[Coco] TRS-80 Color Computer: Wikipedia Article

[jdaggett at gate.net]

Frank

Many factors go into the pricing of a chip. Foremost of all is the profit margin that a specific 
company targets. Motorola has been traditionally high on piece parts like chips in the early 
80's. This is partly due to the way they handled distribution of parts to vendors. Small 
quantities to repair shops and stores were higher in cost than to OEMs. Ordering parts out of 
the National Parts Dept was often met with a 5X price tag over the actuall manufacturing( 
Direct Material and Direct Labor) cost. 

Back in the early 80's a 4 inch bipolar wafer cost about $1200 to make irregardless if one or 
1000 chips were on that wafer. In chip processing, area rules the cost of chips. In the early 
80's the technology could at best do 1.2 micron spacing, today we are pushing 40 
nanometers (0.04 micron). A 30X size reduction in less than 30yrs. Also wafers have gone 
from 4 inch to 16 inch wafers.  

Packaging costs have dropped from about $0.25 per pin for ceramic packages to about a 
penny a pin today for ball grid array packages. The DIP packages are injected molded plastic 
process and back then cost about ten cents per pin. Now it is about five cents a pin. 

I can remember back in 98 doing cost reduction on some pagers, I faced an issue where an 
IC used cost about $2.50 to make and about $1.20 more for the package. The result was to 
move the part out of its ceramic package into a less expensive leadless package. 

james

On 26 Nov 2009 at 21:52, Frank Swygert wrote:

> And the best evidence that the 6809 was more expensive yet -- a 1981 
> price list of two similar boards, one with the 6502 priced at $239, and 
> one with a 6809 priced at $359, a $120 difference. I do understand that 
> support chip price also affects the cost of the board -- the Motorola 
> support chips would be more costly than those needed for a 6502 also.
> 
> http://74.125.47.132/search?q=cache:USL6syU5bt8J:www.6502.org/documents/datasheets/synertek/synertek_domestic_price_list_1981.pdf+6809+processor+price&cd=24&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=firefox-a
> 
> -- 
> Frank Swygert
> Publisher, "American Motors Cars" 
> Magazine (AMC)
> For all AMC enthusiasts
> http://farna.home.att.net/AMC.html
> (free download available!)
> 
> 
> --