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[WSJ] Intel to Stop Making Modem Chips for 5G Smartphones

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The plot thickens!

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/07/22/app...els-modem-division-for-1-billion-or-more.html

https://www.thestreet.com/video/jim...-buy-intel-smartphone-modem-business-15029181

Nothing is final yet. The street already thinks that Apple is paying $1 billion for Intel's shuttered modem business. Cramer's skepticism is understandable. I don't know that Intel is prepared to spin off anything/anyone, and none of Intel's 5G modems ever worked anyway (apparently). And then there's Apple's own modem design team about which I've heard nothing in months.
 
DrMrLordX said:
The plot thickens!

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/07/22/app...els-modem-division-for-1-billion-or-more.html

https://www.thestreet.com/video/jim...-buy-intel-smartphone-modem-business-15029181

Nothing is final yet. The street already thinks that Apple is paying $1 billion for Intel's shuttered modem business. Cramer's skepticism is understandable. I don't know that Intel is prepared to spin off anything/anyone, and none of Intel's 5G modems ever worked anyway (apparently). And then there's Apple's own modem design team about which I've heard nothing in months.
Click to expand...

Just the patents are probably worth something.
 
DrMrLordX said:
The plot thickens!

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/07/22/app...els-modem-division-for-1-billion-or-more.html

https://www.thestreet.com/video/jim...-buy-intel-smartphone-modem-business-15029181

Nothing is final yet. The street already thinks that Apple is paying $1 billion for Intel's shuttered modem business. Cramer's skepticism is understandable. I don't know that Intel is prepared to spin off anything/anyone, and none of Intel's 5G modems ever worked anyway (apparently). And then there's Apple's own modem design team about which I've heard nothing in months.
Click to expand...

I mean Intel's modem business was acquired from Infineon in the first place- is it really that inconceivable that it could be spun back out again?
 
jpiniero said:
Possible that the 5G modem design is good, it just got 10 nm'ed.
Click to expand...

Intel's modems were pretty terrible, even the 4G ones. Nobody in their right mind wanted an iPhone with an Intel modem versus a Qualcomm one. So bad. Their designs were not good by industry standards. If it was just a process issue, they easily could have fabbed them elsewhere until 10nm reached sufficient maturity.

deathBOB said:
Just the patents are probably worth something.
Click to expand...

That's Cramer's take on it. The question is whether Apple wants to pony up enough cash for the entire unit just to scrape up those patents.

NTMBK said:
I mean Intel's modem business was acquired from Infineon in the first place- is it really that inconceivable that it could be spun back out again?
Click to expand...

When was the last time Intel spun off any of their divisions, though?
 
DrMrLordX said:
When was the last time Intel spun off any of their divisions, though?
Click to expand...

The most similar case is probably when they sold off XScale. It was a low margin embedded business that they originally acquired from someone else, and that they got rid of so that they could focus on x86.

Since then, they spun off SpectraWatt in 2008, McAffee in 2017, and Wind River in 2018.
 
Hmm. Wind River and McAffee are both software firms though. I would think Intel would at least want to retain the engineering talent from their modem team. Could be wrong though.
 
Abwx said:
Computerbase did publish an article about the thing, they are not interested by the designs but by the patents portfolio, ...
Click to expand...
The reports I kept reading over the weeks is that Apple is trying to get the R&D team based in Germany that originates from Infineon. Intel reportedly put up both patents and the division for sale separately.
 
moinmoin said:
The reports I kept reading over the weeks is that Apple is trying to get the R&D team based in Germany that originates from Infineon. Intel reportedly put up both patents and the division for sale separately.
Click to expand...

RD team without the patents is useless, Intel sell them separately as a mean to increase the total value and be in abetter position to negociate the sale of the whole package with whom is interested....
 
Abwx said:
RD team without the patents is useless, Intel sell them separately as a mean to increase the total value and be in abetter position to negociate the sale of the whole package with whom is interested....
Click to expand...
Sure, but Apple already is a heavyweight in mobile patents and has several cross-licensing deals to boot. Good mobile modem tech knowledge/staff is far harder to acquire even with big money, and Apple likely knows that Intel/Infineon R&D group pretty well at this point.
 
moinmoin said:
Sure, but Apple already is a heavyweight in mobile patents and has several cross-licensing deals to boot. Good mobile modem tech knowledge/staff is far harder to acquire even with big money, and Apple likely knows that Intel/Infineon R&D group pretty well at this point.
Click to expand...

Apple have mainly patents that are not related to electronic design, it s one thing to patent a square and quite another to patent or register physically characterised functional blocks.

It takes a lot of tries to get mixed sIgnals circuitries working flawlessly, guess that Intel learned it the hard way since they had trouble getting something with a good enough signal/noise ratio, analog design is not that trivial, and even if they are not patented they cant be straightfowardly copied legaly, Intel knows that wthout the designs and related patents the RD part is a hollow shell.
 
Dayman1225 said:
Intels 4G modem business is unaffected and should they wish so, Intel has the choice to develop modems for non smartphone applications, such as IoT, PCs, Autonomous vehicles and so on.
Click to expand...

This at least addresses my concern about what they are going to do with it on the PC space.

They were talking about 90+ ACPC designs coming this year. Unless they plan to stop next year, they'll need successors for the future.
 
IntelUser2000 said:
This at least addresses my concern about what they are going to do with it on the PC space.

They were talking about 90+ ACPC designs coming this year. Unless they plan to stop next year, they'll need successors for the future.
Click to expand...

Meh. Intel has been pushing "Always Connected" for years, and it isn't happening. Outside of some niches like traveling business people, nobody wants to pay hundreds of dollars a year to the cellular network just to have 4G on their laptop.
 
NTMBK said:
Meh. Intel has been pushing "Always Connected" for years, and it isn't happening. Outside of some niches like traveling business people, nobody wants to pay hundreds of dollars a year to the cellular network just to have 4G on their laptop.
Click to expand...
Better to cover that niche than let a competitor take it
 
NTMBK said:
Meh. Intel has been pushing "Always Connected" for years, and it isn't happening. Outside of some niches like traveling business people, nobody wants to pay hundreds of dollars a year to the cellular network just to have 4G on their laptop.
Click to expand...

In general I agree with this, even on a Tablet.

I still think its worth trying as a defensive move.
 
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