I don't work in hardware, but a friend of mine who does said that it's not really all that surprising for two companies to end up with similar designs if they a

I don't work in hardware, but a friend of mine who does said that it's not really all that surprising for two companies to end up with similar designs if they are working on a similar problem AND are using the same supplier. The supplier is providing their own expertise and some of that expertise comes from working with other customers.