband development articles, I get all fantasizing that they’re getting ready for REAL 4G technology.
But then I crash back to Earth remembering there aren’t ANY mobile companies upgrading to REAL 4G transmission gear, not yet anyway. What a drag.
The future is in PAUSE mode. 😛
What if they’re building their own broadband service?
Apple looks to be removing other third-parties from their ecosystem.
This might give Apple an edge over products like Square. Baseband chips could be coupled with Apple’s A-series chips to provide a secure iBeacon experience.