Rumor has it that the Raleigh server office for Qualcomm will be closed and all employees will be laid off by the end of summer 2018. Has anyone heard any updates on this? I know the San Diego team saw a lot of cuts last week but not sure how it will affect those working in Raleigh. Not sure what to expect...
28 replies (most recent on top)
@aeww Stop letting the cat out of the bag please! Its easy to tease these folks :c
Sure are a lot of Russian trolls using this site.
Centriq is just a really bad product, not sure how else to say it and it is because of RTP folks. RTP people are nice yeah, but staff/principals are incopetent to be honest. RTP could never hire smart comp arch designers because they are all in Austin, and Raleigh is not attractive enough to them. RTP is full of ex- IBM people that are stuck with old ideas that they brought over from PowerPC days. For example, they somehow decided to do 128B cache lines (as opposed to 64B), which is the stupidest idea ever. They knew that was good for PowerPC and without modeling it they thought it would be good for AArch64. They finally realized it s---ed big time for memory bandwidth so then they spend a year doing a lame, pointless dram memory compression, adding latency and wasting resources. Anyway, centriq just s---s and it is because RTP ppl. Amazon is making a server based on ARM off-shelf parts (Ares/CMN600) and it will destroy firetail from what I’m hearing.... Even Cavium’s ThunderX2 (made initially by broadcom) is a much better product from the looks of it.
RTP messed up on the 32 to 64-bit transition. 5 years ago the CMO called the 64-bit Apple CPU a gimmick and get sent to nowhere for a while before he emerged a few years later as head of the server team.
RTP was working on the next 32-bit CPU at the time but Q management panicked and had to have a 64-bit core so they got an ARM core off the shelf for the 810. The RTP 64 bit CPU was understaffed at the time because they thought it wouldn't be needed for years.
RTP designed a decent 64-bit core for the 820 but it wasn't the fastest.
For the 835 Q went back to a licensed ARM core and it worked fine. Same for 845.
There were a bunch of people from that CPU team that "retired" but in reality they were pushed out. But before that they managed to convince Q management to do the server chip. Here we are 6-7 years later and no volume customers. 1st gen chip was pushed to an "evaluation platform" and was already 2 years late. So what did you expect?
I’ve always hear really good things about the quality of engineers in Raleigh. No doubt some will receive offers to relocate to SD, if that hasn’t happened already.
Hey Rayleigh, get the Q out of CentriQ and you'll be better off for it.
Totally agree, well said, and I am from SD.
Always liked working with RTP folks; great teamwork, honesty and straightforward. Sincere too.
Total opposite to so much of SD.
Conf call with RTP - I looked forward to it; confident well informed folks who know their stuff and got right with the work ahead. Reasoned, thoughtful and modest.
Conf calls with SD - lots of politics, nonsense BS talking and ill informed garbage presentations. Time wasting byzantine excuses and illogical explanations with arrogance.
Spoiler alert.
There will be no buyer.
You were designed out because your CPU was bad.
Your ‘cost’ argument makes no sense as this line of thinking could be applied to be custom Adreno team, but yet they’re still designed into mobile SOCs.
Also, shouldn’t your team’s existence be justified based on ROI? Does that mean that your team was beat out by a handful of ARM guys in terms of cost?
You have no idea how to compete. The open market will be the judge of how much value RTP has. I’m guessing around 0.
Well said! You capture my sentiments perfectly.
@T3ncHsx-1wic`s tone is representative of the toxic culture at the Q outside of RTP. The RTP site has always been a friendly, positive working environment. We are a closely knit team with many years of history working well together. We treat one another with respect. We know all the things we have acomplished here and at other companies before this as most of us have been working together for decades.
We were removed from mobile a few years back simply to save money when margins were thinning due to pricing pressure from competition. We are not cheap, but we are effective trail blazers who have moved to new nodes, fabs and architectures simultaneously and with ease. It was a blessing to be cut off from other QC teams with all their negativity, inneficient flows, constant staus collection and management bloat.
QDT has been knocking it out of the park with power, performance and schedule. We have the most promising ARM server chips and eager customers. The only thing we are lacking is management with long term vision. Upper management is fighting many battles on many fronts right now, so they are retreating and cost cutting wherever they can.
If we are sold for QC's short term gain, we will be moving on to greener pastures.
Again RTP people are delusional.
If the team was so great, they would still be making processors for QCT like the adreno team.
Instead they are getting kicked out of Q.
World class my Azz.
