First, the introduction
January 11 news, as we all know, the emergence of the world's serious lack of cores, coupled with the West deliberately target Huawei, ZTE and other domestic technology companies, it can be said that the pattern of the global semiconductor industry has changed, Europe, Japan and South Korea, including our domestic semiconductors, have begun to build their own industrial chain, such as the European seventeen countries plan to take out 140 billion euros to form a semiconductor alliance; Japan and TSMC reached cooperation to form Japan's own chip foundry industry chain; South Korea's Samsung increased the procurement of ASML lithography equipment Our domestic semiconductors, starting from all aspects of chip design, chip manufacturing, chip packaging and testing, build our own semiconductor industry chain.
Second, Apple has a new decision, and Qualcomm's hard days are about to begin
Not only that, as the leader of the global technology industry, Apple's market value has exceeded 3 trillion US dollars, so Apple's every move has also had a huge impact on the semiconductor industry, such as Apple announced that it gave up Intel's X86 architecture, chose to develop its own ARM chip, and equipped with its own PC and laptop, Apple's decision was released, not only caused the global semiconductor industry to shake, but also directly caused Intel's market value to be surpassed by the old rival Nvidia, it can be said that Apple embraced the decision of ARM chips , directly breaking the monopoly of Intel X86 chips. Recently, Apple has made a new decision, and Qualcomm's hard days are about to begin.
Like Intel, Apple also decided to abandon Qualcomm's 5G baseband chip and RF chip, began the road of self-development, January 10, Apple's self-developed 5G baseband chip and RF chip came new news, named Apple modem 5G baseband chip and supporting RF chip have entered the trial production stage, this year will be a communication test, if it goes well next year will be the first Apple iPhone 15. This also means that Qualcomm's hard days are about to begin, and the sharp decline in revenue will become a high-probability event, on the one hand, it will lose Apple's big order, on the other hand, the world has begun to develop its own chip road, and MediaTek has surpassed Qualcomm to become the world's largest chip manufacturer.
Why did Apple choose its own 5G baseband?
Why did Apple choose its own 5G baseband and RF chip? The author believes that there are three main reasons, first, the relationship between Apple and Qualcomm is not good, in response to the problem of patent cross-licensing fees, Qualcomm and Apple have repeatedly "met each other", the two sides have become the original defendants many times, and finally Qualcomm is superior, with decades of communication patent technology accumulation to win the lawsuit, at the same time, Apple's self-developed baseband and RF chip can not meet the requirements, in order to obtain Qualcomm 5G baseband and RF chip, Apple had to grit its teeth to pay Qualcomm a $4.7 billion settlement, Therefore, the two sides have a deep grudge.
Second, Qualcomm 5G baseband and RF chip did not solve the problem of Apple's poor signal, from the iPhone 12 to today's iPhone13 series, Apple even if it uses Qualcomm baseband, the signal is still very poor, once again prompting Apple to develop its own baseband chip; third, reduce costs, although Apple's iPhone profits are the world's first, accounting for more than 70% of the global mobile phone profits, but Qualcomm 5G baseband and RF chips are not cheap, in the industry at the moment, Apple has also been reducing costs, For example, cancel the charging head, headphones, reduce foundry costs and so on.
Fourth, Apple's self-developed 5G baseband, why is Huawei starting to "collect money" again?
Apple's self-developed 5G baseband, what impact does it have on Huawei? Why is Huawei "collecting money" again? We all know that Huawei 5G technology is leading the world, with the world's most 5G core patents, even after the patent cross-authorization, Huawei can still get a large amount of patent licensing fees, this year Huawei has obtained a 600 million US dollars of 5G patent royalties, and now Apple chooses to develop its own 5G baseband, then this also means that Apple will not be able to avoid Huawei's 5G patents, but also to pay Huawei.
How many are there? According to Huawei's published 5G patent licensing fees, each 5G device charges a maximum fee of $2.50, according to Apple's annual shipments, smart phones, smart watches, etc., at least 300 million devices are shipped every year, so Apple has to pay up to $750 million to Huawei every year, for Huawei, although this fee is not a lot, but basically pure profit, at least can improve Huawei's net profit margin, but also can enhance Huawei's market position, as strong as Apple also has to pay Huawei.
5. Conclusion
I have to say that the global semiconductor market changes too fast, more than two years, first Huawei was suppressed by western new regulations, resulting in Huawei HiSilicon no oem, and then the continuous evolution of the global epidemic, further exacerbated the phenomenon of global core shortage, at the same time, the world's major semiconductor industry chain has also been broken, the situation of fighting for each other will soon appear, especially the domestic semiconductor progress is remarkable, to Huawei and other domestic technology companies will bring more and more help.
Well, Apple has sent a new decision, Huawei is about to start "collecting money" again, what do you think?