2,200 Intel employees set to join Apple workforce
It’s official: Pending regulatory approval, Intel has agreed to sell its modem business to Apple for $1 billion and 2,200 Intel employees will make the move when the deal is finalized potentially in the fourth quarter this year.
Following the resolution of an ongoing legal dispute between Apple and Qualcomm, Intel announced it was getting out of the modem business, which it entered in 2011 through the $1.4 billion acquisition of Infineon.
Apple seems to prefer in-house development of device components as evidenced by its ongoing investments in the Bionic series of SoCs. As it looks to bring a 5G iPhone to market, Apple will rely on Qualcomm up until it can meet its own needs internally. But how long will that take?
Patrick Moorhead, founder, president and principal analyst at boutique tech analyst firm Moor Insights & Strategy, made no bones about it in a recent tweet. “I can tell you with 100% degree of confidence that there will not be a 5G iPhone in 2021 with an Apple-designed modem that supports multimode, mmWave and sub6, NSA and SA.”
Moorhead’s colleague Anshel Sag, in a piece published by Forbes, opined it would take Apple five to 10 years to “build a modem business of its owns from scratch. With Intel’s teams and IP, it can likely shorten the time to 3-5 years for a top-to-bottom Apple design…We could also see an Apple SoC with a built-in modem within that timeframe as well–something that Intel struggled to accomplish.”
According to Intel, the transaction covers the employees, equipment, leases, and intellectual property. Intel said it will continue to make modems for PCs, IoT devices and autonomous vehicles.
CEO Bob Swan said in a statement: “This agreement enables us to focus on developing technology for the 5G network while retaining critical intellectual property and modem technology that our team has created. We have long respected Apple and we’re confident they provide the right environment for this talented team and these important assets moving forward. We’re looking forward to putting our full effort into 5G where it most closely aligns with the needs of our global customer base, including network operators, telecommunications equipment manufacturers and cloud service providers.”
