Just got the news, someone posted it elsewhere. My nightmare is that they will kill the power architecture line and will go all ARM, may be this is what this is all about - leaving power only behind closed doors for military etc. purposes, the rest of the world being left with access just to lower grade CPU technology. Dimiter ------------------------------------------------------ Dimiter Popoff, TGI http://www.tgi-sci.com ------------------------------------------------------ http://www.flickr.com/photos/didi_tgi/
NXP buying Freescale - thoughts?
Started by ●March 2, 2015
Reply by ●March 2, 20152015-03-02
Op Mon, 02 Mar 2015 08:50:26 +0100 schreef Dimiter_Popoff <dp@tgi-sci.com>:> Just got the news, someone posted it elsewhere. > > My nightmare is that they will kill the power architecture line > and will go all ARM, may be this is what this is all about - leaving > power only behind closed doors for military etc. purposes, the rest > of the world being left with access just to lower grade CPU > technology.For automotive and other safety-critical applications, it is quite important that there are at least two Power vendors. It's a big market. What has NXP to gain from killing Power? -- (Remove the obvious prefix to reply privately.) Gemaakt met Opera's e-mailprogramma: http://www.opera.com/mail/
Reply by ●March 2, 20152015-03-02
On 02.3.2015 г. 11:29, Boudewijn Dijkstra wrote:> Op Mon, 02 Mar 2015 08:50:26 +0100 schreef Dimiter_Popoff <dp@tgi-sci.com>: >> Just got the news, someone posted it elsewhere. >> >> My nightmare is that they will kill the power architecture line >> and will go all ARM, may be this is what this is all about - leaving >> power only behind closed doors for military etc. purposes, the rest >> of the world being left with access just to lower grade CPU >> technology. > > For automotive and other safety-critical applications, it is quite > important that there are at least two Power vendors. It's a big > market. What has NXP to gain from killing Power? > >I will pray you are right. It could have been worse of course, I don't think NXP have a history of "bye to kill" acts. They are not Intel, after all. At least let us hope so. And let us hope the Freescale longevity list promises will be kept after the deal goes ahead. Dimiter ------------------------------------------------------ Dimiter Popoff, TGI http://www.tgi-sci.com ------------------------------------------------------ http://www.flickr.com/photos/didi_tgi/
Reply by ●March 2, 20152015-03-02
Op Mon, 02 Mar 2015 14:01:24 +0100 schreef Dimiter_Popoff <dp@tgi-sci.com>:> On 02.3.2015 г. 11:29, Boudewijn Dijkstra wrote: >> Op Mon, 02 Mar 2015 08:50:26 +0100 schreef Dimiter_Popoff >> <dp@tgi-sci.com>: >>> Just got the news, someone posted it elsewhere. >>> >>> My nightmare is that they will kill the power architecture line >>> and will go all ARM, may be this is what this is all about - leaving >>> power only behind closed doors for military etc. purposes, the rest >>> of the world being left with access just to lower grade CPU >>> technology. >> >> For automotive and other safety-critical applications, it is quite >> important that there are at least two Power vendors. It's a big >> market. What has NXP to gain from killing Power? > > I will pray you are right. It could have been worse of course, I don't > think NXP have a history of "bye to kill" acts. They are not Intel, > after all.Indeed.> At least let us hope so. And let us hope the Freescale longevity > list promises will be kept after the deal goes ahead.Yes, that is another concern. I wonder whether Freescale salesmen have been extra generous with longevity promises in the past months... -- (Remove the obvious prefix to reply privately.) Gemaakt met Opera's e-mailprogramma: http://www.opera.com/mail/
Reply by ●March 2, 20152015-03-02
