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Cisco are also getting stung at the latest node. For their new line of Silicon One switch/router chips they decided to ditch their usual fabless partner (Broadc

Cisco are also getting stung at the latest node. For their new line of Silicon One switch/router chips they decided to ditch their usual fabless partner (Broadcom?) and go direct to the fab (I think it's Samsung but not sure - doesn't really matter anyway). They did this to save money and also with the intention of producing their own merchant silicon to directly compete with Broadcom's. This would have been a great plan if there hadn't been a major 7nm capacity problem which resulted in the smaller players, such as themselves, not getting the wafers they need. I don't think there are any public reports of anyone using Silicon One yet (except Cisco themselves) but this won't help them win any orders. The car industry might have something to do with it also but it's by no means the only cause of Cisco's concerns.

wayoutthere 5y ago
I’ve gotten burned by Cisco in a very similar situation. At this point they basically lean on their largest telecom customers to build their solutions for themz They moved to this model because the Comcasts / AT&Ts / Verizons around the world started looking at contracting with factories to build their own white-label network gear (when you spend $10 billion+ a year on network gear, this starts making sense). Cisco’s pitch is basically “give us all your requirements and we’ll build whatever you want as long as we have the option to sell it in the market”. Never mind that Cisco is an absolutely terrible partner and the telecoms realized they were getting almost nothing out of the deal, so after a few years the big telecoms all dumped them and went with white label factories in China while working with American companies like Intel and Qualcomm on large component orders to supply the factories. Which left all the small and mid-size telecoms in the lurch for a generational upgrade they were expecting (which is a lot of why Huawei has so much market share in 5G).

wayoutthere 5y ago

I’ve gotten burned by Cisco in a very similar situation. At this point they basically lean on their largest telecom customers to build their solutions for themz They moved to this model because the Comcasts / AT&Ts / Verizons around the world started looking at contracting with factories to build their own white-label network gear (when you spend $10 billion+ a year on network gear, this starts making sense). Cisco’s pitch is basically “give us all your requirements and we’ll build whatever you want as long as we have the option to sell it in the market”. Never mind that Cisco is an absolutely terrible partner and the telecoms realized they were getting almost nothing out of the deal, so after a few years the big telecoms all dumped them and went with white label factories in China while working with American companies like Intel and Qualcomm on large component orders to supply the factories. Which left all the small and mid-size telecoms in the lurch for a generational upgrade they were expecting (which is a lot of why Huawei has so much market share in 5G).