Anyways...good luck finding a job amongst the actually good processor teams in the world.
Ok a-- whoopers: 820 aka 8996 was the last msm with custom cores from Raleigh
https://www.qualcomm.com/products/snapdragon/processors/820
BDC guys screwed 810 aka 8994. SS dropped Q and in 2015 decision was made to use stock cores from ARM for mobile. Hence the switch. Nothing to do with RTP team.
Like someone said RTP catapulted Q from flip phones to smartphones. Respect that and ponder the business decisions.
Don't be vile or imbecile. You must have joined somewhat later in the game so you don't know the history. But you sound ignorant and I can actually sense who you may be based on the tone and pitch.
Last poster is just feeling un-lucky that he left qcom for an even sh--tier job. He trolls layoff to stroke what is left of his ego.
Don’t let the door hit your a-- on the way out RTP slacker.
You guys svck and are totally delusional.
Why is there no RTP CPU in the 835/845?
Oh that’s right - you guys blew it on 820!
Good riddance!
To T3ncHsx-fpc
What an uninformed idiot!
I think your brain is f---d up.
You know who was behind the stock ARM cores in mobile?? The BDC guys. They royally screwed up 8994.
Then came 8996 the last ever MSM with custom cores from Raleigh and it was kick
a--.
All the MSMs from RTP were true gems.
I don't know if you're really from Q, but if you are, then let me tell you, this arrogance you have because of the compensation that Q pays you, is due in large part because of the RTP team.
Get out of here dumbo.
Nobody matches power vs performance. Centriq blows epyc and xeon with significantly low power against comparable perf. The decision to sell off QDT is a head scratcher.
@T3ncHsx-1tit: QC already sold Centriq to China, for better or worse. Google “Guizhou Huaxintong Semi-Conductor Technology Co Ltd”, aka HXT. It is a joint venture using server cores designed in Raleigh for the Chinese data center market. Get a clue before you speak.
Too bad you won't sell Centriq to China. Trump is shortsighted. :)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-05-07/qualcomm-is-said-to-plan-exit-from-server-chips-amid-cost-cuts
AMD’s Ryzen kicked RTP in the balls.
Here you have a highly threaded CPU that is much better than Centriq and on par with pricing. Good luck competing with x86 folks that have been living and breathing servers for the past 30 years.
RTP will be canned or sold off for parts within the year.
Does anyone have actual evidence of the layoff happening though? I am a concerned family member asking.
If it wasnt for rtp, we would still be making msms for flip phones running brew
RTP really f-ed up.
They were not able to deliver a CPU competitive with ARM’s off the shelf processors, so they were kicked out of our mobile SOCs. Now, because of those clowns, we have lost a key differentiating factor as MTK and others can use the same ARM CPUs.
In order to save their jobs, some genius convinced management that they could compete with Intel in servers. This is laughable on its face. Now there is ZERO overlap between their R&D burn and snapdragon. These clowns that couldn’t compete with ARM now think they can compete with Intel? Whoever green-lit this should have been fired a long time ago.
Predictably, this is not going to end well.
Positive press doesn’t equal sustained ROI.
If you want to compete with Intel on their home turf, you will need very deep pockets.
Q is out of firepower.
Even IF Q could deliver a better server (highly doubtful), Intel has the margins to drop their prices and price Q out of the market.
A few customers here and there that are only testing the product can not justify a 1B per year burn rate.
By the way, that positive press is bogus PR anyways. If there really were some amazing Q server, SM would be shouting it from the rooftops letting all the analysts know. Instead - listen to how he speaks about it.
Can someone explain to me...
Its all about the shareholders. Look at the stock price; against a backdrop of a hugely strong market with recent years showing great run ups in stocks across the board, Q is at a near 5 year low.
Stock holders mad, SM and GD make crazy promises about stock buy backs and 'savings'.
why is it a target for cost cutting?
Because there is plenty to cut. Its a big fat target.
Seems like a goldmine of opportunity
Yes, indeed. But its also a goldmine ready to be closed down to make the promised savings.
This is a company fighting so many battles on so many fronts. Its in multi-year retreat. Why is the stock so down ? Easy, the wider market is highly doubtful of Qs future. Uncertainty is not rewarded.
@T3ncHsx-fvy 1 billion $ saving .... it is all for the 1 billion SM promised.
Can someone explain to me... it seems like there was a lot of positive press around the server group and their product... why is it a target for cost cutting? Seems like a goldmine of opportunity at the diversification of products/customers Q is looking for...
May 14th could be the last day