If Intel doesn’t make 5G baseband, where will it go in the 5G era?

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In this regard, some analysts believe that Intel may focus on 5G infrastructure or customer premise equipment (CPE) in the future. Analysts believe that Intel's big announcement of 5G smartphone baseband business may be related to the company's 10nm production capacity;

In fact, Intel has been reporting on insufficient 14nm production capacity since the third quarter of 2018, although the company has previously guaranteed that future 10nm and 7nm processes will not have the same capacity shortage as 14nm.

However, if Intel is sure to take Apple's 5G mobile phone baseband order and adopts the 10nm process, it will inevitably squeeze out the production progress of Intel's other 10nm products; in this way, the shortage of 14nm will inevitably occur again.

Analysts believe that after Intel withdraws from the 5G mobile phone market, it is most likely to move towards 5G network infrastructure construction. The reason is that several major network equipment manufacturers have adopted Intel's Xeon W series processors in the past. In the future, Intel can adopt a strategy of selling processors and 5G chips together. However, the analyst also believes that this approach will have limited benefits for Intel in the short term, so it still needs more observation.

As for CPE, analysts said Intel may focus on the 5G connected PC market, but this is still uncertain because the business model of 5G connected PCs has not yet been determined, and the earliest business model for this type of PC will appear is in the second half of 2020.

When darkness falls in the east, there is light in the west. Intel, which launched the 5G mobile phone baseband, has also planted a hope in the cellular base station chip market this year.

At CES 2019, Intel announced Snow Ridge, a 5G chip produced with 10nm process for the 5G era. It is reported that this chip, named "Snow Ridge", is a new network system chip specifically for 5G wireless access and edge computing, which will introduce Intel computing architecture into wireless access base stations. Navin Shenoy, Intel executive vice president and general manager of the data center division, said that 5G technology is at the center of the world that is constantly evolving with data as the center. It is not only a new generation of technology, but also the DNA and cornerstone of future innovation platforms.

Navin Shenoy, Intel vice president and general manager of the Data Center Group, said that 5G is at the center of an evolving data-centric world. It is not only a new generation of technology, but also the DNA and cornerstone of future innovation platforms, bringing seamless connectivity and almost unlimited computing.

She further said the company aims to increase its share of the cellular base station chip market to more than 40% by 2020.