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Submitted via IRC for Bytram
Apple and Intel are apparently in "advanced talks" over buying up the remains of Chipzilla's defunct 5G modem business.
Sources close to the deal told the Wall Street Journal on Monday that Cook & Co were offering the x86 processor goliath a billion dollars for the intellectual property and staff behind its cellular modem business. The unit has been on hiatus since its primary customer Apple reached a smartphone modem supply deal with Qualcomm in April.
Intel has plowed mega-millions into designing mobile modems ever since it wolfed down Infineon in 2010 for $1.4bn. The chip factory eventually won a contract to supply 4G/LTE modems for some Apple smartphones. At the time, Apple was fed up with its primary modem supplier Qualcomm, which it later sued, along with its manufacturing partners, for $30bn.
After plenty of money went up in smoke on lawyers' fees, Apple and Qualcomm agreed to settle their differences, with the Cupertino idiot-tax operation signing another modem supply contract with Qualy. The same day that deal was announced, Intel, having lost its only serious cellular modem customer, announced it was winding up its 5G unit.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 25 2019, @01:00AM
Evidently, 5G is like Kevin Mitnick. So high tech that no one can possibly understand it! (And they call these things "standards"!) This is why Mitnick had to be kept in solitary, air-gapped, because if he got ahold of a cell phone, he might use it to hack in and launch nuclear missiles!!!
Of course, the reason the Americans think there are backdoors in the protocol, well, they understand it from past experience, but cannot read Chinese documentation.