Hi Dimiter, On 3/2/2015 12:50 AM, Dimiter_Popoff wrote:> Just got the news, someone posted it elsewhere. > > My nightmare is that they will kill the power architecture line > and will go all ARM, may be this is what this is all about - leaving > power only behind closed doors for military etc. purposes, the rest > of the world being left with access just to lower grade CPU > technology.It's happened with other CPUs, before, so not unheard of (a processor hanging around in a MIL version, only) First thing to look at is the customer base: how many customers and what sort of component volume. Then, the *types* of customers (lots of small customers can easily be shrugged off and diverted to another product offering). They will also look at what that product line *costs* their other lines. No one wants to compete with themselves! And, whether the PPC is unique enough to warrant carrying forward (because you have to also think about *new* offerings in a particular product line -- not just cranking out the same old devices) If they're *just* buying the technology (instead of the *fab*, as well), I'd be a bit more concerned: how does the PPC's "process" fit with their (NXP's) existing process? And, there's no way to know if someone has a hard-on for/against the product line deep inside the organization. You might want to carefully parse their annual statement to stockholders to see what sort of language they use to describe the acquisition in justifying it to those "owners". You may see individual offerings go away as they try to "focus" on whatever they consider "core"... Note, however, that there are *lots* of very powerful offerings besides the PPC family devices. It's almost scary to see how *much* you can buy for how *little*! Hopefully you won't have to test the "portability" of your VPA (?) ! :-/ --don BTW, I sent you some photos a few weeks back (didi@)
Reply by ●March 2, 20152015-03-02
On 3/2/2015 4:29 AM, Boudewijn Dijkstra wrote:> Op Mon, 02 Mar 2015 08:50:26 +0100 schreef Dimiter_Popoff <dp@tgi-sci.com>: >> Just got the news, someone posted it elsewhere. >> >> My nightmare is that they will kill the power architecture line >> and will go all ARM, may be this is what this is all about - leaving >> power only behind closed doors for military etc. purposes, the rest >> of the world being left with access just to lower grade CPU >> technology. > > For automotive and other safety-critical applications, it is quite > important that there are at least two Power vendors. It's a big > market. What has NXP to gain from killing Power?Exactly! There are times when a company is bought and products are retired, but they are products that don't have a large market or have *very* low profit margin. -- Rick
Reply by ●March 3, 20152015-03-03
On 03.3.2015 г. 04:51, rickman wrote:> On 3/2/2015 4:29 AM, Boudewijn Dijkstra wrote: >> Op Mon, 02 Mar 2015 08:50:26 +0100 schreef Dimiter_Popoff >> <dp@tgi-sci.com>: >>> Just got the news, someone posted it elsewhere. >>> >>> My nightmare is that they will kill the power architecture line >>> and will go all ARM, may be this is what this is all about - leaving >>> power only behind closed doors for military etc. purposes, the rest >>> of the world being left with access just to lower grade CPU >>> technology. >> >> For automotive and other safety-critical applications, it is quite >> important that there are at least two Power vendors. It's a big >> market. What has NXP to gain from killing Power? > > Exactly! There are times when a company is bought and products are > retired, but they are products that don't have a large market or have > *very* low profit margin. >In an ideal world this would be so of course. Yet buying a competitor just to shut them down is far from being unheard of, e.g. Intel have done it I am sure more than once (Chips and Tech comes to my mind now). In this case we don't know anything yet, as Don suggested. Either NXP want to shut down the power line and replace it with ARM - which is by far an inferior architecture - or NXP want to have access/control to the power architecture. We don't know how the new cores - the 5500 and the 6500 64-bit power cores and the new 32-bit one, e500mc IIRC, are doing. I have not seen any errata sheets for either - bad sign; but I have seen rev. B products announced - good sign. Time will tell; I don't know what I will do if they leave me with no power architecture CPU-s, not that I could not port things to ARM but I will hate doing it, like having to use a horse cart after having used a car for decades. May be I'll become a taxi driver or a milkman, I wish I knew what I'd do. Dimiter ------------------------------------------------------ Dimiter Popoff, TGI http://www.tgi-sci.com ------------------------------------------------------ http://www.flickr.com/photos/didi_tgi/
Reply by ●March 3, 20152015-03-03
