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Amazon.com ( AMZN ) tapped Texas Instruments ( TXN ) to lead its “hockey-puck-sized” Echo Dot Alexa-infused speaker, and incorporated Apple ( AAPL ) suppliers Broadcom ( AVGO ) and NXP Semiconductors ( NXPI ) in its portable Tap stereo, iFixit teardowns show. But the teardowns did little to help chipmakers Thursday on Wall Street. Chip stocks were broadly down in afternoon trading on the stock market today , in conjunction with fractional dips for the major indexes. Texas Instruments won five chips — including a digital media processor — inside the Echo Dot , but that total was skimmed down from eight chips inside the larger Echo . Also, Samsung succeeded SanDisk ( SNDK ) as the flash memory supplier. Echo Dot also features a DRAM (dynamic random-access memory) chip from Micron Technology ( MU ), apparently replacing a Samsung RAM chip in the Echo. Qualcomm ( QCOM ) re-won the Bluetooth function from the Echo. The smaller Echo Dot earned a six out of a best-possible 10 in its repairability rating, dropping from seven in the earlier Echo iteration. Amazon’s Tap won a seven out of 10. It’s Amazon’s first Alexa-equipped portable speaker vs. the Echo Dot and Echo, according to iFixit. Maxim Integrated Products ( MXIM ) topped the Tap with two chips — an audio codec and a power management chip. Texas Instruments supplied an amplifier. Apple suppliers Broadcom and NXP won a chip apiece — WiFi/Bluetooth and an applications processor, respectively. The device is powered by a lithium-ion cell, such as those used in Tesla Motors ( TSLA ) vehicles, iFixit notes. It provides for nine hours of music playback, according to Amazon, vs. the iPhone 6S Plus, which has “a battery with a similar output for a radically different job.” Scalper1 News
Scalper1 News