Intel will provide the fast wireless modem chip for a new Apple smartphone in 2016, VentureBeat has learned from two sources with knowledge of the companies’ plans.
Intel's new 7360 LTE modem will occupy a socket on the new iPhone's circuit board that’s long been reserved for the revered Qualcomm chips.
Intel has been gunning hard during the past year for a place in the iPhone and now appears to have succeeded, at least partly. The 7360 chip will ship inside a special version of the iPhone that will be marketed to emerging markets in Asia and Latin America, the sources have said. Intel's 7360 LTE modem chip is capable of up to 450 megabits per second (mbps) of download speed, and supports Category 9/10 LTE and 3X carrier aggregation.
Industry analysts have told VentureBeat that the chip has impressed phone makers for being well built, power efficient, and fast. For several months Apple engineers have been making trips to Munich, Germany to work with Intel engineers to ready the Intel LTE chip for the iPhone, one of our sources said.
(source VentureBeat).