Apple iPhone 8 to Ditch Intel’s XMM 7480 Cellular Modem for Snapdragon X16?

iPhone 8 May User Qualcomm Snapdragon X16 LTE modem over Intel XMM 7480

A recent rumor that made its way through to Fox Business shows that Apple may not use Intel’s XMM 7480 cellular modem for the iPhone 8 that’s coming out later this year.

A leak originally posted on The Layoff says that XMM 7480 has no CDMA support, is based on a much older 28nm manufacturing process and is generally not suitable for a flagship phone for the iPhone’s 10th anniversary.

iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus use either Intel’s XMM 7360 or Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X12 depending on the model number.

So far it seems authentic because Apple would certainly want the next generation of modem for its flagship phone this year. But the next part of the leak states that Apple is going to use a combination of XMM 7560 and X12 for iPhone 8.

That’s where the problem lies. XMM 7480, the predecessor to XMM 7560, is only shipping during the second quarter of 2017. If that’s the case, then there’s very little chance that Intel is going to release XMM 7560 shortly after – or, more specifically, in time to be used on iPhone 8, which comes out in September.

From that, it seems impossible that Apple can get its hands on the XMM 7560 this year.

What could happen is that Apple may end up using Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X16 modems, which are basically Gigabit Class LTE components, and then supplement that with either the X12 or the XMM 7480 on other non-OLED models.

That seems to be the most logical progression of events at this point. Of course, that depends on Intel being awarded the contract this year so we won’t know until then.

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