US- Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) A report published by VentureBeat suggests that the next generation iPhone, the iPhone 7, will come with an Intel chip.

It has roughly been a month since the announcements of Apple’s latest phones, the iPhone 6S smartphone and iPhone 6S Plus phablet, and the rumor mill is already being flooded with rumors regarding the next-gen iPhone – which will be coming in a year from now.

According to the renowned online news outlet, VentureBeat, the Cupertino giant has ordered Intel to work on the iPhone 7’s processor, more or less. Intel has reportedly assigned this task to a team of 1,000 employees. The number certainly highlights the significance of the particular project.

The chip which is set to be included in next year’s iPhone is the 7360 LTE modem- Intel has been flaunting about it for quite some time now.

Though, as BGR has correctly pointed out, Apple does not plan to solely cooperate with Intel for the iPhone 7, on the contrary, half the job will reportedly get done by Qualcomm, the mobile processors manufacturing king. In addition to that, taken into consideration the tense that has been developed around Apple dual sourcing the A9 processor from TSMC and Samsung, the company is expected to make efforts thus delivering equivalent, or even enhanced, performance results.

Moreover, we should note that Intel’s 7630 LTE modem chip can support downlink LTE speeds of 450MB per second.

Based on VentureBeat’s sources, Apple will design the SOC (system-on-a-chip) while the LTE modem’s for the SOC intellectual property will be licensed to Intel. Furthermore, Intel will be implementing its 14-nanometer process during the fabricating procedure.

In case you are not familiar, a SOC, or system-on-a-chip, encompasses both the processor and the LTE modem chip, which results to improved performance and better power efficiency as well.

Besides Apple working with Intel to optimize the latter’s chip for the iPhone 7, the report also claims that the Cupertino Giant has even hired some of Intel’s engineers who contributed to the development of the 7630 modem chip. Bernd Adler, the former CTO of Intel Wireless, is a notable example amid those people.

Citing VentureBeat:

One source said Intel needs a small army of people on the Apple account because of the importance of the project to Intel’s future in the mobile market, because of the complexity of the project, and because Apple is a demanding client with an extremely popular phone.

Our sources don’t believe Apple has officially signed Intel as a supplier of the modem chip, but a deal will happen if Intel continues to hit its project milestones.

What do you think of Apple’s partnership with Intel for the upcoming iPhone 7? Feel free to let us know in the comments below.

Via: BGR

Source: VentureBeat

Photo Credit: Cult Of Mac