For the first time, DigiTimes has reported that Apple is in conversations with new vendors regarding backend orders for its first in-house 5G modem chips for iPhones.
Some of Apple’s self-designed 5G modem chips may be packaged by ASE Technology, which is owned by Advanced Semiconductor Engineering (ASE) and Siliconware Precision Industries (SPIL).
One of Qualcomm’s most recent 5G modem-RF systems, the Snapdragon X65, is already being produced at Samsung Electronics by Qualcomm’s partners ASE and SPIL, according to the report.
Based on its normal supply chain management policies for its products, Apple is expected to ship at least 200 million new iPhones in 2023, and it is expected to depend on numerous partners to perform backend processing of its in-house 5G modem chips and RF transceiver chips, the sources said.
New in-house modem chips likely to feature in the 2023 iPhone have already been queued up for production by Apple’s key chip manufacturing partner TSMC.
As of now, TSMC is producing Apple’s in-house modem designs using its 5-nanometer process, but they want to switch to 4-nanometer technology for mass production.
Tsmc is already planning to deploy 4-nanometer technology for the primary A-series processor in the 2022 iPhone range, with iPads and iPhones shifting to 3-nanometer technology in 2022 and 2023.
Apple will be able to move away from Qualcomm as a supplier of critical components that underpin cellular connection thanks to this move, which has been in development for many years and has been strengthened by its 2019 purchase of the bulk of Intel’s modem business.