The average manufacturing cost of an Intel CPU die is around $40, and has been so for the last two years.
Market researchers In-Stat have issued a report on Intel's manufacturing strength, revealing the cost for Intel to produce a CPU die. What's more, Intel go it alone in the manufacturing process.
All of Intel's CPUs are made in Intel fabs, which, as we saw at IDF, are continually expanding. They keep pushing process technology smaller and smaller, while increasing wafer sizes resulting in higher yields. They've also had the fortune of being able to double cache sizes with die shrinks, resulting in yet more of a performance boost.
Jim McGregor, In-Stat analyst said that Intel's move to 90nm and 300mm wafers saved them as much as $1 billion in manufacturing costs. However, the In-Stat report also suggests that future transitions to yet smaller process technologies will prove more of a challenge. However, while other companies form partnerships to aid development and meet demand, it looks like Intel will continue to do it all by themselves, which could, in terms of manufacturing costs at least, keep them ahead of the game.
Of course, it seems AMD have been the technological leaders lately, but their manufacturing capacity is far less than that of Intel's, which is one of the biggest hurdles that the oppenent to Chipzilla needs to overcome.
