What you need to know
- The iPhone 12 lineup features Qualcomm's X55 modem.
- A new teardown video on the Chinese social media website Weibo confirmed the chip.
- The company is planning to include Qualcomm modems in the iPhone as far out as 2024.
Reported by MacRumors, a new teardown video of the iPhone 12 posted to Chinese social networking website Weibo seems to have confirmed that Apple's new iPhone 12 lineup features Qualcomm's X55 modem.
The video shows off the internals of the new iPhone, complete with its new logic board and the X55 modem.
The inclusion of the chip confirms reports from as far back as 2019. While some thought that Apple may have upgraded to the new X60 chip, its first built on a 5nm process, an earlier report from today indicates that chip is reserved for use on the 2021 iPhone lineup.
As alerted to us by Danny Walsh on Twitter, page 71 of an Apple-Qualcomm settlement filing reveals that Apple intends to launch new products with the Snapdragon X60 modem between June 1, 2021 and May 31, 2022. Apple has also committed to using as-yet-unannounced X65 and X70 modems in products launched between June 1, 2022 and May 31, 2024.
The X60 chip is also able to "aggregate data from both mmWave and sub-6GHz bands simultaneously," making it a great candidate for Apple's next rounds of iPhones.
Built on a 5nm process, the X60 modem packs higher power efficiency into a smaller footprint compared to the X55. Smartphones equipped with the X60 will also be able to aggregate data from both mmWave and sub-6GHz bands simultaneously to achieve an optimal combination of high-speed and low-latency network coverage.
The X55 modem still supports both mmWave and sub-6GHz technologies, just with less power efficiency a larger footprint. It is still a leap in performance and power efficiency to its Intel counterpart, which Apple dropped in order to feature Qualcomm's chip.
