On October 11, 2018, Dialog Semiconductor, a supplier of iPhone power management chips that has cooperated with Apple for many years, announced in London that it will reach a $ 600 million transaction with Apple, including power management technology patents, Part of the asset transfer and 300 R & D engineers were delivered to Apple. It is understood that these 300 people account for 16% of Dialog's global employees. In addition, Apple will also take over some of Dialog's equipment in Italy, the United Kingdom and Germany.
Among them, Apple will pay US $ 300 million in cash first, and advance US $ 300 million in advance for products purchased in the next three years (2019-2021), including the development and supply of power management, audio subsystems, charging and other mixed-signal ICs.
In the electronic equipment system, the chip that bears the responsibilities of power conversion, distribution, detection and other power management is the power management chip, which is mainly responsible for identifying the power supply amplitude of the CPU, generating the corresponding short moment wave, and promoting the subsequent circuit. Power output.
DeLogue considers itself the world's largest power management chip company and has long been a supplier of power management chips for Apple products. However, after battery failure occurred in some of Apple's products last year, it is suspected that the two parties have differences in responsibility for the accident. Apple, due to the unhappy attitude of Dai Le Ge, began to develop some power management chips and applied them to the newly released iPhone XS and iPhone XS this year. Max phone. The iPhone XS has a new single L-shaped battery, while the iPhone XS Max battery is still an L-shaped two separate batteries. The iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max have a battery capacity of 2,658 mAh and 3,174 mAh, respectively. Both battery types are currently unique to Apple.
Earlier in a conference call, Delleger stated that Apple now plans to purchase major power management chips for one of its three new iPhones from two suppliers, instead of only from Dellegg. It seems that the remaining LCD version of the iPhone XR this year still uses some of Daimler's power management chips, but compared to 70% of the previous Dailer's revenue from Apple, the display is much less.
It is understood that Apple has not lowered orders for the supply of other secondary power management chips for the new iPhone, nor has it reduced orders for power management chips for tablets, wearables and laptops. Previously, Dai Le Ge has been supplying power management chips for all three Apple iPhones.
Since Apple hopes to use OLED display technology in iPhones, Apple has always hoped to develop self-controllable power management chips to avoid similar battery quality risk problems like Samsung NOTE7. At the same time, Apple was affected by the frequency reduction and battery replacement of the old iPhone due to battery power, which caused Apple to start its own power management chip device to be released on the new iPhone this year.
This time Apple's return to the acquisition of Daleger's assets and technology may be that after Apple's self-developed power management chip, Apple hopes to continue to strengthen its chip design and manufacturing capabilities. According to information learned by Li Xing from the industry, although Apple has given up related testing and R & D work on 5G mobile networks in the short term, it still pays great attention to the enhancement of outdoor mobility of Apple's electronics.
Among them, technological breakthroughs in wireless charging and power management have gradually become the focus of Apple's R & D part, mainly for the use of smartphones, tablets and other products, and will encounter more and more live video and on-site capture of image video In terms of information needs, Apple hopes to come up with a solution that is different from the industry.
Among them, split batteries and stacked batteries, as well as related wireless charging technologies and power management technologies, are all attempts by Apple to create a better experience for consumers on the issue of battery life. At present, it seems that these technologies are still Not perfect, but it has already achieved good results.
According to previous rumors, Apple has at least 8 battery life patents. The patents include ensuring that each part of the mobile phone processor consumes only the minimum power required, and turning off some processors when they are not needed, making the sleep and wake functions better. jobs.
In fact, Apple's self-developed chip is no longer a big deal. Starting from Apple's independent design of the CPU for the iPhone, Apple has designed a series of chip types not previously available in the industry for its products, including integrated Bluetooth chips, integrated co-processing chips, and new GPU chip power management chips, etc., not only significantly reduce the level of efficacy of Apple products, improve the user experience of Apple products, but also greatly reduce Apple's research and development and procurement costs.
Another advantage of Apple's self-developed chip is that Apple can rely on its own chip design to deeply bundle its own IOS unified platform, continue to develop new functions and application scenarios, and prevent competitors from quickly copying and imitating, so as to keep at Leadership in these areas.