MediaTek is trying its best to win Apple orders. What are the chances of winning in three major principles and four fields?

　　In January 2017, Apple sued Qualcomm in the United States and China, accusing Qualcomm of monopolizing the wireless device chip market and accusing Qualcomm of causing the company to lose $1 billion through unfair patent licensing practices. This kicked off the patent war of the century, which has no sign of ending yet. Let's follow the mobile phone portable editor to learn more about the relevant content.

　　As the level of the patent lawsuit between Apple and Qualcomm continues to escalate, the industry has heard that Apple is likely to abandon Qualcomm's modem chips in the design of its next-generation mobile phones and instead rely on Intel as the main supplier, and MediaTek may even become the third supplier of modem chips for Apple phones.

　　Is it possible that MediaTek will become Apple's modem chip supplier?

　　Taiwanese media stated that Apple's move to allocate half of its modem chip orders to Intel was originally a self-protection move against the patent lawsuit between Apple and Qualcomm. As the level of the lawsuit between the two parties continues to escalate and continues to move in a negative direction, the industry has heard that in addition to Intel, Apple is also seeking opportunities for modem chip production capacity support from outside. MediaTek , which can currently meet Apple's technology, production capacity and price conditions , naturally becomes the industry's number one candidate.

　　Taiwanese IC design companies pointed out that there is a possibility that Apple will transfer modem chip orders to MediaTek, but this does not conform to Apple's preference for managing the chip supply chain. For MediaTek, there are only short-term economic benefits. After all, Apple has always mainly used international chip manufacturers for chip solutions for its various product lines, and this is related to the three guiding principles that Apple has always adhered to in purchasing chips.

　　Apple has always adhered to the three guiding principles of technological leadership, product blueprint integrity, and logistical support reliability. Based on these three guiding principles, MediaTek's modem chip product line is likely to win Apple orders, but the possible direction and progress of the cooperation between the two parties is not easy to carry out within the existing product line.

　　Therefore, Taiwanese media believe that instead of pinning its hopes on Apple's transfer of orders for its modem chip product line, MediaTek would rather strive to cooperate with Apple's new products in areas such as smart voice chip platforms, wireless charging chips, and wireless connection chip solutions, because MediaTek has leading market and technological advantages in these chip platforms.

　　Four areas where MediaTek and Apple are expected to cooperate

　　According to market rumors, MediaTek's cooperation with Apple is most popular in four areas: mobile phone modems, CDMA IP licensing, WiFi customized chips (ASIC) and smart speaker HomaPod chips, and results will be achieved as early as the second half of next year.

　　As mentioned above, MediaTek is likely to become the modem chip supplier for Apple's next-generation mobile phones. However, after Apple made its own A-series application processors for the iPhone and iPad, it has also been reported that it is actively preparing to make its own modems for mobile phones and tablets. It has also been reported that it has been tested at TSMC and could be ready as early as 2019, which makes it uncertain whether MediaTek is needed.

　　However, the supply chain has reported that MediaTek is actively seeking orders from Apple, not just for mobile modems, but also to provide CDMA 2000 IP licensing in conjunction with Apple's self-made modem plan.

　　From the current situation, the manufacturers that currently have CDMA 2000 technology are only Qualcomm, Intel and MediaTek. Qualcomm and Intel are both Apple's current chip suppliers, and the difficulty of obtaining authorization has increased relatively. Therefore, MediaTek is considered a possible target.

　　In addition, the market has also heard that MediaTek has actively invested in the ASIC field in the past two years with its IP advantages accumulated over the years. After grabbing orders from Cisco, the global network leader, it also sought customized WiFi chips from Apple.

　　In addition to the above three areas of cooperation, since Apple is about to launch a new smart speaker product HomePod, it originally used the old A8 processor chip used by Apple mobile phones. However, MediaTek has achieved good results in cooperation with Amazon in recent years, so it has also begun to strive for cooperation with Apple, which will become another product that the two parties will work together on in the future.

　　The mobile phone chip supply chain believes that if MediaTek has the opportunity to provide Apple WiFi ASIC or HomePod chips, judging from the timing of the launch of new products, the earliest delivery time should be in the second half of next year.

　　MediaTek is trying its best to win iPhone orders

　　In July this year, MediaTek Chairman Tsai Ming-kai recruited former TSMC CEO Tsai Li-hsing to join his team and brought in many TSMC people. MediaTek employees also revealed that Tsai Ming-kai's reuse of TSMC people has chilled the hearts of old employees. According to a senior semiconductor insider, the key reason why Tsai Ming-kai reused TSMC people was to get Apple's iPhone orders.

　　Although Tsai Ming-kai was reluctant to talk about the iPhone order, he did not deny it either. He simply said, "As long as there is an opportunity, we will work hard."

　　A former MediaTek executive said that Tsai Ming-kai was not satisfied with MediaTek's past development of only being able to sell chips to mainland Chinese mobile phone manufacturers. MediaTek has also had contacts with Apple and Samsung for a long time. Although MediaTek has successfully entered Samsung's mobile phone supply chain this year, the price is not ideal. As for iPhone orders, it is still working hard.

　　It is understood that after a period of warm-up, Cai Lixing has started visiting customers in the past few months since he took office as MediaTek's co-CEO in June. The United States, where Apple's headquarters is located, is one of the areas he frequently visits. If he can successfully grab the deal this time, it will be a milestone. Moreover, cooperation in the form of IP licensing has the highest profit, the greatest benefit to MediaTek's performance, and can also disperse MediaTek's past high dependence on the Chinese mainland market.

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