Hi Meathead; Regarding:
Take out the silicon and you still have copper, fiberglass,
caps, resistors, inductors, headers, connectors, plastic casing,
platters, heads, a tube, cables, sockets, switches etc.
Gwenapp is right, the silicon content is small. About $100 in
our cheap PC example. You can't deny that. For these things
to get much cheaper, their physical makeup would have to change..
i.e. more integration.
The above statement, intended to support the minimum
cost of building a PC, isn't true. The reason is that increased
integration eliminates the need for copper, fiberglass, caps,
resistors, inductors, headers, connectors, sockets, switches,
cables, etc.
Combine two ICs, into one IC, and you eliminate the
connections between them.
As far as the cost of building a complete 486 nowadays,
I'll have to look for a link, but I believe I can show you
that other than the monitor, it can be amazingly cheap.
-- Carl |
