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Politics : Formerly About Applied Materials -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Jack Kunkle who wrote (30753)	5/31/1999 10:01:00 PM
From: shane forbes	Respond to of 70976

Jack: On Ford today vs. Model T 1927. I think it all depends. I always like to think of the end-use and what benefit I am getting from it. Then I'll use a %ge of my wages in 1927 and today (assuming I existed then) or some such personal benchmark to judge whether it is cheaper or more expensive today than yesteryear. This sort of thing is in the domain of economists and like them these arguments could go on and on and get nowhere. Much much simpler to compare a loaf of bread! Or a pound of wheat. A car today is not the same and the functionality is not the same and the usefulness to the end-user is not the same. As to SOCs time will tell. I think when they start incorporating RF functions the companies can still show higher ASPs and the consumers of the chips will still be getting a great deal. (They are already.) The companies have a right and the economics of it dictate it to attribute a cost of their exponentially increasing fixed cost charges to the cost per chip. It is also possible that the processes get so specialized that it won't be easy to duplicate. To wit ASPs can increase. BTW the SOC trend will mean a lot fewer chips overall and that can be a boon or a blessing depending on exactly where your market position is.