Apple Wants 5G iPhone with In-House Modem in 2022

We’ve known for a while that Apple wants to reduce reliance on third-party suppliers, and one way to achieve this was to develop an in-house 5G modem that would be installed on an iPhone.

The very-first 5G iPhone is projected to hit the shelves as soon as 2020, but it would only be powered by a Qualcomm chip.

Apple and Qualcomm settled their patent dispute earlier this year, and part of the agreement was a licensing deal that would have the iPhone use 5G modems developed by the San Diego-based chipmaker beginning with 2020.

But according to a report from Fast Company, Apple might not stick with Qualcomm modems for too long, as the company is pushing hard to finalize the development of its own 5G chip by 2022.

This is an ambitious target given the original target was 2023, but reports that made the rounds earlier this year suggested Apple was even hoping to get the project done by 2021.

All-in-one chip

According to the cited source, the design work of the 5G modem is already finalized, and Apple is now focused on the fabrication of chips. The biggest challenge, however, will be testing and certification, as Apple needs to make sure that its modem plays nice with carriers across the world, but also that it meets FCC requirements.

Apple’s big goal is to develop an all-in-one chip that would be the home of all key parts, like CPU, RAM, GPU, and modem, as this would allow the company to further optimize the performance of the iPhone for increased processing power and longer battery life. Fast Company says Apple originally planned to do this with Intel, but this idea has been dropped eventually, as Intel decided to exit the phone modem business and focus on PCs.

Certainly, it’ll be a challenge for Apple to finalize this project by 2022, not only because of all the stages the company needs to complete, but also because it needs its modem to provide a flawless experience on the iPhone. In the meantime, Apple doesn’t say a single word about this ambitious project, so don’t expect anything official from the Cupertino-based tech giant anytime soon.