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HyperionX · Apr 25, 2007

http://www.sony.net/SonyInfo/News/Press/200704/07-037E/index.html

Code:

Blue-violet laser diode for BD recorder
"SLD3234VF" (output 170mW, &#966;5.6mm)      Apr, 2007  4,500 Yen 
"SLD3234VFI" (output 170mW, &#966;3.8mm)                5,000 Yen

Blue-violet laser diode for BD player
"SLD3131VF" (output 20mW, &#966;5.6mm)       Jun, 2007  900 Yen 
"SLD3131VFI" (output 20mW, &#966;3.8mm)                 1,000 Yen

Blue-violet laser diode for BD recorder
"SLD3235VF" (output 240mW, &#966;5.6mm)      Nov, 2007  4,500 Yen 
"SLD3235VFI" (output 240mW, &#966;3.8mm)                5,000 Yen

Since only the player version is needed for the PS3, looks like PS3 production costs are going to drop significantly in June. 900 Yen is about $7.59.

Zombie James · Apr 25, 2007

How much are they now?

HyperionX · Apr 25, 2007

_leech_ said:
How much are they now?

A ****load. Like ~$100 or so.

Mojovonio · Apr 25, 2007

oh thank christ.

399$!!!! COME ON!

theBishop · Apr 25, 2007

_leech_ said:
How much are they now?

In iSuppi's teardown, they list the drive as $125. That includes the entire assembly, but diode was probably about 85% of that.

EDIT:

http://www.isuppli.com/news/default.asp?id=6919

Zombie James · Apr 25, 2007

So from $100 -> $7.59 in less than 2 months from now?

Yoboman · Apr 25, 2007

When are they going to 65nm? And they also removed/are removing the PS2 parts

A price drop may actually be feasible on top of being necessary now

Mojovonio · Apr 25, 2007

_leech_ said:
So from $100 -> $7.59 in less than 2 months from now?

Its crazy, but I beleive it.

Link316 · Apr 25, 2007

_leech_ said:
So from $100 -> $7.59 in less than 2 months from now?

economies of scale

TheRagnCajun · Apr 25, 2007

Thats interesting

so there are potentially $100 savings in th edrive. That coupled with the 65nm chip, sony may be able to drop the price $100 and still see profit.

garrickk · Apr 25, 2007

HyperionX said:
A ****load. Like ~$100 or so.

Not even close. The high costs associated with the iSupply numbers from last summer were based on industry availability and was still less than $80, and in no way reflected the actual costs of production. Besides, prices don't scale immediately from high to low; it's gradual.

This summer, there was only one fab producing the wafers necessary. Now there are 5 online. Production has ramped up steadily and yields have improved as well. There are frequent small articles in EE Times and other industry sources that report on mild progress, which is continuous.

CAPCOWNED · Apr 25, 2007

$200 pricedrop this year please so I can buy a PS3.

Zombie James · Apr 25, 2007

TheRagnCajun said:
Thats interesting

so there are potentially $100 savings in th edrive. That coupled with the 65nm chip, sony may be able to drop the price $100 and still see profit.

Add the removal of the Emotion Engine, simpler cooling, plus the lowered manufacturing costs all these changes bring and the savings really start adding up.

Mrbob · Apr 25, 2007

It'll help drop the cost of the whole drive, but that is just the laser we are talking about. Which is still a significant drop since it is going from about 50 bucks to 8 bucks to produce.

HyperionX · Apr 25, 2007

garrickk said:
Not even close. The high costs associated with the iSupply numbers from last summer were based on industry availability and was still less than $80, and in no way reflected the actual costs of production. Besides, prices don't scale immediately from high to low; it's gradual.

This summer, there was only one fab producing the wafers necessary. Now there are 5 online. Production has ramped up steadily and yields have improved as well. There are frequent small articles in EE Times and other industry sources that report on mild progress, which is continuous.

