[HN Gopher] How did Qualcomm snatch defeat from the jaws of vict...
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       How did Qualcomm snatch defeat from the jaws of victory with their
       Oryon SoC?
        
       Author : Tuldok
       Score  : 37 points
       Date   : 2023-09-29 19:49 UTC (3 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (semiaccurate.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (semiaccurate.com)
        
       | distract8901 wrote:
       | This is one of the dumbest things I've ever seen.
       | 
       | To sum up:
       | 
       | - Qualcomm mandated that manufacturers use their power supply
       | chips with their processor
       | 
       | - these power supply chips are _wildly_ inappropriate for
       | laptops, requiring 4-6 in parallel when a single properly spec 'd
       | chip would work
       | 
       | - said chips are designed for space-constrained phones, and are
       | so small they require a different type of PCB
       | 
       | - those PCBs can't handle the power and need to double the layer
       | count
       | 
       | - cost of PCBs becomes absolutely ludicrous at this scale
       | 
       | - Qualcomm refuses to allow manufacturers to use a more
       | appropriate power supply
       | 
       | - manufacturers literally cannot afford the design and stopped
       | using Qualcomm
       | 
       | - Qualcomm is now paying manufacturers to use their chipset, and
       | are losing money in the deal
       | 
       | I don't even know how to express what an absolutely terrible idea
       | this is. The Qualcomm chips are not fit for purpose, _at all_.
       | Totally inappropriate for the application. No engineer in their
       | right mind would go for this.
       | 
       | Qualcomm is mandating that manufacturers eat a _fuckton_ of cost
       | in raw materials, drastically reduce the efficiency and battery
       | life of their product, and charge way more than the market would
       | pay for an underpowered, overheating laptop with a pitiful
       | battery life. For... Reasons?
       | 
       | It makes no sense at all. No one is going to use this chipset. If
       | any devices _do_ make it to market, their terrible performance
       | will absolutely trash Qualcomm 's reputation in this space and
       | consumers won't buy them in the future.
       | 
       | Absolutely insane
        
       | amluto wrote:
       | This all sounds so inept on Qualcomm's part that I have trouble
       | believing the explanation.
       | 
       | Qualcomm is trying to make money on the whole shebang, not on the
       | PMICs. They're trying to sell, for lack of a better word, a
       | system on multiple chips. Intel and AMD do this too (see their
       | chipsets, for example). When someone makes a laptop, the the CPU
       | vendor accounts for some of the BOM cost, and that's their
       | revenue. The manufacturer is willing to pay some total BOM cost
       | at a given performance point, and they'll buy more units at a
       | lower total. So the CPU vendor wants the total to be as low as
       | possible and their portion of it to be as high as possible.
       | Except to the extent that supplying PMICs (if done competently)
       | diverts more of the BOM to them without increasing the total,
       | they don't really care whose PMICs are used in the grand scheme
       | of things. And they certainly wouldn't torpedo the entire product
       | launch over PMICs.
       | 
       | I bet this is actually just overconfidence in their product. They
       | designed around their proprietary PMIC, and that design is
       | _important_ : a CPU draws _variable_ amounts of power, and the
       | system will not work if the power and voltages are wrong. For
       | bonus points, the CPU would much rather operate at lower power
       | (skip clocks or whatever) than simply crash if an intensive
       | workload starts and the battery plus whatever power supply is
       | connected can't keep up. [0]. So I bet they tried to get all this
       | right, they designed around their PMICs, they didn't realize the
       | chip format was inappropriate, and they can't fix it in time for
       | market. Oops.
       | 
       | Qualcomm has never done the laptop thing for real before. Intel,
       | AMD, and Apple have.
       | 
       | [0] Anyone remember Apple's issues here?
        
       | muppetman wrote:
       | That was a very hard article to read (more on this later)
        
       | RicoElectrico wrote:
       | Honestly was ever Qualcomm not a master of proprietary cash
       | grabs? After all, even in 90s they had their own standards as
       | opposed to GSM. It is in their DNA.
       | 
       | We could have been better off had any of the more "universal"
       | chip companies won the Android SoC race (like TI, Freescale and
       | so on)
        
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       (page generated 2023-09-29 23:01 UTC)