4 ms·
There are probably several factors at play here. First, not all of the parts are necessarily produced in the USA - the PCBA is produced there, and the parts ar
by hwbehrens 7y ago
There are probably several factors at play here.
First, not all of the parts are necessarily produced in the USA - the PCBA is produced there, and the parts are assembled there, but the parts themselves are likely procured elsewhere. Even still, this greatly complicates the kind of supply chain attack this is meant to prevent, because you have to compromise individual components that you hope will end up in the device you're targeting.
Second, they already had these facilities in place in the US for prototyping purposes. Thus, the up-front cost investment for setting up a facility in the US is much lower than usual, so they can set a lower price than others might be able to offer.
Third, there is probably a capacity constraint at that facility; the price chosen was likely selected to suppress demand below that threshold, not purely based on relative production cost.
Finally, although I have only limited experience (n=2) with cross-shopping electronics manufacturing between the US and China, a 3x overhead is actually substantially lower than I would expect; we were seeing ~6-10x increases for manufacturing and assembly. This could be because their production facility (which, again, already exists) would otherwise be sitting idle.
I can't speak to the health of their business (a sibling comment suggested this was a "money grab"), but the numbers seem pretty reasonable for what you're getting, overall. Note that this is not targeting the same crowd who buys "Made in USA" t-shirts to support the local economy; the audience is more likely to be security wonks who are already concerned about supply chain attacks.
- unlinked_dll 7y ago>a 3x overhead is actually substantially lower than I would expect; we were seeing ~6-10x increases for manufacturing and assembly How many units were you building/shipping? And was your QA on-site/in-country?
- bluGill 7y agoI think the real target is - or should be - CIA, and NSA. People who have security needs that China will never agree to. The hardware switches help play into their needs: shut the chips off in situations where they are a concern. Pursim should have a standing offer: we will make your phone on a day scheduled well in advance and allow your auditors in the factory to watch over the process. At an extra cost of course, but I think this is something they could offer easily enough and it would be very helpful to those most paranoid about security. Dealing with government contracts isn't easy though.
- isantop 7y agoCompromising the PCBA is not reasonable attack, if you trust the company you're buying the hardware from. Their engineers will review the delivered hardware and ensure that the delivered design is identical to the one ordered. Realistically, the kind of bad actor this is marketed to prevent have no trouble getting into a chip fab in China (where the chips going onto the PCBA are produced) and inserting hardware backdoors there, which couldn't necessarily be detected by the engineers.