Maybe. Sony may already be seeing savings now since they make them internally. They certainly weren't doing that at launch though.

theBishop · Apr 25, 2007

Yoboman said:
When are they going to 65nm? And they also removed/are removing the PS2 parts

A price drop may actually be feasible on top of being necessary now

65nm should be before the end of the year.

i didn't think a $100 price cut would be possible by the end of the year, but if they really have the Blu-Ray assembly down to < $50, that changes my estimation a lot.

It also does a lot to validate Sony's decision to go with blu-ray in the first place. 50+GB games this gen

PiccoloCube · Apr 25, 2007

Mojovonio said:
oh thank christ.

399$!!!! COME ON!

too bad $299 and $199 will attack it when it happens.

sugaki · Apr 25, 2007

With the 65nm chip I wonder if we'll see a slightly smaller PS3... well probably not but can always wish.

$400 PS3 seems closer than I thought.

CAPCOWNED · Apr 25, 2007

PiccoloCube said:
too bad $299 and $199 will attack it when it happens.

Most people aren't waiting for those, though.

rage1973 · Apr 25, 2007

Come on Sony lead the industry to a price cut. It doesn't seem like Microsoft is willing to lead the charge here so it will have to be done by Sony.

watership · Apr 25, 2007

The PS3 dropping in price just a year after it was released would be seeing by Sony investors as "IDIOTIC". They just spent hundreds of millions developing the ps3, if they drop the price, it means things at Sony are in a bad way.

tjhooker · Apr 25, 2007

I've said it before but I'll say it again:

$399 PS3 + GTA IV November 2007.

Mojovonio · Apr 25, 2007

how hard is Sony for a profit now? Will we see an immediate drcrease in pirce because of this?

theBishop · Apr 25, 2007

TheRagnCajun said:
Thats interesting

so there are potentially $100 savings in th edrive. That coupled with the 65nm chip, sony may be able to drop the price $100 and still see profit.

Well, remember that the diode isn't the only part. it is the most expensive part because its the main thing that's different from existing DVD drives.

But remember, that Sony went with a really exotic drive assembly. Not only is it slot-loading, its also frigging silent. even with the diode under $10, the whole thing is still probably > $30.

tjhooker · Apr 25, 2007

Mojovonio said:
how hard is Sony for a profit now?

Not hard at all.

PS2, Bravia, Spiderman 3, phones etc. all bringing in massive profits.

LJ11 · Apr 25, 2007

watership said:
The PS3 dropping in price just a year after it was released would be seeing by Sony investors as "IDIOTIC". They just spent hundreds of millions developing the ps3, if they drop the price, it means things at Sony are in a bad way.

And having consoles sit on store shelves collecting dust because of a $600 price tag won't seem idiotic or a waste of money to Sony investors.

Yoboman · Apr 25, 2007

watership said:
The PS3 dropping in price just a year after it was released would be seeing by Sony investors as "IDIOTIC". They just spent hundreds of millions developing the ps3, if they drop the price, it means things at Sony are in a bad way.

It means they're not ignoring their current situation. They'd be seen as IDIOTIC to continue acting like the situation is A-OK at $600

MightyHedgehog · Apr 25, 2007

A $200 drop just isn't going to happen this year...it's just not. Even if we take these numbers at face value, Sony's not going to lose an opportunity to make back what they've lost so far on the PS3. A $100 drop is far, far more likely.

Valkyr Junkie · Apr 25, 2007

Supposedly 65nm Cell production has already begun for use in the PS3. A price drop of $100 by the end of the year is definitely in the cards, but if it could drop even more than that then it would definitely bring in a lot more consumers. Of course if that happens then people will say "omg 25% price drop in a year = sony d00med." Hopefully Sony will do good by the early adopters and at least offer them some PSN dollars or vouchers. As a Day 1 buyer, a big price drop wouldn't upset me at all, but it would probably upset some.

