Qualcomm wants to buy NXP

[jancumps]

That's what the news just said.

[chris_leyson]

i dream... of NDAs and 10k MOQ on logic gates

I can see that happening, Qualcom would probably drop or sell off the low level stuff. Maybe in the not to distant future we will buy it from China, who knows, but at least we still got Diodes Inc, Fairchild and ON Semi, for now anyway. 

[Euphyllia]

They want the automotive stuff. Smart/networked/driverless/whatever cars would be my guess. Especially with the graphics division they bought off AMD and what NVDA is doing.

[Kjelt]

Good match, little product portfolio overlapp.

[nctnico]

Just wondering what will happen with the SoCs from the Freescale portfolio.

[Jeroen3]

i dream... of NDAs and 10k MOQ on logic gates

I can see that happening, Qualcom would probably drop or sell off the low level stuff. Maybe in the not to distant future we will buy it from China, who knows, but at least we still got Diodes Inc, Fairchild and ON Semi, for now anyway. 

NXP's standard products are not involved I think. They're supposed to branch to Nexperia.

I knew it.

[JPortici]

aha! i deleted that post, as i was actually thinking about broadcom

this one scares me a bit actually

[Kjelt]

this one scares me a bit actually

why 

[dannyf]

the deal doesn't make much sense to me. not sure what qualcomm is thinking.

[Kjelt]

Both are very discreet about datasheet. BCM does not even release its RPi chip's datasheet.
Well, Qualcomm is not anywhere better than BCM in this aspect.

Their marketing strategy is totally different, you can not buy any of their chips at low quantities from distributors, only with them and if you do you will get the datasheet and an NDA.
So you should complain with the RPi manufacturers. If they intended to sell a product where the user should have access to the datasheet in order for instance to write their own peripheral drivers etc, then they should have used a different chip and manufacturer. It is your choice to buy a product where you do not have access to full specifications and datasheet.

[tszaboo]

Both are very discreet about datasheet. BCM does not even release its RPi chip's datasheet.
Well, Qualcomm is not anywhere better than BCM in this aspect.

Their marketing strategy is totally different, you can not buy any of their chips at low quantities from distributors, only with them and if you do you will get the datasheet and an NDA.
So you should complain with the RPi manufacturers. If they intended to sell a product where the user should have access to the datasheet in order for instance to write their own peripheral drivers etc, then they should have used a different chip and manufacturer. It is your choice to buy a product where you do not have access to full specifications and datasheet.

Yes. If you have products in the ~thousands quantities, you will not bother with either Qualcomm or Broadcom or Dialog or Renesas. There is just too much initial corporate bullshit to even evaluate if they have any product that you can use. I would not be happy about this acquisition.
I'm happy, when someone with great support buys someone who does not have that. Like Microchip buying SMSC. But this Freescale bought by NXP bought by Qualcomm then that bought by, IDK Samsung... This is a bad.

[tszaboo]

Do they have a choice? Tell me if there is any other western chip mfg. that offers quad-core 64-bit CPU SoC for $15? Even Chinese AllWinner can hardly give you that price.

Intel.

[Kjelt]

So you should complain with the RPi manufacturers. If they intended to sell a product where the user should have access to the datasheet in order for instance to write their own peripheral drivers etc, then they should have used a different chip and manufacturer. It is your choice to buy a product where you do not have access to full specifications and datasheet.

Do they have a choice? Tell me if there is any other western chip mfg. that offers quad-core 64-bit CPU SoC for $15? Even Chinese AllWinner can hardly give you that price.

Beaglebone uses TI I could find a datasheet (limited) online.

[chicken]

Doesn't look like it's a done deal yet.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-09-30/nxp-said-to-hire-qatalyst-amid-qualcomm-acquisition-interest

Short version: NXP is shopping itself around. Qualcomm has money burning a hole into their pocket, but hasn't decided on what to buy yet.

[NiHaoMike]

Do they have a choice? Tell me if there is any other western chip mfg. that offers quad-core 64-bit CPU SoC for $15? Even Chinese AllWinner can hardly give you that price.

I bought two quad core smartphones for $10 each a few months ago. They're about on par with the Pi 3 in CPU performance and ready to use out of the box - in my case connecting to my Wifi and installing the mining software. Economy of scale is your friend when finding hardware to build clusters with. Granted, the durability left much to be desired - one became more and more unstable and then failed completely after just a few months of mining. (I also had two older dual core ZTEs break down in a similar manner.)

