

Decapping two chips to compare hardware differences - bmease
http://jelmertiete.com/2015/06/30/Difference-between-CC2630-and-CC2650/

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mukyu
If you like this sort of thing you'll love Chris Tarnovsky's old blog [0] and
talks like this [1] DEFCON talk about ST19WP18 chips where he compares
different versions

[0]
[https://web.archive.org/web/20111111114352/http://www.flylog...](https://web.archive.org/web/20111111114352/http://www.flylogic.net/blog/)?
it seems to redirect to a generic ioactive blog which is a real shame

[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kh238PUqz3I](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kh238PUqz3I)

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ratfacemcgee
really interesting article. if the authors research is correct, and TI is
crippling cheaper hardware with firmware, its both evil and genius (why pay
for design and tooling and manufacture of 2 different chips, when you can make
1 and cripple half of them?)

~~~
lgg
I am sure the author is correct the dies are the same, but it is not
particularly evil or genius, it is just making you pay for costs associated
with software they included. Effectively they are charging different amount
for different software packages, which is not shocking since each of the
stacks included the appropriate patent and license fees for the technologies,
and those are different for each.

That is not at all shocking, at this part of the value pipeline the
manufacturer passes prices on to the purchaser pretty directly. In fact, a far
larger difference in price than the type of software they load is the type of
packaging them come in. The author is comparing prices for chips sent to him
on cut tape. He quotes:

CC2630F128RGZT: $11.87 CC2650F128RGZT: $15.03

But if you buy them on reels (which are the exact same part):

CC2630F128RGZR: $7.55 CC2650F128RGZR: $9.77

IOW there is a $2-$3 variation based on what software they give you and
patents/sublicenses they have have to pay for. There is $4-$5 difference based
on what kind of boxes they ship them in*

* Yes, the reels only come in larger quantities, but since these are raw chips and not modules you are going to need to go through FCC certification for any device you build with them which is going to end up being a minimum of $5000 if you ship them off to a test lab in china, and closer to $10000-$15000 if you do it in the US or Europe. Nobody is going to pay that sort of NRE for a product they are going to make less than a few thousand of, so for a product like this you are not going to buy it in low quantity packaging unless you are prototyping before you are ready to through regulatory certification.

