In January 2017, Apple sued Qualcomm in the United States and China, accusing Qualcomm of monopolizing the wireless device chip market, and suing Qualcomm for unfair patent licensing actions that cost the company US$1 billion in losses. This opened the patent for this century. The prelude to the battle, and there is no sign of the end.
As the level of patent litigation between Apple and Qualcomm continues to increase, the industry has reported that Apple is likely to abandon Qualcomm's Modem chip in a new generation of mobile phone designs, and will instead be supplied by Intel, and MediaTek may even become an Apple mobile phone. The third supplier of Modem chips.
Is MediaTek likely to become Apple Modem chip supplier?
Taiwan media said that Apple's move to allocate half of Modem chip orders to Intel's actions was originally aimed at self-insurement actions with patent cases filed by Qualcomm. As the level of litigation between the two parties continues to increase, it continues to move in a negative direction. In addition to Intel, Apple announced that it is also seeking opportunities for production capacity support for Modem chips. Technology, production capacity, and pricing conditions can meet Apple’s MediaTek at this stage, and naturally become the number one candidate in the industry.
The Taiwanese IC design company pointed out that the possibility of Apple transferring the Modem chip to MediaTek does exist, but this does not comply with Apple’s preference in managing the chip supply chain. For MediaTek, there is only a short-term economic benefit. After all, Apple The chip solutions adopted for its product lines have been dominated by international chip factories, which are related to Apple’s three guiding principles of consistently purchasing chips.
The three guiding principles that Apple has consistently adhered to are the technologically advanced competitiveness, the integrity of product blueprints, and the reliability of logistical support. Judging from these three guiding principles, MediaTek's Modem chip product line is likely to win orders from Apple, but the possible direction and process of cooperation between the two parties will not be easily implemented in the existing product line.
Therefore, Taiwan Media believes that MediaTek and its hopes in the Modem chip product line usher in Apple orders, but rather want to fight with Apple's new products in the intelligent voice chip platform, wireless charging chip and wireless connectivity chip solutions, because these chip platforms MediaTek has leading market and technological advantages.
MediaTek and Apple are Expected to Collaborate in Four Areas
In the market, MediaTek's cooperation with Apple is the highest in four directions: mobile phone modems, CDMA IP authorization, ASIC (WiFi customized chip) and HomaPod smart speaker, and the fastest results in the second half of next year.
The previous article mentioned that MediaTek is likely to become the supplier of Modem chips for Apple’s new generation of mobile phones. However, due to Apple’s production of the A series of application processors needed for the iPhone and iPad, it has also been repeatedly reported that it is actively preparing home-made mobile phones and tablet computers. The Modem, and had passed the test on TSMC, could be ready by 2019 at the fastest, so whether there is a need for MediaTek to appear variable.
However, in the supply chain, MediaTek is actively fighting for Apple's orders, not only in the mobile phone Modem, but also in cooperation with Apple Modem self-made plans to provide CDMA2000 IP licensing.
Judging from the status quo, Qualcomm, Intel, and MediaTek are currently the only vendors with CDMA2000 technology, and Qualcomm and Intel are both Apple's current chip suppliers, and the difficulty of obtaining authorization is relatively increasing. Therefore, MediaTek is considered a possible target.
In addition, the market also reported that MediaTek has been actively investing in the ASIC sector for the past two years by accumulating IP advantages. After grabbing orders from leading global Cisco networks, it also sought out customized WiFi chips from Apple.
In addition to the three cooperation spaces mentioned above, because Apple will launch HomePod, a smart speaker new product, originally using the old A8 processing chip used in Apple's mobile phones, MediaTek has been working with Amazon in recent years to achieve good results, and it has also begun to fight with Apple. , to become the future of the two products together.
The mobile phone chip supply chain believes that if MediaTek has the opportunity to provide Apple’s WiFi ASIC or HomePod chips, the fastest shipment time should fall in the second half of next year from the point of view of new product launches.
MediaTek is striving for iPhone orders
In July of this year, MediaTek’s chairman Cai Mingjie took the front desk’s CEO Cai Lixing to join the ranks and introduced a number of TSMC personnel. MediaTek’s employees also broke the news that Tsai Ming-shee’s re-use of TSMC has made the old employees chilling. According to semiconductor veteran sources, Tsai Ming-chieh has to reuse TSMC, the key is to Apple iPhone orders.
For the iPhone order, Tsai Ming-shee did not want to talk about it, but he did not deny it. He only said briefly: "If you have the opportunity, you will work hard."
A former director of MediaTek stated that Tsai Ming-kee was not satisfied that MediaTek could only sell chips to mobile phone makers in mainland China. MediaTek has also had contacts with Apple and Samsung, and this year MediaTek has successfully entered Samsung mobile phone supply. Chain, but the price is not ideal, as for the iPhone order is still struggling.
It is understood that after Cai Lixing was the co-chief executive of MediaTek in June, after a period of warm-up, he had begun to visit customers in the first few months. The United States, where Apple is headquartered, is the area where he runs. If this can be successfully grabbed, it will have milestone significance. Moreover, the highest profit from cooperation in the form of IP authorization, the greatest benefit to MediaTek's performance, and at the same time it can disperse MediaTek’s past dependence on the Chinese mainland market.
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