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Rumor: Broadcom Phasing Out Wi-Fi Chip Business (digitimes.com)
jones_supa writes: According to sources in Taiwan at the heart of the electronics industry, Broadcom is looking to phase out its Wi-Fi chip business in a move to streamline its workforce and product offerings following its acquisition by Avago Technologies. In general, the Wi-Fi chip business yields relatively low gross margins compared to other product lines due to fierce price competition in the market for mass-market applications (such as notebooks, tablets, TVs and smartphones). Companies such as MediaTek, Realtek Semiconductor and RDA Microelectronics have already received a pull-in of short lead-time orders from Broadcom's customers in the Wi-Fi sector. Following its merger with Avago, Broadcom is expected to allocate more RD resources to solutions in the fiber-optic and server sectors. In addition, Broadcom has almost halved the workforce stationed at its office in Taipei.
Exactly. I am surprised the rejoicing was not louder. Many good routers start using other SoC packages and "save BOM cost" by switching to Broadcom WiFi. Then suddenly folks are getting the devices and are unable to load working Open Source firmware.
I will not miss Broadcom at all.
That is not true, some guy rewrote everything from scratch and Broadcom hired him. Broadcom only released the specs.
Basically broadcom didn't have the ability to release the open source code before (who knows why but it is probably not good). Aswell they didn't have the trust or ability (we don't know which) to hire someone to rewrite them.
Some guy took his own time, started rewriting the thing and showed that it was possible... then they bought him up and we don't really know what that means because he could be missing parts.
Here's a talk by the guy - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EXDeketJNdk