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It is definitely being sold at a loss, the Cyclone V SOC being used costs more than the entire development board.[0] I wonder if Intel will ever take notice due

It is definitely being sold at a loss, the Cyclone V SOC being used costs more than the entire development board.[0] I wonder if Intel will ever take notice due to MiSTer's growing popularity and quit subsidizing the board. [0] https://www.digikey.com/en/products/detail/intel/5CSEBA6U23I7N/3929193 https://www.digikey.com/en/products/detail/intel/5CSEBA6U23I... Edit: it was erroneous of me to state the board was being sold at a loss, rather I meant that the board was being definitely being subsidized by companies such as Intel and their partners such as Panasonic. My mistake. I also wasn't meaning to convey that the consumer Digikey pricing was the same as the large volume manufacturers such as Terasic. Rather I meant to demonstrate and agree with the OP on the astounding situation that MiSTer currently exists in, owning to the lack of economic viability for someone to produce a low volume commercial FPGA emulation machine for a niche audience without any subsidization.

tverbeure 5y ago
There is absolutely no way they’re sold at a loss. Your DigiKey price of $245 proves this, because a factor of 10 is a good starting point as a ratio between volume and one-off DigiKey pricing of any type of complex silicon. A better way to approach this is as follows: what’s the die size of an FPGA like this? What’s the production cost of the die? Then check the historic gross margin percentage of FPGA companies. Xilinx is around 68%, and that includes high-end products which carry the highest markups, unlike this cookie cutter thing. That should give you a good ballpark number. DigiKey charges what they do because nobody else is willing to sell these things in low volume, and they have very high inventory costs.
andrewcchen 5y ago
Digikey pricing is not indicative of actual volume pricing, especially for FPGAs where they are often many times overpriced when buying from distributors. I doubt the board is sold at an loss, probably sold at a small profit, not that's it's really significant for a low volume dev board.

tverbeure 5y ago

There is absolutely no way they’re sold at a loss. Your DigiKey price of $245 proves this, because a factor of 10 is a good starting point as a ratio between volume and one-off DigiKey pricing of any type of complex silicon. A better way to approach this is as follows: what’s the die size of an FPGA like this? What’s the production cost of the die? Then check the historic gross margin percentage of FPGA companies. Xilinx is around 68%, and that includes high-end products which carry the highest markups, unlike this cookie cutter thing. That should give you a good ballpark number. DigiKey charges what they do because nobody else is willing to sell these things in low volume, and they have very high inventory costs.

andrewcchen 5y ago

Digikey pricing is not indicative of actual volume pricing, especially for FPGAs where they are often many times overpriced when buying from distributors. I doubt the board is sold at an loss, probably sold at a small profit, not that's it's really significant for a low volume dev board.