I recently bought 3 Moto Es for $20 each to replace the three ZTEs that broke down. The altcoin I'm mining with them is in its prime stage so I consider it well worth paying a little more to rebuild my cluster, with break even at 2-3 weeks. (And with luck, they'll hopefully last longer than the ZTEs.)

So yes, with some patience, the hobbyist can buy really cheap embedded ARM platforms. It's not like the average hobbyist would be able to get much done with a bare BGA chip anyways.

[dannyf]

I have a few Moto Es and love those phones: the battery life is amazing and the size and weight is just perfect.

[NiHaoMike]

I have a few Moto Es and love those phones: the battery life is amazing and the size and weight is just perfect.

It's too bad that while unlocking the bootloader is easy, unlocking the SIM isn't. I bought three with the intention of using one as a phone, but I couldn't find a SIM unlock that would let it recognize my T Mobile SIM. (It could actually be a hardware limitation with the version I got.) I just gave up and added it to the cluster with the other two.

[dannyf]

but I couldn't find a SIM unlock that would let it recognize my T Mobile SIM.

The most valuable Moto E is the Verizon version where it is actually a global phone (GSM + CDMA, and the right LTE bands). They can be easily unlocked assuming that you didn't boot them up first with a verizon SIM.

The ATT ones are fairly easy to unlock sim: ATT will do it for you.

[David Hess]

So much for the discrete complementary RF pairs from NXP.  Nature abhors a vacuum and PNP RF transistors.

[amyk]

Getting tech docs from MTK is even harder. At least BCM might talk with you, MTK will not response unless you are an established phone company with hundreds K MOQ per year.

You don't approach MTK directly. You go to the various Chinese forums and experience the power of Gongkai. I found the MT6575 and MT6589 datasheets pretty easily.

On the other hand, good luck getting someone from BCM or Qualcomm to leak anything...

[benSTmax]

I think probably the automotive related parts were the ones that made most of the appeal for Qualcomm in NXP.
I guess the deal will get through and in the end Qualcomm will have to make a choice about the product lines. The ones deserving some focus would be:

• The former-Freescale iMX series
• The MCU line from NXP and former-Freescale

I guess 1. will meet its end. Qualcomm has better and more advanced products in this area, thanks to its involvement in mobile. I guess the engineers working on this product line would need to start packing their things and find new jobs.

Tackling 2. would require Qualcomm to become an open company and at least for these product lines, offer documentation, app notes, example codes and so on or do the opposite.
Putting stupid NDAs for general purpose MCUs is a certain receipt for suicide.
I guess in the end they might sell the MCU business to whoever wants it.

My 2 cents ...

[tszaboo]

The ones deserving some focus would be:

+ Wireless. But I have to agree, if they would sell the MCU products to anyone, who grabs it, probably that would be fine. I guess it would make the most sense to sell it to someone, who is weak in the microcontroller market. Like Analog devices. Or ON. Or Fairchild, but I doubt they have the money.
Anyway, my head is starting to hurt with these constant acquisitions.

[benSTmax]

I guess Qualcomm's wireless experience far outperforms anything from NXP (coming from former-Freescale). We have to keep in mind they also got Atheros sometime ago and they had good wireless expertise too.
Grim-looking situation for the wireless engineers within NXP.

My head hurts too. About a month ago I completed a design using a Kinetis MCU but this acquisition information now raises a lot of questions about parts availability in the future ...
 

[jitter]

i dream... of NDAs and 10k MOQ on logic gates

I can see that happening, Qualcom would probably drop or sell off the low level stuff. Maybe in the not to distant future we will buy it from China, who knows, but at least we still got Diodes Inc, Fairchild and ON Semi, for now anyway. 

NXP's standard products are not involved I think. They're supposed to branch to Nexperia.

I knew it.

Ah jeezz.. hope they didn't pay someone too much money for inventing the name "Nexperia"... But they probably did...

[David Hess]

My head hurts too. About a month ago I completed a design using a Kinetis MCU but this acquisition information now raises a lot of questions about parts availability in the future ...
 

Microchip buying Atmel killed any possibly of our using AVR-8 microcontrollers.  I am currently trying to decide of I need to design out everything made by Linear Technology.