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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: combjelly who wrote (544759)	1/18/2010 8:39:41 PM
From: i-node	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1574485

They weren't low volume projects. Minuteman, if nothing else, was a pretty large run, some 800 missiles total. They did manage to get the chips costs down from about $1k a chip to $25 a chip, which made it feasible for commercial use. So you are just making this up. 800 missiles a "large run"? Now you are talking about LSI and later. That wasn't for another decade. I think you're confused on your dates. The first calculator I saw was one I built from a Heathkit, a single-chip affair: oldcalculatormuseum.com This would have been 1971, only 9 years -- and that was for an early LSI chip. So, I'm not the one making things up. As to the cost, the initial drops in cost are not related to sheer production but more akin to the aircraft learning curve, which generates exponential declines in cost over the first few iterations. Then, volume production costs take hold and the massive savings start to occur. The important point is that whether these chips are produced government projects or commercial projects is totally immaterial -- those dollars will be expended. The goal is commercial production at the other end. Producing ICs for 800 missiles is not something any chip manufacturer would be excited about today. I'm not sure what point you're trying to argue. If it is that government dollars were necessary to "fuel" the IC industry that doesn't meet the laugh test. Manufacturers were a hell of a lot more interested in getting ICs into Zenith TV sets than they would ever have been about the Minuteman I.