S&P Global Market Intelligence’s Agam Shah and Waqar Jamshed published an article discussing Apple’s semiconductor development strategy, which quotes Ensemble Capital’s Senior Investment Analyst Arif Karim.

As they note Apple has been targeted in the investments it has made in designing specific semiconductor components, bringing in house key pieces of technology development that have enabled it to differentiate the user experience of its hardware products such as the iPhone, iPad, and AirPods.

While the system processor and graphics processors have been long time in-house designed components, S&P Global discusses how important the modem chip is becoming, heretofore supplied by Qualcomm and Intel, especially ahead of the upcoming 5G launch and the applications it will allow.

This has become even more critical to Apple since the fight over license fees it pays to Qualcomm has cut off modem chip supply from the technology leader, while its current sole alternative, Intel, has continued to be late to market with competitive cutting-edge modem chips. The situation potentially handicaps the iPhone’s time to market on connective capabilities. Given the iPhone’s market position, customers generally expect it to have the advanced feature sets alternative smartphones using Qualcomm’s chips offer in their products when deciding to buy a new one.

For more information we recommend a read through of the linked S&P Global article, which provides great overview of Apple’s semiconductor development strategy.

 

 

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