[Arm-netbook] Report: ARM aims to take 20% of notebook PC market

[Tsvetan Usunov, OLIMEX LTD]

>Those figures are all of questionable relevance. According to this:
>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Intel_Atom_microprocessors#.22Pineview.22_.2845_nm.29_3
>Atom N450 was $63 at release time (2009), likely a lot less now. Call it
>$40.
>
>So if you are getting the A10 instead for $10, that's a total of $30
>saving on the total cost of the $250-300 netbook. Then again, you can
>get an average (by avreage I mean the same spec as any competing
>products) Cortex-A8 netbook for €156, IIRC.

A10 is $12 for orders from 10K up to 100K, but the $20-25 for Cortex A8 at 
1GHz is correct for the other vendors like Freescale, TI etc

>Either way, the point I am maling is that the CPU itself isn't all that
>significant a fraction of the retail price of the machine.

depend on what you have around the processor, A10 is very highly integrated 
the VGA/HDMI/Composite Video is all inside, which saves you space on the 
board and $$$ for external chips.
Also power supply is very simple, generally to make A10 computer you need 
AXP209+A10+memory and some connectors, to make same with other processor you 
put lot of chips around it which rise the BOM

>somebody looking for a new netbook will make the decision based on $250 vs 
>$300.

$30 savings in BOM = $90 savings in retail price ;)

the $65 Mele probably come out of the factory to the wholesalers at $40-$45

>Annoyingly, the CPU is also not the biggest power drain on the battery
>(although it is a substantial fraction).

inteligently designed processor could save lot of battery drain

Tsvetan