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Could a substandard chip be to blame for poor call quality

According to the professor of microwave technology at the University of Galve, the 3G iPhone could be suffering from poor signal sensitivity due to a chip. Their measurements have shown that the iPhone’s sensitivity to the 3G network is well below the value specified in the 3G standard (by ETSI).

Users of the 3G iPhone have apparently complained of dropped calls, poor internet service and low battery life. An analyst with Nomura believes that these problems are caused by a 3G communications chip made by Infineon, in Germany, which they believe is of a substandard quality. They 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. There are too many instances on iPhone blogs and Apple's own website for it to be coincidence.” A report by BusinessWeek also backs this up by saying that the Infineon technology is “fairly new and untested in high volumes outside a lab setting.”

Infineon have declined to comment on the 3G iPhone issues, but did say that they have been supplying 3G chipsets to the likes of Samsung without any reported problems. Apple also declined to comment, simply saying that users should regularly update their devices via iTunes to take advantage of software updates.