Intel admits defeat and sells 5G baseband chip business

to two Chinese companies

As we all know, as the top leader in the chip field, Intel also has a dream of mobile communication business.

The thing that Intel was most proud of was that it cooperated with Apple to launch a 3G/4G baseband chip and used it on Apple's iPhone. At that time, it should be the closest time for Intel to realize its mobile communication dream.

I never thought that Intel's baseband chip is terrible, far inferior to Qualcomm, with poor signal, slow speed, and high power consumption, which makes iPhone users complain.

More importantly, Intel has been unable to figure out the 5G baseband chip for a long time, so that Apple's 5G mobile phone cannot be launched, and it lags behind its friends. In the end, under pressure, Apple no longer cooperated with Intel, embraced Qualcomm again, and chose Qualcomm's baseband chip.

So Intel had no choice but to package and sell its mobile phone baseband chip business, patents, engineers, etc. to Apple, because after Apple was no longer used, Intel could no longer find a partner in the mobile phone field.

However, although it sold the mobile phone baseband chip business to Apple, Intel still has its own baseband chip business, which is the baseband related to notebook computers, involving 4G/5G, etc.

However, in the past few years, Intel's notebook baseband chip business has also developed unsatisfactorily. Intel has not made any money on it, and its market share is very small. It is simply a tasteless product, and Intel finally can't support it .

Recently, it was reported that Intel plans to transfer the 5G baseband technology related to the notebook computer business to two Chinese companies, MediaTek and Fibocom.

According to the media, the transaction is expected to be completed before the end of May, and Intel will completely withdraw from the 5G baseband market before the end of July, and completely admit defeat in the face of 5G baseband chips.

It can be seen that the 5G baseband chip is really not so easy to develop. Intel has completely withdrawn, and Apple has been developing it for several years without success.

In fact, currently in the open market, there are only three 5G baseband chip manufacturers, namely Qualcomm, MediaTek, and Ziguang Zhanrui. In addition, like Huawei, Samsung, etc., their 5G baseband chips are not sold externally, and they are only for their own use.

Therefore, it is estimated that the structure of the baseband market will change again in the future, and it will be difficult for other companies to participate, because the difficulty is too great, and ordinary companies will not be able to handle it. After all, even Intel has conceded defeat.