Mark Gurman from Bloomberg reported in his weekly newsletter Power On on the latest developments in Apple’s semiconductor plan. Previously, it was reported that Apple assembled a team led by Johny Srouji, head of chip development, since 2018 due to ongoing litigation with Qualcomm, the manufacturer of Apple’s chips, to reduce dependence.
According to the report, Apple has invested billions in developing its own semiconductor chips, employing thousands of engineers working millions of hours, aiming to create chips to replace Qualcomm’s offerings. However, Apple has yet to match the user-centric approach of Qualcomm, leading to a contract extension with Qualcomm until 2026.
One challenge for Apple is that Qualcomm’s chips have undergone extensive design, testing, and development, with global network provider collaboration, while Apple needs to undergo similar testing. This differs from Apple’s design of CPU or AI processing units used with the M-series chips in Macs and iPads.
It remains uncertain when Apple will successfully develop its semiconductor chips, but the plan is to integrate them into a System on Chip (SoC) to reduce energy consumption and, significantly, cut costs currently paid to Qualcomm for royalties.
TLDR: Apple aims to develop in-house semiconductor chips, facing challenges due to Qualcomm’s established chip design and testing processes, but working towards creating SoCs for cost reduction and increased efficiency.
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