this post was submitted on 29 Nov 2023
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so many people saying "its hard to make a modem" but nobody has anything to say about why its hard
8 years ago looking at the state of AMD, Intel, IBM, and every other CPU fab would lead some people to say "well yeah making a processor is extremely hard", yet these days amazon and google literally make their own and there are tons of riscv startups. not saying making a modem is easy but sometimes there are other roadblocks in technology, like bad management wasting money
Like not getting your ass sued off for violating some patent that some troll somewhere owns.
Wht y there are so many of patents related to modems, but not on other things like cpu, gpu or idk what
Apparently not a problem for Qualcomm, Mediatek, Samsung, or Huawei. And Apple certainly doesn't shy away from litigation.
It's not that Apple can't do it, it's that they don't think it's going to be worth the expense to them.
They've been trying. And thus far, failing.
WellThereItIs.webp
Aren't these ARM processors? Didn't ARM do most of the engineering?
No, ARM makes the specification and the chip manufacturers implement them
Arm also has their own off the shelf chip designs, and most of the time, companies license the chip designs. I don’t think there are that many that have architectural licenses to use the ISA and implement it themselves/design everything in house.
There is a world of difference between creating CPU's from the ground up, and fabbing them yourself, and getting an ARM license and using TSMC to make it for you. The former is what IBM/AMD/Intel did for the longest time. Intel's struggles have mainly been on the fab side.
It's not technically hard. The tech is quite well understood, and I want to say is kind of basic when compared to other fields.
What's hard is getting certifications for all the different telecom regulators, getting interoperation to work, and signing deals with others to access their patent licenses without paying super onerous duties.
If you recall, that's Apple's weakest point. Apple doesn't like to work with others (see Nvidia, Intel, etc) - the computer industry is filled with Apple's dumped ex-partners and telecom modem is the one place where you need cooperation from everyone. Apple needs to suck it up and basically be nice to other companies, and that's the one thing Apple doesn't do.
When apple does decide to play nice with others, that's when you'll see the modem release.