In its first earnings call of 2024, Qualcomm said today that Apple has extended its modem chip (baseband chip) license agreement with Qualcomm until March 2027. Apple's existing deal has now been extended for two years, so expect to see Qualcomm modems in future generations of iphones.

Over the past few years, Apple has been working to develop its own 5G modem chip internally, but IT home friends who follow the progress know that this technology has been exposed to several delays.

In November 2023, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman said that Apple's modem chip work had been delayed until late 2025 or 2026, and that further delays were likely. Apple's original goal was to launch an Apple-designed modem chip by 2024, but it failed to meet that goal. The company then hoped to introduce the modem chip in the iPhone SE, due out in spring 2025, but was also unable to achieve that goal.

Gurman said at the time that Apple was "years away" from making chips that performed as well or better than Qualcomm's chips. According to reports, Apple encountered problems with the Intel code used in its acquisition of Intel's modem chip business, and Apple had to rewrite the code to add new features that resulted in existing features being broken.

In addition, Apple must avoid infringing Qualcomm's patents during the modem development process. The upcoming iPhone 16 Pro series models released this year are expected to use Qualcomm's Snapdragon X75 modem, which features improved carrier aggregation and more energy-efficient transceivers.