When in doubt, build it yourself.
Apple is said to be designing the antenna that will be used in ints 5G iPhones in-house after being unhappy with a version designed by Qualcomm.
Apple reportedly “balked” at the design of the QTM 525 5G millimeter-wave antenna moduleoffered by Qualcomm because it “doesn’t fit into the sleek industrial design Apple wants for the new phone.”
For its part, Apple will still provide the 5G modem chip used in the upcoming iPhones, albeit with an antenna module developed by Apple.
Apple is also said to be working on another iPhone design that uses both the Qualcomm modem and antenna as a backup, which would offer Apple the option of swapping over to this version of the iPhone if need be. In this case, Apple would be falling back to releasing a slightly thicker iPhone.
The 2020 iPhones equipped with 5G will use a “phased array” antenna with two parts that work together to form a beam of radio signal, which could lead to issues if the antenna and modem module are made by different companies.
Per the Fast Company article:
The beam can be electronically steered in different directions without the antenna moving. The modem chip and the antenna module work closely together to make this work properly, our source said. Having the two parts made by different companies may introduce some uncertainty and bump up the difficulty level of the overall design.
Apple is expected to release multiple 5G capable iPhones in 2020 that are equipped with Qualcomm’s X55 5G modem chip that offers 7Gb/s peak download speeds and 3Gb/s upload speeds.
Stay tuned for additional details as they become available.
Via MacRumors and Fast Company