Chip giant Intel's (NASDAQ: INTC) cellular modem business caught a big break when Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) decided to use its products in the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus smartphones that launched in the second half of 2016. Since then, Intel and Apple seem to have tightened their modem-related business relationship, with Apple opting to use Intel's modems exclusively in its recently announced trio of iPhones. In addition to this being the first iPhone product cycle to use modems exclusively sourced from Intel, the modem that Apple is using in these devices, known as XMM 7560, is the first to incorporate a cellular baseband processor manufactured by Intel itself.