Probably everybody heard for the next big thing after Raspberry Pi – the C.H.I.P. computer which sells for only $9.
What?? Single board computer with 512MB RAM and 4/8GB Flash and WiFi for only $9?
When Raspberry Pi foundation advertised they will make Linux computer for $25 very few believed this is possible, then after some time hitting rocks on the road they made partnership with Farnell and RS and made this happen. Actually lot of Android TV sticks in this price range were available so the technology was there just nobody from Western world had explored it.
The Rpi got quite successful, so lot of companies followed in the aim to make the next better Raspberry Pi (we at Olimex also 🙂 went to this route with OLinuXino OSHW Linux computers fixing the fact that RPi is closed source design).
The $35 was the magic number if you come close to it more chances to attract people you have.
Then few weeks ago there was the next big thing – computer with the specs of Raspberry Pi for only $9 on Kickstarter.
This blew people’s mind – they start fantasies like how Allwinner produce 1Ghz SOCs for $1 like on this thread on G+.
These guys plan was set for sale of 5000 computers, we purchased more than 150K SoCs chips from Allwinner last year alone and I know the DDR and Flash memory market, so I was quite skeptical this $9 is achievable even for the Bill of Materials not for sale price.
I asked Allwinner for quote and got $4.80/5K order (which is the original Kickstarter goal of Next Thing Co. guys). I assumed this price is for the module they use with the 512MB RAM and 4GB Flash (despite just the DDR and Flash exchange market price is higher than this number, well I hoped Allwinner manufacturing this module have some magic prices not applicable for mortals with the million of units they sell :).
Today I got datasheet of R8M and price of it is $16 including the PMU. Whaaat? Just the module is $16 but these guys sell this module on board with connectors and WIFI for $9 how this is possible?
I asked Allwinner again if there is mistake and they confirmed there is no mistake, R8 price is $4.80, R8M module price $16. Allwinner confirmed R8 just SOC cost $4.80 but this makes not much sense either this is the price of A33 quad core SOC why they price so expensive obsolete A13 Cortex-A8 SOC???
On my question how then Next Thing Co. sell this computer for $9 Allwinner response is:
“CHIP 9$ computer launched a big advertising campaign to promote their new development board, their actual cost is higher than 9$. After the Kickstarter their computer will sell for 39$.”
So, sorry guys to break your dreams for 1Ghz SOCs costing $1, maybe in future this would be possible, but not now.
The C.H.I.P. is just CHEAP marketing. At least for me R8 is not interesting at this price, better use A33 Quad core or H3 for your next design they are in same price range.
EDIT Update 08-06-2015: On the question why R8 cost is same as for quad core processor the response from Allwinner is:
R8 is new IC just published especially on IoT, it is not like A33 this one had used on a large scale forTablet PC.
So R8 is more expensive as produced in lower quantities than A33 which is selling for tablets in big volumes.
olimex 
Jun 05, 2015 @ 15:46:46
WoW! Are they selling you A80 secretly underneath or what? R8 doesn’t seem to have some magical features to be so expensive?
Jun 05, 2015 @ 16:04:54
Truth or not, they raised 2 mln dollars! 🙂
Jun 05, 2015 @ 16:09:22
good for them 🙂 average order value $52 they may break even or even make some money out of this venture
Jun 05, 2015 @ 16:10:45
According to that datasheet, the R8M includes 8GB of flash and 512MB of RAM in an LGA128 package along with the SoC. This means two things: a) it will drastically reduce the cost for the PCB design because all the high-speed I/O is now part of just one chip, and b) it’s not the exact part that the C.H.I.P. was planning to use, as they are talking about 4GB flash (which should make a few cents difference, no more).
I’d say that R8M with these specs is pretty cool, but they need to find the right price point for it (and probably will).
Jun 05, 2015 @ 16:15:21
the LGA package is pain in the @ss to assembly by amateurs and people without special equipment, so I don’t know how popular this part will be
Jun 05, 2015 @ 20:19:13
Amateurs I would agree with, but all you need is a cheap hot air rework station and it’d be pretty easy. That pitch is huge.
Even a hot air gun would be pretty easy with that pitch, or heck a simple skillet reflow would work fine too. With that pitch you could tin each pad, heat the skillet up until the solder remelts, and then just drop the LGA on.
Jun 05, 2015 @ 16:14:04
I actually backed that campaign (duh, obviously…) when it launched, then immediately got the surprise of having to pay $20 for shipping to Europe (beside the $9 which was allegedly the price of the board). After they promised to look into the shipping price but failed to make significant changes, many became convinced that reality is closer to the other way around – they’re selling a $20 “computer” with $9 shipping – also supported by the fact that any questions about being able to order multiple boards with a single shipping got completely ignored. Ultimately I canceled my pledge too – $9 is one thing, but once I’m starting to spend more than that, I’d rather do it here at Olimex… 😉
Jun 05, 2015 @ 20:35:28
I am not an expert, but that sounds like a not-so-legal thing to do. Kickstarter should definitely look into their campaign carefully.
