RadioBanter - View Single Post - sony 2010

October 20th 05, 09:06 AM

In article ,
wrote:
Building chips in mass quantitys doesn't cost much money per each
chip.Look at the chips in your computer.It isn't as if they would need
to design a completly new chip,in my opinion.All they would need to do
is start another run of chips.

Not possible. Chip design and manufacturing has changed greatly since the
early '80s. You would have to redesign the chips with modern materials
and manufacuring methods. The cost of doing this would be too high for
chips made in small quantities.

For example, wires were soldered to the chips. It is now illegal to
sell chips in most places with lead, e.g. solder, in them. New technqiues
have been developed, but that changes the capacitance and conductivity of
them which changes it's RF characteristics.

If you don't think so, ask on sci.electronics.repair about the availabilty
of old chips and the possibility of getting new ones made.

For example, if it were a simple chip and it cost $500,000 to make a real
working chip, as opposed to a first run "test chip", how many would you
have to sell in order to make money?

It would be cheaper to re-do it in a DSP chip.

However you did it, you still would have to spend several hundred thousand
dollars designing and programing the radio. By the time you are done
and have a working design ready for the street, with documentation,
etc, you will have spent close to $1m.

Assuming the actual unit costs $250 to manufacture, add $100 for development,
another $50 for packaging, advertisment and tech support and you have a
cost of $400 which translates to a street price of $800.

This is assuming 10,000 units made in the first production run before the
costs would be made back. With the current state of shortwave listening,
I'm not sure you could sell 10,000 units.

Geoff.

--
Geoffrey S. Mendelson, Jerusalem, Israel N3OWJ/4X1GM
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