The patent lawsuit between Qualcomm and Apple's two giants, the two sides have been arrogant and arrogant, but they did not expect that they will be reconciled without warning at the upcoming 5G.

More surprisingly, at the same time, Intel announced that it will withdraw from the 5G smartphone modem business. You know, Intel became the sole provider of iPhone baseband chips in 2018. For chip makers, this is a very proud market position, but Intel has voluntarily given up its honor while withdrawing from future R&D plans.

In the face of 5G, why did Intel retreat?

Although Intel is currently the only provider of Apple's baseband chips, the upcoming 5G era will make it all clear, and it needs to start at the same starting line with other vendors. Qualcomm, Samsung and even Huawei and MediaTek are likely to become their opponents. In January this year, Reuters reported that in the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) trial against Qualcomm's antitrust case, Apple supply chain executives revealed that in addition to the existing supplier Intel, Apple is still with Samsung Electronics, MediaTek Contact and negotiate for a 5G modem for the 2019 iPhone.

The lawsuits of Qualcomm and Apple seem to fight you to death, and they are actually based on the tricks of their own interests. There are no eternal enemies in the mall, only forever benefits. As a rational corporate citizen, Apple hates Qualcomm's high patent license fees, but is more concerned about the huge losses that can be foreseen after it falls out. Under the two-way trade-off, Apple chose to finally reach a settlement with Qualcomm. The two sides also reached a six-year technology licensing agreement, including a two-year extension option and a multi-year chip supply agreement.

According to news reports, the agreement signed between Apple and Qualcomm came into effect on April 1, 2019. This means that Intel's iPhone baseband unique supplier status has virtually ceased to exist. After losing Apple's big customer, Intel's prospects in the 5G baseband chip market suddenly became bleak.

At present, the mobile phone manufacturers market is concentrated, Samsung and Huawei have their own baseband chip products. Apple used to be a Samsung user, and even commissioned Samsung to produce chips. The relationship is fairly harmonious. At the moment when Apple and Samsung were nervous, Huawei also expressed its willingness to sell 5G baseband chips to Apple. Domestic manufacturers such as Xiaomi and OV brothers are basically customers of Qualcomm and MediaTek. The high-end and high-end use of MediaTek in the middle and high end has become their fixed match in recent years.

Intel's product positioning is relatively embarrassing. On the performance of the product, it is not comparable to Qualcomm. On the price, it cannot compete with MediaTek. After losing Apple's big customer, if Intel continues to insist on developing 5G baseband products, it will face the dilemma of not finding customers. In the words of Intel CEO Bob Swan: "We are very excited about the opportunities of 5G and network 'clouding', but in the smartphone modem business, there is clearly no clear profit and positive return ." The patent lawsuit between Qualcomm and Apple's two giants, the two sides have been arrogant and arrogant, but they did not expect that they will be reconciled without warning at the upcoming 5G.

If you realize that your input and output are not proportional, no company is willing to throw money into it. Instead of continuing to invest in wasted resources, it is better to withdraw directly from the market in a timely manner.

So, instead of Intel giving up the 5G smartphone modem business, Apple turned to Qualcomm, but Apple and Qualcomm settled with the latter to sign a baseband purchase agreement, allowing Intel to give up the future-oriented 5G smartphone modem business.

Hear what analysts say

Some analysts believe that Intel may lock in the 5G infrastructure in thefuture , or advance in areas such as user terminal equipment (CPE). Analysts believe that Intel's big move to announce the 5G smart phone baseband business may be related to the company's 10 nanometer capacity.

In fact, Intel has had a shortage of 14nm capacity since the third season of 2018, although the company has previously promised that the next 10nm and 7nm processes will not be as productive as 14nm. situation.

However, if Intel decides to eat Apple's 5G mobile phone baseband order and adopts the 10nm process, it will definitely eliminate the production progress of Intel's other 10nm products. As a result, the 14nm out-of-stock situation is bound to be Reappear.

Analysts believe that Intel's exit from the 5G mobile phone market is most likely to move toward 5G Netcom infrastructure. The reason is that in the past, several major Netcom equipment vendors have adopted Intel's Xeon W series processors, which Intel can adopt later. The processor is paired with a 5G chip with a sales strategy. However, the analyst also believes that this approach has limited investment in Intel in the short term, so it still needs to be observed.

In terms of CPE, analysts said that Intel may focus on the 5G networked PC market, but this aspect is still uncertain. Because so far, the business model of 5G networked PCs has not been determined, and the fastest way to wait until the second half of 2020 is the possibility of this type of PC business model.

Betting wireless infrastructure chips?

The east side is not bright, the west side is bright, and Intel, which has withdrawn from the baseband of 5G mobile phones, has also planted a hope in the cellular base station chip market this year.

At CES 2019, Intel announced the 5G chip, the Snow Ridge, produced in response to the 5G process in the 5G era. It is reported that the chip, called "Snow Ridge", is a new network system chip for 5G wireless access and edge computing, which will introduce Intel computing architecture into wireless access base stations. Navin Shenoy, Intel's executive vice president and general manager of the data center business unit, said that 5G technology is in the center of a data-centric world. It is not just a new generation of technology, but also a future innovation. The DNA and cornerstone of the platform.

Navin Shenoy, vice president and general manager of the data center business unit, said that 5G is in the center of the data-centric evolution of the world, not only a new generation of technology, but also the DNA and cornerstone of the future innovation platform, bringing seamless connectivity. Almost unlimited calculations.

She further stated that the company's goal is to increase its share of the cellular base station chip market to more than 40% by 2020.

Source: Organized in the network

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