PiccoloCube · Apr 25, 2007

watership said:
The PS3 dropping in price just a year after it was released would be seeing by Sony investors as "IDIOTIC". They just spent hundreds of millions developing the ps3, if they drop the price, it means things at Sony are in a bad way.

they're stuck in catch-22 now. no price drop = they die, price drop = they die

garrickk · Apr 25, 2007

theBishop said:
In iSuppi's teardown, they list the drive as $125. That includes the entire assembly, but diode was probably about 85% of that.

But, again and again, this cost of the diode was mostlyas high as it was because AVAILABILITY was crap, not because of production costs. The opportunity cost to Sony putting it in a PS3 was high because the diode they produced could be sold and put into another company's unit, and that manufacturer would have paid $80-100 for that diode. It didn't cost anywhere NEAR that amount to make. That was the inter-industry OEM cost.

iSupply has to account for market costs, not production cost. There is no way these diodes cost more than $30 to make last summer. Anything higher is crazy and you know nothing about semiconductors. Sure, they are currently using expensive epitaxially grown wafers (that are relatively small). Sure, yields were crap. Still, not that expensive.

Sony, of course, has to recoup (or not) their research investment in the technology, and that has to be accounted for somewhere. But, the actual per-unit costs in the teardown above from iSupply was no where need actual costs to build each individual unit - for the diode and many of the IC devices.

I actually wouldn't be surprised if the per-unit cost of building a blue-wavelength diode today is only 1/2 to 1/3 of what it was this summer.

laserbeam · Apr 25, 2007

Is there information to back up these claims? The diode itself wasn't a 100+ dollar part.. it was just a hard to make component since it was new and limited factory production ability.

All thats happened is the diode is mass production doesn't alter drive prices that massive

terrene · Apr 25, 2007

watership said:
The PS3 dropping in price just a year after it was released would be seeing by Sony investors as "IDIOTIC". They just spent hundreds of millions developing the ps3, if they drop the price, it means things at Sony are in a bad way.

What do you mean "if they drop the price?" Do you think investors don't already believe the PS3 launch has gone terribly awry?

Zombie James · Apr 25, 2007

PiccoloCube said:
they're stuck in catch-22 now. no price drop = they die, price drop = they die

Raistlin · Apr 25, 2007

tjhooker said:
I've said it before but I'll say it again:

$399 PS3 + GTA IV November 2007.

I'll eat a sock :lol

$200 price cut + pack-in?

Raistlin · Apr 25, 2007

garrickk said:
But, again and again, this cost of the diode was mostlyas high as it was because AVAILABILITY was crap, not because of production costs.

They were one in the same in this case.

The availability was crap because the failure rate was so high. The production costs of the failed units are folded into the costs of the ones that work.

First Children · Apr 25, 2007

_leech_ said:
So from $100 -> $7.59 in less than 2 months from now?

7$ is probably only one component of the laser, seems too strange otherwise.

Doom_Bringer · Apr 25, 2007

I can't make new threads so I will just post this here: Sony gamers day is on May 14

Some IGN editor or informant posted this

I just heard that a Sony Gamer's Day is being held on May 14th, most-likely to replace their regular May E3 press conference that many developers plan for way in advance.

What do you think we'll see, and do you think we'll see anything new?

LAMBO · Apr 25, 2007

tjhooker said:
I've said it before but I'll say it again:

$399 PS3 + GTA IV November 2007.

Maybe warhawk. I think that's why there's so much confusion on how warhawk is going to be distributed, sony for some reason, doesn't want to say it's gonna be free, packed in with new systems and available to download for everyone else.

PiccoloCube · Apr 25, 2007

Doom_Bringer said:
I just heard that a Sony Gamer's Day is being held on May 14th, most-likely to replace their regular May E3 press conference that many developers plan for way in advance.

What do you think we'll see, and do you think we'll see anything new?

Click to expand...

a new weak point for Massive damage in the evolution of the giant enemy crab?

garrickk · Apr 25, 2007

Onix said:
They were one in the same in this case.

The availability was crap because the failure rate was so high. The production costs of the failed units are folded into the costs of the ones that work.

I disagree.

