Apple to Develop Its Own Baseband Chip for the iPhone?

Apple is reportedly planning to form a R&D team to develop its own baseband chips for future iPhones, reports DigiTimes.

The baseband would make its debut in the 2015 iPhone and Samsung Electronics and Globalfoundries would reportedly handle manufacturing.

Although some sources also indicated that Apple may develop SoC chips that will integrate application processors and baseband chips, it is more likely that Apple will continue to use discrete baseband chips, said the sources.


Apple currently gets its baseband chips from Qualcomm who outsources manufacturing to TSMC. DigiTimes notes that the global production value of baseband chips for handsets totals about $16-19 billion a year and Qualcomm currently has over 50% of the market.

Apple already develops its own processors based on the ARM processor architecture. Developing its own baseband chip would give it more control over the components that go into its flagship device.

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