Qualcomm rumored to have troubles with yet another one of its SoCs

A week ago, we heard rumors about Qualcomm having issues with its upcoming top-of-the-crop 64-bit Snapdragon 810 – the SoC, which is supposed to be available to the silicone slinger's partners at the start of next year, so they could begin churning out their respective flagships. The reports claimed that Qualcomm is having serious issues with overheating, GPU drivers failing, and RAM controller mishaps, which would result in a manufacturing delay and therefore – a delay in 2015 flagships' production.

This sounds pretty apocalyptic, yet still a bit vague, so the truth may be neither here nor there. Qualcomm commented on those rumors a few days after, claiming that production is on schedule and that commercial devices will be "available in 1H 2015". This statement also caused some rumble, since having a 6-month release window hardly speaks of something being "on schedule". Still, we'll take Qualcomm's word for what it is right now.

Today, however, we see another report, claiming that the Snapdragon 615 is exhibiting issues of its own. This SoC is Qualcomm's first 64-bit, octa-core chip, which was originally announced way back in February, though, so far, we've seen very little of it out on the market. The report claims that the CPU is inhibited by some kind of “design issues”, which apparently cause smartphone OEMs to steer clear of it and go to competitor MediaTek and its MTK6752, which is also an octa-core, 64-bit, LTE-enabled SoC.

So, two rumors in a row, concerning Qualcomm's new, 64-bit CPUs. Could they be the doing of some shady fellows who wish to sway public opinion about the upcoming Snapdragon chipsets? Or could Qualcomm be having trouble taming the ARM-designed cores, which it chose to employ for its 64-bit SoCs, instead of the home-brewed Krait ones?

source: udn.com via G for Games

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