>The complexity of developing hardware is driven by the number of discrete components used. No its not. Most components are practically free #1, placing them i

>The complexity of developing hardware is driven by the number of discrete components used. No its not. Most components are practically free #1, placing them is also very cheap #2. Hardware is not expensive because of _hardware_ costs. Its expensive because of engineering, prototyping, and latency of development. /1 single/two digit cents. Except for specialized parts. For example hiend precision resistors, supercaps, weird connectors, non commodity microcontrollers, fpgas, fast ADCs, or precision opamps/voltage references. Nevertheless you will largely use jelly bean components with only few expensive parts on the board. /2 again except for the very hiend small footprint ones. Super small components targeting lightweight products (cellphones, ultra light laptops) require professional millions of dollars machines and experience. Here is a story of one company almost tanking because CEO is a Jobs wannabe and decided to make his product "sexy" using same components and techniques as Macbooks: http://www.theamphour.com/237-an-interview-with-joe-and-mark-garrison-subtly-spelling-sayleeay/ http://www.theamphour.com/237-an-interview-with-joe-and-mark...