Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD)

[chipguy]

10,000 ASICs costing $50 each (my WAG) amounts to $500,000. That's not including
R&D, but then again it's pointless to try and break out how much of the total R&D was
dedicated to this ASIC alone because this supercomputer is one big custom job anyway.

Holy sh!t are you kidding me? Have you ever priced ASICs for ~10k lifetime purchase? LSI
Logic told one of my previous employers to get lost when we RFQ'd for an ASIC with higher
minimum volume than this. This ASIC ain't no 845 chipset that sells in the 10's of millions
of units per quarter.

Your figure barely covers mask cost for a 130 nm ASIC. I doubt IBM would charge less than
$500 and probably a heck of lot more. I know of a telecom firm that did a big router ASIC
through IBM Micro, over 1000 I/O, and that thing cost them over $2000 each, although I
don't know what IP that included.