5 ms·

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

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

jauntywundrkind 3y ago
A bit off topic, it it keeps surprising me how many dedicated chips cellphones have. iPhone 15 Pro has 10 different power management chips. It has one dedicated transmitter and two receiver chips. It has two different rf front end chips. Plus four chips for cellular modem, wifi/BT, uwb, and nfc. And then two chips for envelope tracking and clock generating. I have this feeling that designs in general really are multi-chio, and no one bothers engineering alternatives. Almost everyone goes out and buys the recommended power supply chip for the chip they want to use. Qualcomm not having an actual decent power supply solution & just asking people to keep adding more copies of the known power supply unit seems both all too expectable & also ridiculous. And it just seems all too typical that no one, even the very upper end, isn't going to take the time & risk to engineer their own better support solution anyways. https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/iPhone+15+Pro+Max+Chip+ID/165320 https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/iPhone+15+Pro+Max+Chip+ID/16532...
- stefan_ 3y ago
  It’s interesting. A big reason why Qualcomm got to making CPUs in the first place was that they could sell it as a value add to their modem chips everyone was using: now you can have both in one chip! We have seen Apple try to make a modem of course, but it seems to have fizzled out again. Wonder why they never looked at WiFi/BT, it’s a lot easier and Intel recently sold theirs iirc.
  - sigilis 3y ago
    Apple isn’t making WiFi/bt precisely because it’s not that hard. There are a number of potential companies they can partner with so they can negotiate better rates. CPUs and modems are different, they effectively had a single supplier that will work for their requirements which meant that they couldn’t differentiate their products from other companies and had to deal with a third party supplier who essentially had them over a barrel at the negotiating table. If they can pull off making their own modem, Qualcomm can’t charge them like they’re the only option even if not all iPhones use the new modem. The makers of various easier to make ICs already know they are not the only option and charge accordingly.
  - jjtheblunt 3y ago
    > Wonder why they never looked at WiFi/BT... They have https://www.extremetech.com/computing/142553-apple-acquires-ti-staff-moves-deeper-into-the-world-of-socs https://www.extremetech.com/computing/142553-apple-acquires-...
justsomehnguy 3y ago
> For... Reasons? "Hey, engineer, can we bundle our chipset with something to force the buyers to buy both?" "Well, maybe, we can use the power supply for some appli.." "Great, starting selling a forced bundle to a notebook vendors tomorrow." *Engineer hesitates for some seconds* "Please, be advised what these power chips are not..." *C-level glances at the engineer* "Did I asked you to how to do the business?" "Sorry. I would leave now." "Good." Don't forget, not only they a business conglomerate in which the top lost connection with the entire company decades ago, it's a company which has "never say no to a senior" in it's DNA.

jauntywundrkind 3y ago

A bit off topic, it it keeps surprising me how many dedicated chips cellphones have. iPhone 15 Pro has 10 different power management chips. It has one dedicated transmitter and two receiver chips. It has two different rf front end chips. Plus four chips for cellular modem, wifi/BT, uwb, and nfc. And then two chips for envelope tracking and clock generating. I have this feeling that designs in general really are multi-chio, and no one bothers engineering alternatives. Almost everyone goes out and buys the recommended power supply chip for the chip they want to use. Qualcomm not having an actual decent power supply solution & just asking people to keep adding more copies of the known power supply unit seems both all too expectable & also ridiculous. And it just seems all too typical that no one, even the very upper end, isn't going to take the time & risk to engineer their own better support solution anyways. https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/iPhone+15+Pro+Max+Chip+ID/165320 https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/iPhone+15+Pro+Max+Chip+ID/16532...

stefan_ 3y ago
It’s interesting. A big reason why Qualcomm got to making CPUs in the first place was that they could sell it as a value add to their modem chips everyone was using: now you can have both in one chip! We have seen Apple try to make a modem of course, but it seems to have fizzled out again. Wonder why they never looked at WiFi/BT, it’s a lot easier and Intel recently sold theirs iirc.
- sigilis 3y ago
  Apple isn’t making WiFi/bt precisely because it’s not that hard. There are a number of potential companies they can partner with so they can negotiate better rates. CPUs and modems are different, they effectively had a single supplier that will work for their requirements which meant that they couldn’t differentiate their products from other companies and had to deal with a third party supplier who essentially had them over a barrel at the negotiating table. If they can pull off making their own modem, Qualcomm can’t charge them like they’re the only option even if not all iPhones use the new modem. The makers of various easier to make ICs already know they are not the only option and charge accordingly.
- jjtheblunt 3y ago
  > Wonder why they never looked at WiFi/BT... They have https://www.extremetech.com/computing/142553-apple-acquires-ti-staff-moves-deeper-into-the-world-of-socs https://www.extremetech.com/computing/142553-apple-acquires-...

justsomehnguy 3y ago

> For... Reasons? "Hey, engineer, can we bundle our chipset with something to force the buyers to buy both?" "Well, maybe, we can use the power supply for some appli.." "Great, starting selling a forced bundle to a notebook vendors tomorrow." *Engineer hesitates for some seconds* "Please, be advised what these power chips are not..." *C-level glances at the engineer* "Did I asked you to how to do the business?" "Sorry. I would leave now." "Good." Don't forget, not only they a business conglomerate in which the top lost connection with the entire company decades ago, it's a company which has "never say no to a senior" in it's DNA.