“Johny Srouji, the Apple executive in charge of building chips for the company’s devices, was fed up with Intel,” Aaron Tilley reports for The Information. “It was early 2017 and Apple was preparing a new line of iPhones to be released the next year, but the Intel modem for the devices, known as the 7560, wasn’t working properly, according to two people with knowledge of the relationship… Missed deadlines and continuing technical issues with the chip were making Apple executives anxious, said one of the people.”
“‘This would have never happened at Apple under my watch,’ Mr. Srouji barked at his Intel counterpart, Venkata ‘Murthy’ Renduchintala, during a meeting on Apple’s campus, according to the person, who was present at the meeting,” Tilley reports. “The episode offers new insight into Apple’s fraying relationship with Intel, a high-profile alliance that splintered publicly last month, when Apple said it would resume buying modems from Qualcomm as part of a wider high-profile legal settlement between the companies. It shows that Apple’s frustrations with Intel’s modem efforts began earlier than previously reported and involved Intel’s struggles with an earlier generation of modems, not just new 5G chips designed to connect future phones to wireless networks at lightning-fast speeds.”
Apple’s “multiyear modem agreement with Qualcomm may only be temporary since Apple has a large in-house team developing its own modem, as The Information has previously reported,” Tilley reports. “But that in-house effort appears to be farther from fruition than some chip experts have predicted. In interviews with prospective hires for the team, Apple has told engineers that they expect to have their own modem ready by 2025, a person familiar with the discussions said.”
Much more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: The fracturing of Apple and Intel’s relationship is not just modems, of course, as Tilley reminds, “Just as it is working on its own modem chip in-house, Apple has a multiyear effort to design the main processing chip for its Mac computers, which would allow it to move away from Intel for the chips, said a person familiar with the project.”
Intel is well-past its glory days. Today, Intel’s claim to fame – besides not being able to make modem chips very well – is peddling inefficient, embarrassing, fatally-flawed junk.
SEE ALSO:
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Apple’s Project Marzipan could mean big things for the future of the Macintosh – February 20, 2019
Apple iPad Pro’s A12X chip has no real rivals; it delivers performance unseen on Android tablets – November 1, 2018
Ming-Chi Kuo: Apple A-series Macs coming in 2020 or 2021, Apple Car in 2023-2025 – October 17, 2018
MacBooks powered by Apple A-series chips are finally going to happen soon – September 18, 2018
Apple A-series-powered Mac idea boosted as ARM claims its chips can out-perform Intel – August 16, 2018
Did Apple just show its hand on future low-end, A-series-powered MacBooks? – July 13, 2018
How Apple might approach an ARM-based Mac – May 30, 2018
Pegatron said to assemble Apple’s upcoming ‘ARM-based MacBook’ codenamed ‘Star’ – May 29, 2018
Intel 10nm Cannon Lake delays push MacBook Pro with potential 32GB RAM into 2019 – April 27, 2018
Why the next Mac processor transition won’t be like the last two – April 4, 2018
Apple’s ‘Kalamata’ project will move Macs from Intel to Apple A-series processors – April 2, 2018
Apple plans on dumping Intel for its own chips in Macs as early as 2020 – April 2, 2018
Apple is working to unite iOS and macOS; will they standardize their chip platform next? – December 21, 2017
Why Apple would want to unify iOS and Mac apps in 2018 – December 20, 2017
Apple to provide tool for developers build cross-platform apps that run on iOS and macOS in 2018 – December 20, 2017
The once and future OS for Apple – December 8, 2017
Apple ships more microprocessors than Intel – October 2, 2017
Apple embarrasses Intel – June 14, 2017
Apple developing new chip for Macintosh in test of Intel independence – February 1, 2017
Apple’s A10 Fusion chip ‘blows away the competition,’ could easily power MacBook Air – Linley Group – October 21, 2016
“Apple has a multiyear effort to design the main processing chip for its Mac computers,”
Hmmm
Developing functional, producible, 10-billion-transistor processors with good yield is a BIG undertaking.
Apple can’t do everything.
Except they are already developing best in class processors. Why can’t they just add more cores? TSMC is already years ahead of intel with their stamping technology.