1. If the yields can only improve by 30-40%, your only going to save that much by improving your process.

2. There have been no breakthroughs making the epitaxially grown GaN on a crystalline substrate wafers, but there are more people making them so that should reduce buying/production costs a bit. Not at much as you might think. A company has reported a breakthrough producing blue-wavelength diodes on epitaxially grown GaN with a silicon substrate, but I've not read that these are being mass produced yet (new tech and all).

3. Availability wasn't just crap because of low yields; wafer availability was significant.

Bascially, per-unit production costs could not have plummeted - yet. High prices initially reported were mostly based on market demand for the devices. The vast majority of the cost reductions being reported recently is not production improvements, but availability improvements.

The availability improvements are from a gradual ramp up in facilities, gradual ramp up in yields, coupled with lower than expected demand. Per-unit production costs have not fallen that dramatically.

Yoboman · Apr 25, 2007

PiccoloCube said:
a new weak point for Massive damage in the evolution of the giant enemy crab?

You won't last long here with this attitude, just so you know.

Rancid Mildew · Apr 25, 2007

Awesome. I want a blue-violet laser pointer.

hauton · Apr 25, 2007

Jesus that's a huge drop.

I'm predicting Fall 07 price drop.

Karma Kramer · Apr 25, 2007

Danm E3 would be arriving very shortly... if it wasn't dead.

It seems like it was only yesterday when Sony announced the 599 US DOLLARS.

open_mouth_ · Apr 25, 2007

Their first price drop will go to $499 at the least. don't be surprised to see $549 first...

Raistlin · Apr 25, 2007

garrickk said:
I disagree.

1. If the yields can only improve by 30-40%, your only going to save that much by improving your process.

2. There have been no breakthroughs making the epitaxially grown GaN on a crystalline substrate wafers, but there are more people making them so that should reduce buying/production costs a bit. Not at much as you might think. A company has reported a breakthrough producing blue-wavelength diodes on epitaxially grown GaN with a silicon substrate, but I've not read that these are being mass produced yet (new tech and all).

3. Availability wasn't just crap because of low yields; wafer availability was significant.

Bascially, per-unit production costs could not have plummeted - yet. High prices initially reported were mostly based on market demand for the devices. The vast majority of the cost reductions being reported recently is not production improvements, but availability improvements.

The availability improvements are from a gradual ramp up in facilities, gradual ramp up in yields, coupled with lower than expected demand. Per-unit production costs have not fallen that dramatically.

Do you have any info on the yield for the units Sony is talking about?

I recall reading initial diode yields were in the 10% - 20% range. If they are at 50% now, that would be a 250% - 500% increase.

SRG01 · Apr 25, 2007

Oooh oh! A SemiC related thread.

I'm still wondering why the fabs are still sticking to GaN to make blue laser diodes. Seriously, they've gotten doped CVD diamond to emit at UV/blue spectrum ages ago and it's not that hard to make. And it's native bandgap is already in the UV range.

They've even gotten it grown epitaxially over sapphire as well, so I don't see what the problem is in making some strained growths over Si or some other substrate.

SRG01 · Apr 25, 2007

Onix said:
Do you have any info on the yield for the units Sony is talking about?

I recall reading initial diode yields were in the 10% - 20% range. If they are at 50% now, that would be a 250% - 500% increase.

You won't hear an internal rep quote yields. Ever. There's always speculation by industry observers, but it's pretty much always a trade secret.

Fun story: Micron was doing a presentation on their CCD/CMOS imaging chips and some guy asks "So what's the yield on these chips?" and the presenter laughed and said (paraphrased) "No company would ever reveal their yields!"

edit: Yields seem to always grow exponentially after a certain point. Once fabs start to get about 15% (maybe lower?), they start shipping and continuously tweak the process.

Doom_Bringer · Apr 25, 2007

PiccoloCube said:
a new weak point for Massive damage in the evolution of the giant enemy crab?

Did you watch the GDC conference?? yeah....

I doubt we will ever see a repeat of the E3 conference from sony

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