Op Tue, 03 Mar 2015 12:21:59 +0100 schreef Dimiter_Popoff <dp@tgi-sci.com>:> On 03.3.2015 г. 04:51, rickman wrote: >> On 3/2/2015 4:29 AM, Boudewijn Dijkstra wrote: >>> Op Mon, 02 Mar 2015 08:50:26 +0100 schreef Dimiter_Popoff >>> <dp@tgi-sci.com>: >>>> Just got the news, someone posted it elsewhere. >>>> >>>> My nightmare is that they will kill the power architecture line >>>> and will go all ARM, may be this is what this is all about - leaving >>>> power only behind closed doors for military etc. purposes, the rest >>>> of the world being left with access just to lower grade CPU >>>> technology. >>> >>> For automotive and other safety-critical applications, it is quite >>> important that there are at least two Power vendors. It's a big >>> market. What has NXP to gain from killing Power? >> >> Exactly! There are times when a company is bought and products are >> retired, but they are products that don't have a large market or have >> *very* low profit margin. >> > > In an ideal world this would be so of course. Yet buying a competitor > just to shut them down is far from being unheard of, e.g. Intel have > done it I am sure more than once (Chips and Tech comes to my mind now).They might shut down the competing parts, like some of the Kinetis line. Automotive and safety MCU's, and communications processors (QorIQ) are new (and IMHO significantly big) markets for NXP.> In this case we don't know anything yet, as Don suggested. Either > NXP want to shut down the power line and replace it with ARM - which > is by far an inferior architecture - or NXP want to have access/control > to the power architecture.I don't think NXP/Freescale is able to shut down Power. They might stop offering it, but if there is enough demand, there should be other power.org members. Or worse, power.org attracts a competitor (like STM) as a new member next to IBM. -- (Remove the obvious prefix to reply privately.) Gemaakt met Opera's e-mailprogramma: http://www.opera.com/mail/
Reply by ●March 3, 20152015-03-03
On 03.3.2015 г. 15:27, Boudewijn Dijkstra wrote:> Op Tue, 03 Mar 2015 12:21:59 +0100 schreef Dimiter_Popoff <dp@tgi-sci.com>: >> ......> (QorIQ) are new (and IMHO significantly big) markets for NXP. > >> In this case we don't know anything yet, as Don suggested. Either >> NXP want to shut down the power line and replace it with ARM - which >> is by far an inferior architecture - or NXP want to have access/control >> to the power architecture. > > I don't think NXP/Freescale is able to shut down Power. They might stop > offering it, but if there is enough demand, there should be other > power.org members. Or worse, power.org attracts a competitor (like STM) > as a new member next to IBM. >Well yes, the thing is there is no other maker of power processors available on the market for non-politburo members (that is, things we can buy and work with without being a top 100 company). Let us just hope NXP want to develop this market, if this is the case they will likely leave things open (how else can they possibly be successful) as long as it is up to them. Dimiter ------------------------------------------------------ Dimiter Popoff, TGI http://www.tgi-sci.com ------------------------------------------------------ http://www.flickr.com/photos/didi_tgi/
Reply by ●March 3, 20152015-03-03
On 03/03/15 14:50, Dimiter_Popoff wrote:> On 03.3.2015 г. 15:27, Boudewijn Dijkstra wrote: >> Op Tue, 03 Mar 2015 12:21:59 +0100 schreef Dimiter_Popoff >> <dp@tgi-sci.com>: >> >> ...... >> (QorIQ) are new (and IMHO significantly big) markets for NXP. >> >>> In this case we don't know anything yet, as Don suggested. Either >>> NXP want to shut down the power line and replace it with ARM - which >>> is by far an inferior architecture - or NXP want to have access/control >>> to the power architecture. >> >> I don't think NXP/Freescale is able to shut down Power. They might stop >> offering it, but if there is enough demand, there should be other >> power.org members. Or worse, power.org attracts a competitor (like STM) >> as a new member next to IBM. >> > > Well yes, the thing is there is no other maker of power processors > available on the market for non-politburo members (that is, things > we can buy and work with without being a top 100 company). > Let us just hope NXP want to develop this market, if this is the case > they will likely leave things open (how else can they possibly be > successful) as long as it is up to them. > > Dimiter >Can't you buy PPC devices from ST? <http://www.st.com/web/en/catalog/sense_power/FM2098/SC963?sc=SPC56> I have never tried their devices (we only use a few PPC chips, and get them all from Freescale), but it doesn't look like they are only for big customers.
