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| The beginning of the end? |
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| NiHaoMike:
--- Quote from: ejeffrey on July 16, 2023, 02:49:56 pm ---That's not how security audits work. It's (mostly) not about whether you can attack it with the wifi chip disabled, it's about how can you assure that the wifi chip is disabled reliably and universally. How do you make sure that it isn't enabled deliberately or accidentally for instance during a software upgrade, or malware. --- End quote --- A zero ohm resistor disconnecting power to the Wifi chip cannot be bypassed by software. |
| Smokey:
--- Quote from: NiHaoMike on July 16, 2023, 11:03:26 pm --- --- Quote from: ejeffrey on July 16, 2023, 02:49:56 pm ---That's not how security audits work. It's (mostly) not about whether you can attack it with the wifi chip disabled, it's about how can you assure that the wifi chip is disabled reliably and universally. How do you make sure that it isn't enabled deliberately or accidentally for instance during a software upgrade, or malware. --- End quote --- A zero ohm resistor disconnecting power to the Wifi chip cannot be bypassed by software. --- End quote --- I ran into this once. We had an ethernet port on a product but one customer could not have any connection to "a network". They were fine with an RS232 serial port, but not the ethernet. Luckily it was optional and they were happy with the solution of not installing the RJ45 connector on those boards. |
| gnuarm:
--- Quote from: Smokey on July 16, 2023, 09:00:25 pm --- --- Quote from: gnuarm on July 16, 2023, 12:47:31 am ---...What are you complaining about, exactly? --- End quote --- I'm not complaining about anything. --- End quote --- Actually, you are complaining about multiple product variations. I just don't see your point supported in a useful way. --- Quote ---I'm making a point about having a base product and manufacturing a lot of slight variants and the problems that path can bring with it. --- End quote --- You have stated this, but it clearly does not apply when the product volume is sufficiently high enough. The production of rPi devices is definitely large enough that it causes no problem. --- Quote ---You can say they "make it work" but they had parts shortages, so in a real way they didn't make it work. --- End quote --- Sorry, that makes no sense. If they made one product, it would be a full up product with every option populated. That would be the most subject to shortages of any model and they would not be able to ship diddly. --- Quote ---Each one of those variants needs different parts. --- End quote --- Poorly stated. Each variation required a subset of the parts used on the full up version of the board. --- Quote ---That's more parts to stock (or be out of stock of). --- End quote --- No, it's the same set of parts they would stock for the full up board, but some boards can still be made when they are out of some parts. --- Quote ---They needed to stock 4 different RAM chips, and 3 different MMC chips. --- End quote --- Maybe I'm not up to speed on this. I thought we were talking about functions that were either on the board, or left off, like wifi. --- Quote ---Just the RAM and MMC makes 12 build variants with 7 different components right there. Anyone that has ever done purchasing knows buying and strategically stocking 2 critical parts is significantly easier than buying and stocking 7 critical parts. --- End quote --- Do they sell all these versions? Even if they do, I fail to see the problem. If you can't buy the parts, you can't build that variation. You can still build the variation that you can buy the parts for. Where is the problem? --- Quote ---Lets say the "No WIFI" and "No MMC" options are required for all the reasons you guys gave above. I don't have a problem with any of that. Based on the fact that people would still pay outrageous crazy inflated prices for these boards during the shortages means they could have easily had 1 option for RAM and 1 option for MMC (just using the biggest sizes for everything) and in a real way would have actually lowered their purchasing, production, and support costs by not having to deal with all those variants and critical components. --- End quote --- "Deal with"??? I like that you turn them into something "difficult" by simply labeling them as "critical" components. --- Quote ---I would love to put some actual numbers to this stuff, but CM4 prices are all over the place right now and it looks like the RAM and MMC they used are still largely out of stock at distribution so their prices are all jacked up too. --- End quote --- Ok |
| Smokey:
Maybe you didn't realize I'm talking about CM4 here. https://datasheets.raspberrypi.com/cm4/cm4-datasheet.pdf Check out page 31, Appendix B for all the model numbers of all the variants. There are 1GB, 2GB, 4GB, and 8GB RAM and 8GB, 16GB, and 32GB MMC. They make all combinations as variants of products (along with WIFI/No-WIFI causing even more variants). I'm not sure what you didn't understand about each variant needing different parts. I mean I guess they could sell the 1GB RAM version with the 8GB Chip installed but I don't think that's what you were talking about. I said those parts are "critical" because they are presumably single sourced (at least I didn't see anyone mention alternate parts anywhere), so if you can't get that specific part you can't make that variant of your product (or any other variant that also uses that part). The way you handle that is get some visibility on sales and then do strategic ordering and stocking. Blanket orders and extra stock on hand and that sort of thing. The fewer critical components that you need to do that with, the better. I don't thing this is that controversial. I didn't realize that appendix had the original price list on it. That's a strange place to put a price list. Ok. I didn't realize they were charging $95 for the fully specced out WIFI, 8GB Ram, 32GB MMC version (compared to $40 for the WIFI, 1GB RAM, 8GB MMC). If there is really that much extra cost in it, and that $95 isn't just the $40 base price and $55 in profit, I take back the idea that they should only make the highest spec one. Anyone know what the actual component costs are for those parts in quantity? Google didn't know about any costed BOMs. Would be interesting to see profit margin per model. |
| gnuarm:
l'm talking about the fact that you are making much ado about nothing. If they make one version of the board and a part required is unavailable, so they can't ship, they ship NOTHING! Having options allows them to ship something as long as one or more of the components are available. I think I know which I prefer. In fact, I spend a lot of my design time locating multiple sources to prevent not being able to ship product. I don't know what trauma you have personally experienced, but your objections make no sense to me. |
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