It’s Confirmed: “Intel Inside” The New Apple iPhone 7

Short Bytes: In a teardown operation by Chipworks it has been confirmed that some iPhone 7 models are running Intel mobile platform wireless chips inside. The model in the teardown was iPhone 7 A1778. This has also solidified the earlier reports about Apple shifting to multiple vendors for wireless modems.

Apple recently released the iPhone 7 which marked the end of the analog 3.5mm jack from the Apple iPhone line. Just like the older iPhone models, the iPhone 7 features an A series chip known as A10 Fusion. Unlike other smartphone manufacturers, Apple itself designs the chips for its iPhones. But the whole chip is not made with Apple-made components.


Until now, the iPhone-maker has been dependent on chip makers like Qualcomm for the wireless chips which enable iPhone to connect to a carrier network. Chipworks, in its iPhone 7 A1778 teardown, has found an Intel Mobile Platform chips.

“Intel supplied not just one, but two RF transceivers, the baseband modem, and the (RF) power management IC,” reads a blog post. Chipworks is a Canada-based patent analysis company which reverse engineers devices for companies who want to monitor their patents.

The teardown confirmation has also solidified earlier rumors of Apple going for multiple modem vendors. In June 2016, Bloomberg, referring to unnamed sources, reported that Apple would be putting Intel wireless modem chips for the new AT&T exclusive iPhones and some other variants in overseas markets. The report also said that Apple would use Qualcomm chips for the Verizon exclusive iPhones and the iPhone models sold in China.

Read Chipworks’ full Apple iPhone 7 teardown here.

Now Intel Bring Intel Authenticate Technology In Processors To Defeat Hackers

Multinational technology giant Intel announced its new technology Intel Authenticate which is designed specifically to curb and foil hackers who use fake email ID’s to lure employees into giving in their usernames and passwords. The authentication system, which will use the multi-factor authentication – a system which uses more than one method to identify a user, will be a part of the company’s sixth generation processors.

Intel Authenticate is also said to allow future corporate IT managers to replace the long and ever-changing passwords with a rather short personal identification number, among other identification procedures that may include biometric identification systems such as the fingerprint system, location of the building the employee is in and other systems such as the proximity of the employee’s mobile or badge etc.

IT managers also have the option to choose the features to be embedded into the chip. Tom Garrison, an Intel Vice President said, “IT has full power”.

Intel will add Authenticate to all the processors that it will sell for all enterprise computers. However, the chips embedded with Authenticate will enter production after being tested by some businesses, Garrison said.

Garrison also reported that an estimated 117,000 corporate cyber-attacks occur every day and involve phishing for the username and password. Phishing is a method used to trick people into revealing their usernames and passwords. The biggest advantage of including Authenticate into the chips is the inherent inclusion of an element of security in the PC. In other words, the PC itself becomes a part of the security system. Industry analyst Patrick Moorhead of Moor Insights and Strategy supported this by saying:

One of the biggest keys to this is there is a secure element inside the Intel processor that manages all of this. That wasn’t available before. A lot of different pieces had to come together. Hardware is a lot harder to get into.

Even if someone obtained the password, he would be blocked by layers of additional security stashed inside the computer’s processor, he said.

— Intel Newsroom

Can Intel Authenticate change the current security scenario?