Rumors about the possibility of Apple integrating its own 5G chip into the iPhone (and therefore into other devices) have been circulating for a long time. However, the latest news from DigiTimes suggests that the next model, The iPhone 15 will retain Qualcomm’s 5G chips.
Today’s report indicates that TSMC will be the main supplier of the Qualcomm 5G chip that will be used in the iPhone 15 series, using 5nm and 4nm process. But beware: these rumors are not incompatible with the fact that Apple continues to work on its own 5G modem. In fact, everything continues to point to the fact that Apple is developing its own 5G modem which aims to replace Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 5G chips in the coming years.
Current iPhone 14s include the Snapdragon X65 modem, which helps improve 5G speeds and battery life through optimization. The iPhone 15 is rumored to include the X70 chip, more advanced, which integrates artificial intelligence functions to deliver faster average download and download speeds, better coverage, better signal quality, lower latency and up to 60% more energy efficiency . Great news for the future battery of our iPhone.
Early reports and rumors initially suggested that Apple would switch to proprietary 5G modems in the 2023 iPhone models, but apparently, the latest news suggests that Apple had “failed” in the development of the chip and will continue to use Qualcomm modems for the near future. Understand as a failure to develop a chip with the performance and capabilities expected or desired by those in Cupertino in time.
Perhaps this can be linked to the new European regulations by which Apple will have to integrate USB-C from 2024, thus still allowing a window for the iPhone 15 to ship Lightning and on which it would be interesting to maintain the Qualcomm chips for preparing a completely renewed model (at least inside) in the future iPhone 16.
