What’s the fundamental reason why SOTA modems are more challenging than microprocessors for Apple? Intuitively I would’ve guessed the opposite was true.
Qualcomm patents, I suspect.
Apple’s failure to build a key part for its new iPhones
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Re: Apple’s failure to build a key part for its new iPhones
#22What’s the fundamental reason why SOTA modems are more challenging than microprocessors for Apple? Intuitively I would’ve guessed the opposite was true.
IMO cellular network protocols are remarkably challenging to understand. Then you add to that various quirks of certain network operators, optimal power consumption and throughput, security. They probably want their design to work as well as the baseline one, and globally.
As someone who used to work occasionally on explaining 3GPP/2 to laypeople, I’d call “remarkably challenging” an understatement.
Re: Apple’s failure to build a key part for its new iPhones
#23What’s the fundamental reason why SOTA modems are more challenging than microprocessors for Apple? Intuitively I would’ve guessed the opposite was true.
I would guess lack of expertise? Apple purchased PA Semi a while ago and the team went on to work on their processors. Have they purchased a company specialized in mixed-signal circuit design? That's one of the key differences, a modem contains a lot of analog circuitry and analog is very different from digital.
> Have they purchased a company specialized in mixed-signal circuit design?
They bought Intel's modem business, which was originally part of Infineon.
Intel had working 4G modems which were only a year or two behind Qualcomm to the point where most users wouldn't notice. But they never seemed to manage to make the jump to 5G.
Re: Apple’s failure to build a key part for its new iPhones
#24Nice to see that Apple behaves just like many of my clients.
You can be as rich as Croesus and still as clueless as
Re: Apple’s failure to build a key part for its new iPhones
#25Earlier quoted context omitted.
Reminder: If you have Apple News (or get it bundled with Apple One), it includes access to the Wall Street Journal among many other paywalled sources. On iOS you can use the share sheet to open the URL in news and it will auto-open it. Otherwise you can search for the title. I do wish this feature was better integrated, and using the share sheet to open with any app including News seems always confusing - you're neve…
NB: News+ only comes with the Premier level of Apple One, not with the Individual or Family tiers.
Also not in all the countries
Re: Apple’s failure to build a key part for its new iPhones
#26Earlier quoted context omitted.
I would guess lack of expertise? Apple purchased PA Semi a while ago and the team went on to work on their processors. Have they purchased a company specialized in mixed-signal circuit design? That's one of the key differences, a modem contains a lot of analog circuitry and analog is very different from digital.
> Have they purchased a company specialized in mixed-signal circuit design? They bought Intel's modem business, which was originally part of Infineon. Intel had working 4G modems which were only a year or two behind Qualcomm to the point where most users wouldn't notice. But they never seemed to manage to make the jump to 5G.
5G is overrated
Re: Apple’s failure to build a key part for its new iPhones
#27“Apple had planned to have its modem chip ready to use in the new iPhone models. But tests late last year found the chip was too slow and prone to overheating. Its circuit board was so big it would take up half an iPhone, making it unusable.” How is this even possible? I mean I get it’s hard but a 3 inch modem chip? lol
> I mean I get it’s hard but a 3 inch modem chip? lol
It's hard to work around all the patents from Qualcomm etc otherwise you'd get sued.
Re: Apple’s failure to build a key part for its new iPhones
#28“Apple had planned to have its modem chip ready to use in the new iPhone models. But tests late last year found the chip was too slow and prone to overheating. Its circuit board was so big it would take up half an iPhone, making it unusable.” How is this even possible? I mean I get it’s hard but a 3 inch modem chip? lol
Wait, they needed testing late last year to figure out the chip was physically too big to be used in an iPhone? You're kidding right? Management didn't know until late last year? I call BS.
The chip might be small. The required board to use it can be big due to placements constraints, required extra components to make it work, space required for routing antenna traces, heat dissipation, etc.
While at those engineering levels you can emulate and foresee all that, sometimes shit simply happens.
Re: Apple’s failure to build a key part for its new iPhones
#29Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Have they purchased a company specialized in mixed-signal circuit design? They bought Intel's modem business, which was originally part of Infineon. Intel had working 4G modems which were only a year or two behind Qualcomm to the point where most users wouldn't notice. But they never seemed to manage to make the jump to 5G.
5G is overrated
It may be, but all new network capacity is being built on 5G so a phone without it will suffer more and more in performance, especially in crowded areas/events.
Re: Apple’s failure to build a key part for its new iPhones
#30What’s the fundamental reason why SOTA modems are more challenging than microprocessors for Apple? Intuitively I would’ve guessed the opposite was true.
A long time ago i used to work at a company that made mobile phones. This was in the days before smartphones, and 3G was a shiny new toy. Back then, many companies would implement the protocols in the phone firmware, as opposed to today where chips usually offload a large part of this.
Despite doing our best to implement the GSM Standards[1], the thing at the time was 19,000 pages long, and one of our biggest issues was that our protocol stack would work well with most cell towers, there would always be some carriers that had configured their network just a tiny bit different, and we had to tweak our software to match that.
At the time, there were 5 major vendors of GSM cells, and none of them had intepreted the standards identically, so we would also have tweaks to allow for different vendors.
I don't remember exactly how many people we employed in our protocol division, but it was more than 100.
I do remember that implementing the first version of bluetooth took 19 people almost 2 years, and that, at the time, was a much simpler protocol (it probably still is). I can only imagine the "horrors" that have gone into 4G and 5G since then.
These days, all of the above problems are "solved" by simply installing a chip. Qualcomm handles any vendor hardware communication issues, and they're probably "big enough" to also have an impact in the opposite direction, making for a more streamlined protocol landscape.
[1]: https://www.etsi.org/standards/get-standards#page=1&search=&...