Teardown is good news for B’com, Skyworks
Rick Merritt, EETimes
9/22/2017 02:01 PM EDT
SAN JOSE, Calif. — Apple continues to use a mix of Qualcomm and Intel LTE modems in its iPhone 8, according to early teardown reports. Broadcom gained an expected design win for a wireless charging chip, NXP hung on to its socket for near-field communications (NFC), and one analyst said that Skyworks may have slightly increased its content in the handset.
Overall, the iPhone 8 is an incremental step for Apple. The $999 iPhone X, which represents a bigger leap, will not ship until November. At press time, TechInsights was still working on a teardown of an iPhone 8 Plus and an Apple Watch 3.
A representative from TechInsights said, “The iPhone 8 Plus A1897 model [that] we purchased is an Intel-based phone. We see Intel’s Baseband Processor (Modem) PMB9948. We suspect that this is the Intel XMM7480 modem.” It is expected to publish its results online here in the next day or so.