2 min Devices

Apple acquires Intel branch for smartphone modems for $1 billion

Apple acquires Intel branch for smartphone modems for $1 billion

Apple takes over a large part of the Intel branch that develops smartphone modems for $1 billion (about $897 million). Intel’s division has been making losses for a long time.

With the acquisition, Apple says it will take over approximately 2,200 employees from Intel. In addition, the company acquires the intellectual property, equipment and leases of the chip manufacturer.

Johny Srouji, senior vice president of Hardware Technologies at Apple, says the Intel team shares their passion for designing technologies that deliver the world’s experiences to our users.

They, along with our significant acquisition of innovative IP (intellectual property), will help to accelerate our development of future products, and enable Apple to further differentiate itself in the future.

17,000 patents

Following the acquisition, Apple claims to have 17,000 patents for wireless technology. These include protocols for cellular standards, modem architecture and modem operations.

It is not clear whether Apple will compete with its own chips in the future, which is what Intel did. The technology may only be used for internal use, i.e. the company’s own devices.

The acquisition is expected to be completed in the fourth quarter of this year. Regulatory entities still need to give their approval.

Intel after the acquisition

Intel will continue to make chips after the takeover. The company only withdraws from the smartphone market. In the future, the company will only produce modems for applications other than smartphones. Think for example of PCs, Internet or Things devices and autonomous vehicles.

This agreement allows us to focus on developing technology for the 5G network, while retaining the important intellectual property and modem technology developed by our team, said Intel-CEO Bob Swan.

According to Swan, 5G technology most closely matches the requirements of the global customer base. This customer base includes network operators, telecommunications equipment manufacturers and cloud service providers.

This news article was automatically translated from Dutch to give Techzine.eu a head start. All news articles after September 1, 2019 are written in native English and NOT translated. All our background stories are written in native English as well. For more information read our launch article.