<story><title>Apple to acquire the majority of Intel&apos;s smartphone modem business</title><url>https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2019/07/apple-to-acquire-the-majority-of-intels-smartphone-modem-business/</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>ksec</author><text>Intel has a history of acquiring company and then sell it for less ( e.g McAfee ). The Wireless Modem was acquired from Infineon in 2010 for $1.4B.  It had 3500 employees then, compared to only 2200 moving to Apple now along with lots of Wireless patents that Intel has contributed to LTE and 5G NR over the years. The $1B sounds like a very good deal.&lt;p&gt;My guess is that the recent Intel BaseBand modem design are worth very little to Apple. It is based on Intel&amp;#x27;s 14nm ( and 10nm for the 8160 5G NR Modem ) , since Intel is winding down their Custom Foundry, and Apple has a much better relationship with TSMC, the chance of Apple fabbing their Modem with Intel is close to Zero. The last TSMC Intel Modem  was Intel XMM 7480 used in iPhone 8 &amp;#x2F; X.&lt;p&gt;But even if the Modem is literally worthless, I would have thought the patents are worth a little more than $1B?&lt;p&gt;I am wondering if part of the deal is making sure Apple sticking to x86 and Specifically Intel&amp;#x27;s x86 CPU on the Mac for at least another 5 years. No ARM or AMD Mac.&lt;p&gt;Edit: On another note. The Honor 9x [1] is selling in China for $280 VAT inc. If that is $250 excl VAT, the iPhone XR selling at $750 is 3x the price. Apple got a lot of explaining to do for the market to justify its price tag. And privacy alone, which is what they are pushing is not enough.&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.anandtech.com&amp;#x2F;show&amp;#x2F;14667&amp;#x2F;honor-unveils-9x-9x-pro-allview-display-kirin-810-48-mp-camera&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.anandtech.com&amp;#x2F;show&amp;#x2F;14667&amp;#x2F;honor-unveils-9x-9x-pro...&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>
<story><title>Apple to acquire the majority of Intel&apos;s smartphone modem business</title><url>https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2019/07/apple-to-acquire-the-majority-of-intels-smartphone-modem-business/</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>dang</author><text>A couple days ago: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&amp;#x2F;item?id=20502437&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&amp;#x2F;item?id=20502437&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;A month ago: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&amp;#x2F;item?id=20175583&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&amp;#x2F;item?id=20175583&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;Related: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&amp;#x2F;item?id=20365415&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&amp;#x2F;item?id=20365415&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&amp;#x2F;item?id=19678498&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&amp;#x2F;item?id=19678498&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>