About a week ago, we had heard the rumors that Qualcomm was having some issues with its Snapdragon 810 chipset, so much so that it could be delayed. The reports claimed that there were major overheating issues with GPU drivers failing, along with RAM controller mishaps. However Qualcomm has since denied those rumors, instead stating that everything is on track for a release in 1H 2015.
That being said, it looks like rumors of the Snapdragon 810 isn’t the only thing Qualcomm might have to worry about. New reports have suggested that yet another Qualcomm Snapdragon chipset could be having issues of its own, and this time it comes in the form of the Snapdragon 615.
The chipset was originally announced back in February 2014 and is a 64-bit octa-core chipset from Qualcomm. The reports claim that there are some design issues which is causing its delay in the market, which at the same time is forcing OEMs to go with a different company like MediaTek so as to stay away from any potential issues the chipset might present.
We can’t say for certain that these rumors are true, but to have two such reports in a row? Well as the saying goes, if there’s smoke, there’s got to be fire, but until we hear from Qualcomm, do take it with a grain of salt for now.
Since the initial report, Qualcomm has reached out to Ubergizmo with this statement: “We won’t comment on rumor or speculation. The Qualcomm Snapdragon 615 processor has already launched with a number of leading OEMs and continues to build momentum. In fact, we anticipate multiple OEMs launching approximately 20 designs in the next two months.”
Ubergizmo co-founder Hubert Nguyen used to work for a semiconductor conductor company, and points out that any chip design is challenging, and that there are a number of things that needed to be tweaked on the road to production. If Qualcomm’s partners go to production in the next two months, it probably means problems were not significant enough to derail their products. In general, there are a lot of tests done by all the OEMs (phone makers) during the process to ensure that no “fatal blow” will happen in a product life cycle.