Jun 06, 2015 @ 02:33:46
Kickstarter doesn’t seem too keen on the whole “checking to make sure our users are being responsible and launching legal campaigns” thing.
Jun 06, 2015 @ 11:10:39
Now there is plan with $13 shipping cost to EU, and some another countries.
Jun 05, 2015 @ 17:08:04
Hi,
I’m not interested by the C.H.I.P board but I really would be in the Allwinner R8/16/18 modules, looking the datasheet you provide, the footprint pitch is really good. So it would be nice if you could distribute this modules on your shop ;).
This modules really reduce the main board PCB complexity since we don’t have to care about DDR3 layout…
Best regards,
Alexis.
Jun 05, 2015 @ 17:23:07
Something doesn’t match here – the datasheet your posted says R8 + 64Gb NAND + 4GB DDR3. That makes sense as a $16 module.
CHIP is using R8 + 4GB NAND + 512MB DDR3. That module can’t be $16, no one would buy it, cost of those three components is less than $9.
Jun 07, 2015 @ 16:17:47
You are aware 64Gb is in fact 8GB as stated in article? also 4Gb is 512GB – please note the difference between bits and Bytes.
Jun 05, 2015 @ 17:25:58
Also – there is supposed to be an R16 module derived from the A33. Any word on that?
Jun 05, 2015 @ 17:28:16
I know what doesn’t make sense. I can’t divide by 8, I missed GB vs Gb.
Jun 05, 2015 @ 17:31:15
🙂 the datasheet says clearly 256MB x16 RAM, and indeed I have no idea who will spend $4.80 on R8 when A33 cost $4 and is quad core
Jun 05, 2015 @ 17:34:16
jonsmirl : hum, lower-case b indicates “bits”, upper-case indicates “Bytes”. So 64Gb NAND + 4Gb DDR3 is actually the same as 4GB NAND + 512MB DDR3. Not to mention that they probably mean Gib and GiB.
Jun 05, 2015 @ 17:36:25
Well, that would be 64Gb = 8GB or 32Gb = 4GB for NAND.
Jun 05, 2015 @ 17:50:10
This looks like the wifi module they are using. I don’t think you can get these for much under $3. The $2 price link that was posted for this is bogus.
Click to access 20150108162813187.pdf
RTL8723 has also been reported to have problems with simultaneous Wi-fi and BT use and the BT link dropping.
Module gets you nothing for FCC. It doesn’t have antenna on it. Only reason to use that module is if you can’t do RF design or Realtek won’t sell you chips.
Jun 05, 2015 @ 20:06:39
Well, part of the way they’re making money is by selling a VGA adapter (that’s based on Olimex’s design, by the way, just look at it) that’s probably $1 for $10, and an HDMI adapter that’s probably $2 for $15.
The CHIP itself is obviously a loss-leader. Which is why I did what you should always do when someone offers a loss-leader: buy it, and nothing else. 🙂
Jun 05, 2015 @ 23:26:08
ok, but what is the use of this loss leader? you buy it now and will never buy it again at this price 🙂
Jun 05, 2015 @ 20:16:54
“When Raspberry Pi foundation advertised they will make Linux computer for $25 very few believed this is possible, then after some time hitting rocks on the road they made partnership with Farnell and RS and made this happen. Actually lot of Android TV sticks in this price range were available so the technology was there just nobody from Western world had explored it.”
Oh come on, do you still have some kind of grudge against the Raspberry Pi Foundation? It almost looks like Olimex is a bitter about the fact that the Raspberry Pi actually succeeded and lived up to the hype.
Jun 05, 2015 @ 20:50:34
i don’t want money, i want be happy
Jun 05, 2015 @ 21:00:13
ESP8266
Thats real, thats not kickstarted.
LUA, Wifi… GPIO.
No Linux.
Jun 17, 2015 @ 21:53:54
Not much use without Linux. Linux allows wide range of USB devices, etc. Be it web camera or printer, kbd, mice or sound card… actually these devices can’t even be compared. Linux offers really decent, PC-like networking and peripherals support. I can use PC-compatible peripherals and libs meant for usual Linux. Your lua stuff … is just some programmable weirdling. Which requires to learn uncommon language and deal with uncommon environment and only able to support very limited subset of wi-fi and networking. Now imagine your ISP wants, say, PPTP VPN as internet connection method. Linux would do it easily. But you’ll have really hard time coding this stuff yourself. And especially debugging it to match (possibly somewhat strange) ISP implementation. So your ESP-whatever is not-so-networked and makes heck a lot of dumb assumptions. Which may or may not be true. But sure, Linux is not really meant for high-speed GPIO. But can surely clap a relay/FET via GPIO, and even can achieve reasonably fancy GPIO speeds, even if this is not a easiest thing to do.
