After a report surfaced that Apple would be buying Intel’s 5G modem business, Apple announced the $1 billion acquisition. The acquisition includes thousands of wireless tech patents, 2,200 employees, and more and is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2019.
“This agreement enables us to focus on developing technology for the 5G network while retaining critical intellectual property and modem technology that our team has created,” said Intel CEO Bob Swan in a statement.
With today’s news, Apple will be able to wean itself off of the Qualcomm modem that is in many previous-generation iPhones and expedite the development of its own 5G smartphone modem, which is something Intel had struggled to do on its own.
Currently, the iPhone XS, iPhone XS Max, and iPhone XR all have 4G LTE with Intel modems and that’s not expected to change with the forthcoming iPhone 11 series. Some iPhone 8, iPhone 8 Plus, and iPhone X models have Qualcomm modem chips.
A series of 5G iPhone rumors point to the first iteration launching in 2020. But this Apple-Intel deal isn’t expected to close until the fourth quarter of 2019, leaving the company less than a year to turnaround a 5G iPhone modem.
It doesn’t give Apple very much time to develop its own modem, never mind a 5G version that competes with the Qualcomm modem chip already inside the Samsung Galaxy S10 5G. So it may still have to license modems from Qualcomm.
