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SoC Pricing | 503 comments | Create New Account
Comments belong to whoever posts them. Please notify us of inappropriate comments.
Low hardware price and M$ tax
Authored by: hardmath on Sunday, April 22 2012 @ 08:55 AM EDT
Since you contacted the Raspberry Pi people and asked about costs, I take it you
agree with Linus that achieving those low prices was interesting.

The trend to lower cost computing is clear, so much that the Microsoft
"tax" sticks out prominently in the marketplace. I look forward to
day when I can buy an unbundled computer from the big box retailers.

--hm


---
Do the arithmetic or be doomed to talk nonsense. -- John McCarthy (1927-2011)

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

An Interview with Linus Torvalds
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, April 22 2012 @ 09:48 AM EDT

Pretty sure those "Charity Discounts" are similar to the "OEM Discounts" the large customers get. Most of the OEMs would get upset if the foundries were providing parts to a potential competitor at less than the prices that an OEM receives. Substantial corporate pressure would be used to ensure everyone received similar pricing.

As such, the BOM on the Rasberry Pi should be similar to what a large OEM should be able to obtain. If you compare the Rasberry Pi to Digikey prices, then the discounts look huge. However, that is because of the "low volume markup."

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

SoC Pricing
Authored by: betajet on Sunday, April 22 2012 @ 11:02 AM EDT
I don't have any inside dope from RasPi, but according to everything I've read
at raspberrypi.org they don't get a bigger discount. It's just that (1) as a
charity they get the huge volume price for much smaller quantities, (2) they can
get the Broadcom SoC at all, normally impossible unless you have gigantic
quantities, and (3) they have direct access to Broadcom proprietary information
because some of them are Broadcom employees.

$5 for such a SoC is not an unreasonable price for huge volumes. It's the same
part that's in the latest Roku media computers which list for $80-$100 as
complete systems with profit. I can't imagine Roku making a profit if they had
to pay $20 for the SoC.

[SoC = System on Chip]

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

  • SoC Pricing - Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, April 22 2012 @ 07:46 PM EDT
    • SoC Pricing - Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, April 23 2012 @ 10:41 AM EDT
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