This morning, a social platform "iPhone15 or will all be equipped with Apple's self-developed chip" hot search suddenly reached the top, a short period of time soared hundreds of millions of reads, many netizens commented "iPhone14 has not been released, now discuss iPhone15." In line with the principle of seeking the truth, is this hot search true in the end, and will Apple really carry all the self-developed chips? The answer may come as many people expect.
All equipped with self-developed chips are neither realistic nor suitable!
To most people, a mobile phone seems to have only one chip or processor, the equivalent of a human brain, but this is not the case. The traditional impression of the processor is also SOC, is one of the most core components of mobile phones, in addition to power management, storage, induction, audio, radio frequency and so on and many other chip components. Xiaomi Group executive Lu Weibing once popularized science, a mobile phone up to hundreds of chips, a chip failure will affect the use of the entire mobile phone, its complexity is far beyond our ordinary people's imagination.
As many as hundreds of chips involve many fields, no mobile phone brand can achieve all self-research, the fundamental reason is not limited to the technical aspects, but also the cost and the degree of necessity. Even if it is a top high-end mobile phone company like Apple, in addition to the self-development of core components, most accessories will choose to cooperate with suppliers, and even form a "fruit chain" to describe the cooperation model.
If each part is personally done, Apple will not only have to pay a huge human, material and financial costs, but the final result can only be insufficient, and only by actively embracing the supply chain can it form a virtuous circle. From a mobile phone, a computer, to an airplane, a high-speed train, these advanced products must rely on the supply chain, as few as dozens or hundreds, more than tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of enterprises to work together, this is a healthy and benign development model. Saying that Apple wants to do all self-research, I am afraid that its CEO Cook does not dare to brag so much, and Apple has neither the need nor the ability to do so.
Are all of Apple's self-developed chips fake news?
In fact, the above hot search is not fake news, but the description is not accurate enough, so there is a huge fallacy in the results conveyed. The source originally expressed that around 2023, Apple will abandon the third-party 5G baseband, and will use self-developed RADIO FREQUENCy ICs, 5G basebands, etc. with its own A17 processor to form a complete self-developed SOC and apply it to the iPhone15 series of mobile phones, but some people take it out of context and misinterpret it.
For many years, Apple has been purchasing third-party baseband production phones, in order to make the iPhone 12 series support 5G networks, Apple paid Qualcomm billions of dollars in "settlement fees" in 2019, which does not include the cost of purchasing related products. In order to solve the dependence on third parties, Apple acquired the Intel baseband team in 2019, optimistically estimating that mass production can be achieved around 2024, almost that the iPhone 15/16 series can be used on related products.
According to media reports, TSMC has received huge orders from Apple for the production of 5G baseband and RF ICs in 2023, with a total of 150,000 and 80,000 wafers respectively. Since Apple and Qualcomm signed a 6-year baseband purchase agreement, even if the self-developed baseband mass production can be achieved in 2023, at most only some mobile phones can be used, and before the end of the agreement period in 2025, Apple cannot completely get rid of the dependence on Qualcomm baseband.
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