Report: Apple iPhone 7 to use zippy Intel modem to deliver Cat. 10 LTE speeds

A new report suggests that Intel will produce 30% to 40% of the LTE modems for the Apple iPhone 7 and Apple iPhone 7 Plus. The report, penned by CLSA analyst Srini Pajjuri, claims that Apple is "considering" the use of Intel's XMM 7360 LTE modem for the next iteration of its smartphone. The chip delivers LTE data speeds as fast at Cat 10. That means that the phone could support speeds as fast as 450Mbps on the downlink, and 100Mbps on the uplink.

Currently, Apple employs the Qualcomm MDM9635 LTE modem on the Apple iPhone 6s and Apple iPhone 6s Plus. That chip provides speeds as fast as 300Mbps down, and 50Mbps up. Obviously, such a move is going to have a negative impact on Qualcomm's revenue, and boost Intel's prospects. And there is more. The report says that Apple is thinking about moving its Ax SoC manufacturing to Intel, and taking it away from current producers Samsung and TSMC. The latest rumors have 100% of A10 chipset production coming from TSMC.

The analyst says that his knowledge of this move by Apple comes from "Asian supply chain checks," and that Apple will "share shift back" to Qualcomm in 2017 for the Apple iPhone 7s and Apple iPhone 7s Plus. We should point out that we passed along a similar rumor last year that said Intel would be producing 50% of the LTE modems for the iPhone 6s, On the other hand, last October we told you about a similar report about Apple using the Intel XMM 7360 for the iPhone 7. If you subscribe to the theory that where there is smoke there is fire, we could see Intel inside the iPhone 7 later this year.
 
source: NDTV via BGR