Thomas Womack wrote:
> In article <c00e21$[email protected]>,
> Austin Lesea <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>>Steve,
>>
>>Quite frankly, I am amazed at how folks think about this. You have
>>obviously never thought about that computer on your desk, and how it can
>>be sold for $499! Or even your car, just go price the parts
>>individually some time.
>
>
> I've often priced the parts for building a computer, and they add up
> to something within 15% of the price of buying the computer from Dell.
> Moreover, the price for Intel CPUs in the shop is the same to within
> about 15% as the price stated for thousand-unit quantities in their
> press releases.
>
> I believe FPGAs are comparably complicated to Intel CPUs, and I don't
> think there's as much as an order of magnitude difference in production
> quantity.
>
> Is the market volatility for FPGAs that much greater?

An Intel cpu doesn't cost 4.70$ on whatever quantity.
And the margin on intel cpus is sufficient on all levels.

>
>
>>If you have any optimism about your business at all, it would be
>>best to enter into a agreement and let the disti (and us) know where
>>you think you are going, and how many you will need.
>
>
> I can understand that attitude for people buying ten thousand chips;
> but where do you expect people to get the experience with FPGAs that
> they have with microprocessors, when state-of-the-art FPGAs are two
> orders of magnitude more expensive and an order of magnitude less
> convenient to acquire?

The cost is at the FPGA representative, distributing the stuff.
They get the questions asked.

>
>
>>Because they are a fair representation of the costs associated with
>>small numbers of parts ordered through distribution to allow for a
>>profitable business by the distis and reps.
>
>
> But, again, why doesn't the same argument apply to CPUs, for which
> there are half a dozen distributors in most towns, fairly happily
> distributing the things for a couple of percent profit margin.

You say it. There are half a dozend shop selling cpus per town.
You go there, get a cpu, no questions asked, no questions answered.
They wouldn't be able to answer anyway.


There may be one FPGA representaive per state. And you ask a lot of
questions. Not because you're more stupid than a cpu buyer, but
because placing a cpu and applying an FPGA are completely different.

Rene