Born in the USA! Broadcom will produce American-made RF modules for Apple

Apple has tapped Broadcom to build 5G radio frequency equipment in the US under a "multi-billion" dollar deal announced on Tuesday. The venture will see Silicon Valley-based biz Broadcom develop a variety of 5G components for the iGiant, including film bulk acoustic resonators (FBAR) filters. These components are used in most …

[DS999]

Who was supplying them previously?

I've seen multiple articles about this today but they all mention Broadcom will be producing them but not who was supplying them before? If they were Qualcomm components they were probably already made in the US - and this wouldn't be a "made in the USA" deal but a "first step in getting out from under Qualcomm's thumb" deal.

[Orv]

Re: Who was supplying them previously?

Apple's been using Broadcom WiFi chips for years.

[DS999]

Re: Who was supplying them previously?

That's not what this announcement is about, it has to do with RF filters, low noise high gain amps, and other components in the frontend for a 5G/LTE modem.

[Kevin McMurtrie]

Re: Who was supplying them previously?

4G/5G Bands & Combos says they're using the Qualcomm Snapdragon X65.

[DS999]

Re: Who was supplying them previously?

That's the modem, that has nothing to do with what Broadcomm is supplying to Apple. Does no one read the articles anymore?

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

All of Apple's products depend on technology .... built here in the United States

Except for the actual made in China iPhone and its made in Taiwan SOC and made in Korea other ICs

So it depends on one chip made in the USA

[ivorb]

Re: All of Apple's products depend on technology .... built here in the United States

And of course, a lot depends on what qualifies as "made" in the USA.

Most of the RF filter and amplifier modules (FEMs) are not CMOS ASICs that can be farmed off to the regular wafer bakers (TSMC, Global Foundries, etc) but GaAs, GaN, etc that give better power:performance ratio especially at these RF frequencies (e.g. 5GHz). The regular vendors of such (Skyworks, Broadcom (formerly Avago), Qorvo) have fabs in the USA but often perform the wafer-probe, module assembly and test in Asia either in-house or contracted out.

Within the module, there may be passive components that again are sourced from outside the USA - Murata, Panasonic, etc.

So, just because one of the die in the module was fabbed in the USA doesn't mean that the bulk of the manufacturing was performed there.