Apple’s first modem, the C1 chip, had one notable omission: there’s no support for mmWave 5G, the ultra-fast variant of 5G.While I expressed my view at the time that this was no big deal, given that there’s been very limited rollout by carriers, it seems there may be a very specific reason for the decision … The C1 chip took many years to develop Given Apple’s ability to design Mac processors that have left Intel ones in the dust, you might think that designing a radio chip would be a rather trivial exercise.In reality, it’s very much more complicated than it sounds because mobile data standards are insanely complicated, for three reasons.
First, standards vary around the world, and a chip intended to be used globally needs to support all of them.Second, even within one country, different carriers often have their own versions of each mobile data standard, and again Apple needs to support all of them.Finally, in addition to meeting every variation of every standard in every country, a radio chip also needs to meet all of the previous standards.
If 5G isn’t available, the chip needs to fall back seamlessly to 4G, for example.So that’s every variation of every generation in every country.That’s how you end up with a modem spec list like this: 5G NR (Bands n1, n2, n3, n5, n7, n8, n12, n20, n25, n26, n28, n30, n38, n40, n41, n48, n53, n66, n70, n75, n76, n77, n78, n79) FDD‑LTE (Bands 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 12, 13, 17, 18, 19, 20, 25, 26, 28, 30, 32, 66) TD‑LTE (Bands 34, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 48, 53) UMTS/HSPA+ (850, 900, 1700/2100, 1900, 2100 MHz) GSM/EDGE (850, 900, 1800, 1900 MHz) 5G (sub-6GHz) with 4×4 MIMO Gigabit LTE with 4×4 MIMO Wi‑Fi 6 (802.11ax) with 2×2 MIMO Bluetooth 5.3 NFC with reader mode Express Cards with Power Reserve Apple made two compromises We were hearing ahead of time that Apple would be making some compromises with the first version of the chip, and that did indeed turn out to be the case.
Specifically, Apple omitted support for mmWave 5G, and also limited Wi-Fi support to Wi-Fi 6 rather than Wi-Fi 7.Kuo says mmWave 5G was omitted for power reasons One of the key benefits of the C1 chip touted by Apple is significantly lower power consumption than the Qualcomm modem chips it replaced.This, says Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, is the reason the company had to skip mmWave 5G support for now.
However, he says the company is working on solving this problem, and the standard will be supported in the next version. You’re reading 9to5Mac — experts who break news about Apple and its surrounding ecosystem, day after day.Be sure to check out our homepage for all the latest news, and follow 9to5Mac on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn to stay in the loop.
Don’t know where to start? Check out our exclusive stories, reviews, how-tos, and subscribe to our YouTube channel
