This is old - it's from the NC BYTE article from the previous post. Just wanted to include it because it includes the price of the chip:
LSI Logic custom-designed Sony's ASIC in only eight months. LSI has a new fabrication process that can
squeeze 49 million transistors on a chip. (By comparison, a Pentium Pro CPU has 5.5 million transistors.) LSI
recently announced a superchip that's intended for low-cost NCs. Called the Internet on a Chip, it can include a
Mips R4x00 CPU core of the vendor's choice, a graphics processor, a sound processor, a memory controller,
and circuitry for a V.34 modem--all for $50.
Alternatively, LSI can replace the V.34 modem with an ISDN interface for about the same price. And the CPU
cores aren't slouches. For midrange NCs, LSI suggests a 40-MHz R4010 that executes 100 MIPS; for
higher-end requirements, LSI offers an R4020 core that delivers 200 MIPS.
To make an NC, says LSI, all the vendor needs to add is 4 MB of DRAM ($110 at current wholesale prices), an
analog chip for the V.34 modem ($2 to $5), and perhaps some ROM for the OS kernel and Java engine (the
price varies according to how much, but mask ROM is inexpensive).
"There has been a lot of negative reaction in the press because nobody has been able to show a bill of materials
that would make a sub-$500 box possible," says John Daane, who is vice president and general manager of LSI's
Communications Products Division. "We designed the Internet on a Chip to prove it could be done at this price
point."
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BTW notice 4 Mg DRAM at $101! MU could only hope for times such as those - long gone by (the article was in the March 1996 issue).
Also bet the $50 price for the LSI chip would be around $15-$25 now these days with a lot more oomph included (assuming they are still making it).
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Finally also in the March issue of BYTE there is an article about Information Appliances - "consumer devices that perform only a few targeted tasks and are controlled by ... "
Aren't ASICs just what the doctor would order for "performing only a few targeted tasks"?
O yes they are! Almost seems to define the word ASIC - few targeted tasks...
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