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Infineon Chips Pull iPhone in to Trouble
Christo Jacob
Thursday, September 4, 2008
The gadget freaks might be celebrating the much-awaited launch of iPhone in India. But hold on! Apple’s 3G iPhone is facing problems on dropping calls and unpredictable Internet links from around the world. The root cause of many issues faced by iPhone could be Infineon chips, states a research note of Richard Windsor in Nomura.

Users have raised complaints on websites and blogs that Internet speeds have been inconsistent and the phone often reverts to a slower technology known as Edge even in 3G areas. Windsor wrote, “We believe that these issues are typical of an immature chipset and radio protocol stack where we are almost certain that Infineon is the 3G supplier.” He said, “This is not surprising as the Infineon 3G chipset solution has never really been tested in the hands of users. Some people will not experience these problems as it is only in areas where the radio signal weakens that the immaturity of the stack really shows up.”

iPhone is suffering from faulty software on an Infineon chip, and Apple plans to fix the problem with a software update. An Infineon spokesman declined to comment on anything iPhone related, but said he would check into whether the particular chipset used in the iPhone 3G had been used in other phones. Apple has refused to acknowledge any issues with iPhone 3G.

For Apple, if Windsor’s theory were correct, it would mean that a firmware upgrade is unlikely to solve the problems.

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