Apple’s Recent Broadcom Hires Corroborates In-House Baseband Rumors

According to earlier rumors, it has been suggested that Apple could be looking to design their own baseband chips. These chips are expected to make their way into future iPhone devices and it could be another way for Apple to control the hardware and software from start to finish. At the moment, these baseband chips are supplied by Qualcomm but made by TSMC.

To corroborate those rumors, it seems that AppleInsider has noticed that Apple has recently hired several semiconductor engineers from chipmaker, Broadcom. Both engineers have worked at Broadcom for a very long time and have experience in building RF hardware which resulted in baseband transceivers used by Nokia and Samsung.

One of the engineers, a certain Paul Chang, had worked at Broadcom for the past 11 years and it was only this February that he joined Apple as a senior program manager, and his Linkedin profile confirms it.

Another engineer, Xiping Wang, had joined Apple as an engineer back in January as per his LinkedIn profile as well. Wang had previously spent a decade as a design engineer and hardware development manager at Broadcom. These two engineers aren’t the only ones hired from Broadcom, although they are some of the more recent hires.

AppleInsider notes that over the years, Apple has added more Broadcom and Qualcomm software and hardware engineers to their list of employees. Of course it is entirely possible that these engineers could be working on something else, but given their experience and expertise, it wouldn’t be a stretch to think that their work could be related to Apple’s rumored in-house baseband chips.

Tyler Lee
Categories: Apple, Cellphones, Rumors
Tags: iPhone