Apple has been trying to develop its own proprietary 5G chip for years now, just like it makes its own line of A-series chips for its iPhones and M-series chips for its MacBooks and high-end iPads. However, issues have regularly pushed back the silicon, and despite our earlier expectations that we might finally see the silicon roll out along with the iPhone 15 lineup in late 2023, we might have to wait a bit longer still.
iPhone 15 family won’t feature an Apple-made 5G modem
Apple has reportedly ordered a significant amount of 5G and RF chips from Qualcomm, possibly the Snapdragon X70. Said 5G chip was announced earlier in 2022 and was advertised as the “world’s 1st 5G AI processor in a 5G modem-RF system“, which reportedly boosts 5G performance by a significant margin in both sub-6GHz and mmWave scenarios. The Snapdragon X70 is manufactured by TSMC, which expects a nearly full utilization of its 7/6nm process nodes in the second half of 2023, when iPhone 15 manufacturing would be in full swing.
Why would a proprietary 5G chip be beneficial to Apple and the regular iPhone user? Apple having complete control over the essential 5G connectivity element would ensure a tighter integration with the rest of the hardware inside your iPhone, which could potentially improve both the 5G uplink and downlink connectivity speeds, as well as the overall efficiency of the mod.
iPhone 15: What does the rumor mill say?
The more “regular” iPhone 15 lineup will consist of the iPhone 15, iPhone 15 Plus, and iPhone 15 Pro would all generally follow in the footsteps of their predecessors. We expect that the affordable iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Plus could get 120Hz displays, and there’s some chance that the Dynamic Island design will trickle down to those models as well.