Kuo: iPhone 17 to Use New Apple-Designed Wi-Fi and Bluetooth Chip

Apple's big 2024 launches are almost complete, so reports about the 2025 product lineup will be picking up speed. Today, a new report highlights Apple's plan to use its own Wi-Fi and Bluetooth chip in next year's iPhone 17 lineup.

Apple's new chip will handle Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and likely 5G

Ming-Chi Kuo writes in his post on X:

Broadcom currently supplies Apple with more than 300 million Wi-Fi+BT chips (hereafter referred to as Wi-Fi chips) per year. However, Apple will quickly reduce its reliance on Broadcom. With new products in 2H25 (such as the iPhone 17), Apple plans to use its own Wi-Fi chips, which will be manufactured on TSMC's N7 process and support the latest Wi-Fi 7 specification. Apple expects to transition almost all products to its own Wi-Fi chips within about three years. This move will reduce costs and enhance the integration benefits of Apple's ecosystem.

Kuo previously reported that Apple is set to release a new 5G chip in its iPhone 17 Air and iPhone SE 4 next year.

Our own Filipe Esposito reported that the new iPhone SE chip will not only support 5G, but also Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and GPS. He writes: “The modem, codenamed Centaur, is quite ambitious and will also support Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and GPS.”

Kuo’s new post confirms the idea of an all-in-one chip design. Interestingly, he singles out the iPhone 17 and even says “new products” in the second half of 2025, pointing to several products.

Multiple “new products” to get chip in 2H25

Kuo previously said the 5G chip would only appear in the new iPhone SE in the first half of 2025, followed by the iPhone 17 Air in the second half.

This could mean one of two things. Either additional iPhone 17 models will get the new Apple-designed chip, or there are non-iPhone products that it's intended for. New Apple Watch or iPad models could be these products, or maybe we’ll even see the launch of the first cellular Macs.

Either way, after years of R&D and rumors, Apple’s internal 5G, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth projects appear to finally be ready to see the light of day.

Update: Since this article was originally published, Kuo has come forward to say that Apple’s 5G and Wi-Fi chips will be two separate chips. So the 5G chip could still only be found in the iPhone SE and 17 Air, while the Wi-Fi chip will be part of multiple devices coming in the second half of 2025.

Are you interested in getting an Apple-designed communications chip? Why or why not? Let us know in the comments.