Qualcomm – one of Arm’s biggest customers – starts a RISC-V joint venture

Re:Qualcomm – one of Arm’s biggest customers – starts a RISC... by nomilk on Sunday August 06, 2023 @09:04AM (#37021478)

I have no idea if it's a lot or not, but for reference, Comma's initial (trial) order was for 10k chips.

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Re:Qualcomm – one of Arm’s biggest customers – starts a RISC... by pclmulqdq on Sunday August 06, 2023 @09:44AM (#37021849)

That's very small for an automotive product, particularly when you don't have a much bigger follow-up order on your timeline. Around million units is the normal volume, and it's where companies like Qualcomm will start to talk to you.

Many companies are a lot more friendly to small customers, though.

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Re:Qualcomm – one of Arm’s biggest customers – starts a RISC... by FirmwareBurner on Sunday August 06, 2023 @11:24AM (#37022945)

>That's very small for an automotive product

Also automotive customers tend to stick with their long term partners. It's why Renesas, Infineon and NXP(former Freescale) own the automotive MCU market.

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Re:Qualcomm – one of Arm’s biggest customers – starts a RISC... by szundi on Sunday August 06, 2023 @02:28PM (#37025059)

That’s nothing in automotive

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Re:Qualcomm – one of Arm’s biggest customers – starts a RISC... by crote on Monday August 07, 2023 @12:56PM (#37037170)

That's pretty much an overgrown hobbyist project to them.

Chips are usually sold in reels of 1k or 3k. For quantities like 10k chip vendors will just redirect you to a distributor like Mouser or Digikey - who will be able to ship an order of 150k to you next-business-day without any issues.

The problems start when the chips you want aren't redistributed. You're a rounding error to the manufacturer. Why spend the time and effort assisting a startup with a one-off 10k order when the next email is from a large car manufacturer placing a guaranteed 15M order?

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