

NVIDIA GTX 280 3-Way SLI  (Source: NVIDIA)

The GPUs in the series include the GTX 280 and GTX 260










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RE: The high price makes sense...
By MrBungle123 on 6/17/2008 12:23:23 PM , Rating: 2
Here are some example calculations:
1. We'll assume that yeilds are 100% for sake of argument. I know this isn't right, but I don't know what they actually are.
2. We'll assume that we're using 300mm wafers.
3. We'll assume that the wafer manufacturing costs are equal to the retail price of the product. (ie it costs $650 to produce the 1 die of a GT280 and the cost of all other materials is 0) I know this isn't true, but it's to illustrate a point.

My dad works at a 200mm TSMC fab... according to him the 200mm wafers cost $1600 each. Assuming that price level..

A = pi*r^2
31400mm^2 = 3.14 *(100^2)

So there is 31400 square mm of space on a 200 mm wafer. the GT 200 chip is 576mm^2 so that means that they can get 54 chips out of a 200mm wafer, however because of a combination of yields and the fact that the chips are square and the wafers ar round that number should be mulitplied by .80 so that gives us 43 chips per 200mm wafer.

$1600 / 43 = $37.20 per chip.

By the time its all said and done there is maybe $100 worth of parts in those cards so don't feel too sorry for nVidia.

By Das Capitolin on 6/17/2008 9:10:29 PM , Rating: 2
I suppose you should account for the cost of research and development, testing, failures, marketing, shipping, logistics, and last but not least employees and their heathcare. At the end of the day, I doubt it will be a $37 chip.

Now, try doing the math on an Intel or AMD CPU. Better yet, a quad-core or extreme edition. Intel is making HUGE bank.


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