Intel Exiting 5G Modems
Intel couldn't make WiMax work right (too power hungry and low speed), their attempts to build an LTE chip have fared worse than Samsung and Qualcomm, to the point that they are a full 5 years behind their competitors, and their cable modem chipsets (Puma 6/7, used in the Xfinity converged gateway) are fatally flawed and DoSable with a few Kbps of traffic, while having horrible bufferbloat.<p>At this point I think Intel's entire advantage over the past two decades was being on the bleeding edge of silicon processes, paired with a middling silicon design team and good firmware devs that could patch most flaws in microcode.<p>The process lead has disappeared, and when working with RF frontends (LTE, WiMax, cable modems, WiFi) their ability to cover up implementation errors in the driver is limited.<p>Intel's prospects for the next few years look dim in this context, given the tens of billions wasted on the aformentioned forays into making radio chipsets and the declining revenue of their legacy CPU market paired with serious manufacuting constraints that have hamstrung their supply chain.