most of the really talented designers have long left the Q and went to Apple. And what we got now working on the crapdragon are a bunch of mediocre folks from overseas...
Discuss.
10 replies (most recent on top)
Apple needs RF engineers because the RF inside phones becomes more complex over time with number of LTE bands and carriers and MIMO and Wifi/BT/NFC/GPS etc, and making all this work on their form factor. That is the same for all OEM who do not get "turnkey" reference designs. Apple, like other, want to pick their own mix of Front End components, due to performance and pricing and feature set. The amount of testing also increases, and the production line calibration and testing needs upgrading with every new phone model with more RF antennas.
I know folks working on that at Aapl, they are not necessarily the best and brightest, quite the contrary in some cases. Aapl success has little to do with 'mobile' part of the phone, it is a commodity sourced from INF, QCOM, INTC and maybe even MTK or SS in future. Who knows.
Peace out. Good luck, hope you all get through the layoff ok
What--no RED?
Rf front end yes. Modem chip. No. There's no need to do that. The costs will be so low its not advantageous to do so at this point. Especially if if Intel gives them a sweat deal, which they will.
they must be building an RF front end of some sort. Perhaps to pair with the Intel chip if that rumor is true?
Anonymous112696
Apple is inst building modems. Never had thst planned.They are working with intel and Samsung on the modem. The hires have always been for app processor and for connectivity integration.
Compare Apple's stock price and profit to QC. They got there by hiring the best people and retaining them like QC used to. I bet they have their first aid kits refilled also.
I miss asprin too...I ran in to guy you refill medical box and he mentioned that QREF asked them to stop re-filling aspirin to save cost....
I love how arrogant people are just assuming that because someone gets hired by Apple that means they're something special. We've seen a few of them and believe me they're nothing special. They're not missed one iota. The ones that are left are 10 times more talented. Oh, and by the way, where is this really great modem they were hired to build to replace ours? There is none. They still can't compete. For years and years they've been taking the bottom of the barrel leeches who call themselves engineers but are not and they still got nothing. That's not my definition of the word talent.
Q management, starting with PJ and continuing with SM, has only been interested in funneling as much money to the board as possible. They have issued a ridiculous number of RSU shares to themselves. The repurchases have only served to reduce dilution, but essentially 100% of the money that has gone into repurchasing shares has gone to granting RSUs to execs: http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevedenning/2015/06/09/how-share-buybacks-hurt-shareholders-and-society/ To compensate for overpaying the executives, they have also insulted the vast majority of employees with pathetic RSU grants, in addition to the lower than market pay that the Q was already famous for.
Ask ANYONE who came from Atheros about Qualcomm RSU grants and you'll hear the same story. They cut the waiter.com meals that Atheros employees had (could order off of the full menu of 2-3 restaurants every day up to $10) and replaced them with meals from the SCL cafeteria, where you have only two choices per day, one meat and one vegetarian. It's the same penny wise pound foolish thinking that got this company into this position in the first place. Do you think Google provides free meals because it's a charity? No, they provide free meals for both lunch and dinner because they realize that the amount of extra work they get out of employees exceeds the cost of the meals! But the idiots running the Q only look at expenses associated with employees instead of benefits/value associated with said expenses. That's why they took the free aspirin out of the medicine cabinets that we'd had since the Atheros days and replaced them with aspirin dispensers that dispense aspirin at 25 cents a pop. They took out the free snack cabinets that Atheros used to always keep stocked and replaced them with vending machines. I've NEVER bought anything from those dispensers or machines though. Nowadays, if I get a headache or get hungry, I simply go home early. I figure if they can't spend 25 cents on aspirin or 50 cents on a granola bar for me, then they don't value my time, and so I won't value theirs either.
Hiring mediocre talent is just another nail in the coffin, and reflects the same penny wise, pound foolish thinking.
Nothing to discus. Your comment about "mediocre (talent) from overseas" pretty much sums it up. Most of the people with serious skills are looking for a way out--if they haven't left already. About the only plus is that if Qualcomm flames out, they may serve as a reminder to the industry as a whole that when it comes to innovative and resourceful engineering, you get what you pay for.