Replies to post #4545 on Intel Corp (INTC)

[Andy Grave]

The Northwood is about 10% larger than the 970 but will have a much smaller variable
manufacturing cost than the 970 due to the latter being made in a significantly more
expensive process (SOI CMOS with one more interconnect layer) and manufactured in
much smaller volumes (Apple is roughly 3% of the PC market and dropping).

I never claimed it would cost less than P4 to make. I only use the approx early 2004 P4 price of $200 as a likely price range Apple would be willing to pay given similar performance in that time frame. You claim it will cost Apple over $400. I claim it will cost them considerably less. The development costs are insignificant since it is a Power 4 core. The SIMD extensions were already developed and needed only to be refined. Probably most of the development cost went for the high speed bus. As I said...even if the yield is low and the per wafer fab costs are high, no way this costs IBM more than $40 each to make.....so a $250 price to Apple for the top speed grade would be very profitable By the way, IBM always made very good profits selling processors to Apple.

Andy Grave