To: akidron who wrote (17392 ) 3/9/1998 2:00:00 AM From: Clarksterh Read Replies (1) | Respond to
Aki - Well, I agree that it is looking like the STB isn't going to be as much of a computer as I had originally hoped (although 200 MIPS is nothing to sneeze at). However, silicon is silicon and 4.5B is a lot of money in the consumer electronics arena, especially given that General Instruments is only one of three major players (Scientific Atlanta and Divicom being the others). It sounds like the total expected to be spent on STB's over the next 3 years is on the order of 10 to 15 Billion. And about 1/2 of that cost is silicon (a good generalization for consumer electronics is 1/2 of the manufacturer's cost is silicon, the rest is manufacturing.) That equates to 2 Billion dollars of silicon every year. That is still a lot.bad for multiple quarters, however this is unlikely since I saw an article saying that in January unit sales were up very substantially from the previous year. (Note that if the price dropped sufficiently it is possible that dollars are down even though units are up, but the impression I got from the article I read was that dollar sales were up in addition to units. Also note, lessening of demand has happened in the past - but typically two or three quarters before Intel introduces a really new processor.)really stuffed those channels) of a quarter or two.
