Austin Lesea <[email protected]> wrote in message news:<bvu1ml$[email protected]>...
> Steve,
>
> As for older parts, they do not get any less expensive to make. So the
> price drops until the yields are stable, and then stops dropping.
> Happens to everyone. At some point, they get more expensive to make as
> their quantities go down, and the fab line equipment gets more expensive
> to run (obsolete processes).


So why are the prices *identical* to the cent, at different suppliers,
in different countries, 4 years apart?


> That is also why we then go to a new and less expensive technology as
> soon as we can! If we can make an FPGA for less, our business increases
> as the number of applications that can afford FPGAs increases.
>
> As for why things cost less in quantity, that is Econ 101 (for non majors).


I must have missed Econ 101, so could you explain why there's such an
enormous difference in price between the following?:

From:

http://www.ebnonline.com/showArticle...89&_loopback=1

XC2S400E & XC2S600E for $27 and $45, respectively, in 250,000-unit
quantities, end 2002, and from:

http://www.plis.ru/price.html?ID=124

the cheapest you can get them for is $55.45 and $170.00 respectively,
for <100 units.

When we did accounts at uni we were taught that the larger the batch
size the cheaper the product is because you spread the manufacturing
setup charges across more units, but Xilinx aren't going to do a batch
size of 100 for an order or 100 units. Distribution costs can't be
much either because it only costs ~$9 to get a book sent to teh UK
from amazon.com. The cost of wages for sales people is a fixed cost
anyway, and the cost of the silicon itself is a variable cost which is
independent of the batch size if you take the manufacturing setup
costs separately.

So why are your small quantity prices so inflated?


--
Steve