Apple working on developing its own high-end modems the future iPhones, similar to Qualcomm X55

According to the previous news, data from the research company TrendForce shows that the popularity of iPhone 12 series models has led to a surge in demand for Qualcomm’s 5G baseband and RF radio frequency chips, thereby driving its revenue in Q3 to exceed its rival Broadcom.

The report shows that Qualcomm’s Q3 revenue was US$49, a 37.6% increase over the same period last year, while Broadcom’s revenue was US$4.6 billion. TrendForce said that Qualcomm’s “excellent performance” is partly attributable to the re-entry of Qualcomm into Apple’s supply chain at the beginning of this year after the two companies settled the lawsuit last year.

However, the reignited partnership between Apple and Qualcomm may not be smooth. According to the latest report, Apple has begun to develop its own points for the future iPhone. Apple’s senior vice president of hardware technology Johny Srouji (Johny Srouji) shared the news at an internal meeting with Apple employees.

It is worth mentioning that in a research report shared with Macrumors, Barclays analysts Blayne Curtis, Thomas O’Malley, Tim Long, and their colleagues provided some other detailed information about Apple’s internal baseband, saying that the chip will “Very like a high-end baseband”, it supports ultra-fast mmWave 5G, just like the Qualcomm Snapdragon X55 baseband of the iPhone 12.

The analyst said: “We believe that Apple has actually conducted more than a year of research on the 5G baseband. It is positioned at the high end and supports mmWave 5G.”

As part of the 2019 settlement agreement, Apple and Qualcomm announced a multi-year chipset supply agreement. Therefore, it should be several years before Apple’s self-developed baseband is finally commercialized.