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From: carroll@cs.uiuc.edu (Alan M. Carroll)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware
Subject: Re: 486SX - Intel now telling lies
Message-ID: <1991May31.173053.18549@m.cs.uiuc.edu>
Date: 31 May 91 17:30:53 GMT
References: <1991May29.191233.18863@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu> <1991May29.212337.7684@thyme.jpl.nasa.gov> <1991May29.230433.10095@maverick.ksu.ksu.edu> <1991May30.164751.16585@thyme.jpl.nasa.gov>
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In article <1991May30.164751.16585@thyme.jpl.nasa.gov>, kaleb@thyme.jpl.nasa.gov (Kaleb Keithley) writes:
> Whether the FPU is good or not, Intel is saying that the chip can be made,
> and sold at a profit for $250.  It costs *them* the same to produce, per unit,
> whether the FPU passes QC or not.

Yes, it costs the same per _produced_ chip, but not the same per
_working_ chip. Since people are only interested in buying chips that
work, Intel has to pay for the costs of all produced chips by selling
the working chips. By blowing off the FPU, Intel can increase the
ratio of working chips to produced chips, which means that the cost of
the working chips (the chips that are sold) to be lower with the same
profit per produced chip. Keep in mind that for chips of the nature of
the 486, the yield rate (working / produced) is low, probably in the
10% range, so it's believable that dropping the FPU could double the
yield.

-- 
Alan M. Carroll          <-- Another casualty of applied metaphysics
Epoch Development Team   
Urbana Il.               "I hate shopping with the reality-impaired" - Susan