And best of all: when Linux 4.1.15 released, you’ll learn true powers of IoT for sure 🙂
Jun 05, 2015 @ 22:20:57
Americans hipsters. But the system shield and the pocket is nice.
Jun 06, 2015 @ 09:52:03
Kickstart Verarsche. Dicht gehalten bis zum Schluss. 2 Millionen kassiert, abzgl. den Verpflichtungen. Bleibt ein nettes Sümmchen für die “entrepreneurs”. Das war es denn dann aber schon.
Jun 06, 2015 @ 19:19:36
Someone is not giving us a straight story. Maybe you can lean on Eva/Ben and see if you can get the truth out of them. Point out that if this $9 CHIP is not what it seems that it could blow back on Allwinner’s reputation.
From the CHIP post after closing the Kickstarter:
“Also, to clear up a little confusion: when preorders do open up, thanks to your support and encouragement right now, C.H.I.P. will still be $9.”
I don’t think that $16 price for the R8M + PMU will fly. No one is going to pay $16 for that, that is double what the three main pieces cost bought separately.
Maybe Allwinner gave them the R8M modules. If Allwinner did that, this is going to end very badly when the true price comes out.
Lowest large volume contract prices I could find
4Gb DDR3 $2.09 (off brand)
64Gb NAND $1.50 (TLC flash)
If you are really optimistic maybe $3 for the combined MCP.
So Allwinner might be able to build the R8M for $5
But still – when you take out the fees for Kickstarter, Backer Kit, credit card, etc. Even including $5 for US postage – this looks impossible to me.
Then if their plan is to make it up on overpriced peripherals, they are going to quickly find out that those peripherals will be cloned overnight for one quarter the price.
Jun 06, 2015 @ 19:35:09
Allwinner is not charity organization 🙂 do you sell your products at the price of the BOM?
R8 alone cost $4,80 so you suggest that they will add to it RAM and Flash for $0,20 to reach module price of $5?
Jun 06, 2015 @ 21:50:37
“R8 alone cost $4,80 so you suggest that they will add to it RAM and Flash for $0,20 to reach module price of $5?”
I think Allwinner internal cost could be $5 to make the R8M. It is a completely different question as to what they chose to sell it for.
For example Allwinner may be buying bulk untested DRAM/flash dies and then assembling/test them into this R8M module. They’re a semiconductor company, they can do things we can’t do. They are in the business of mounting dies into packages.
Jun 07, 2015 @ 00:23:22
pre order in web http://nextthing.co/ . Olimex can speak with chip and to manufacture chip for europe. They have a board olimex in one photo in twitter.
Jun 07, 2015 @ 21:26:16
Allwinner has the ability to buy DDR in wafer form like this:
http://www.issi.com/US/company-wafer-level-memories.shtml
http://www.micron.com/products/bare-die
DDR in wafer form is way cheaper than the packages we work with. Since they are a semiconductor company they could then mount these dies into the packaging used in the R8M. Chip packages are pretty expensive, on lower priced chips the package can cost as much as the die inside.
Allwinner must have started doing this. Their new V3S chip has two dies inside – a V3 CPU and a memory die. So they have started buying memory in either die or wafer form. Dies are just wafers that have been cut up, you can buy then tested or untested.
So these photos of the R8M with that MCP package may not be what the final product looks like. It may end up looking like this on the inside:
http://cache3.asset-cache.net/gc/AB08890-person-holding-multi-chip-module-close-up-gettyimages.jpg?v=1&c=IWSAsset&k=2&d=N%2BYvilCCL90c6ailci6eSxPXDvBDtpqfxbgOrBXd1ec%3D
Jun 08, 2015 @ 08:30:03
I don’t understand what do you want to prove with these maths, they may be true if you worked for Allwinner and have internal info, but now all these calculations are just speculations like the one on the G+ where people fantasies how Allwinner sell R8M for $1 🙂
You have the sale prices of R8 and R8M obtained officially from Allwinner, if you manage to bargain better price please do so 🙂
To these who think Allwinner will give these modules for free or will sponsor CHIP somehow, I’m 100% sure that Allwinner will not give a dime to US company, if they wanted to sponsor board they would do it with Chinese company where their 99% market is.
Look at my post update from today.
Jun 08, 2015 @ 12:14:20
The quoting in the update breaks and shows only partially (at least on Firefox, had that problem before too), so I am pasting it here:
“R8 is new IC just published especially on IoT, it is not like A33 this one had used on a large scale for Tablet PC.”
Jun 11, 2015 @ 00:40:01
I have a question… You mentioned:
“I’m 100% sure that Allwinner will not give a dime to US company, if they wanted to sponsor board they would do it with Chinese company where their 99% market is.”
I would agree with Allwinner business model, but does it means they do not like to work with US Customers at all? I tried to communicate with Allwinner by e-mail at least 3 times about datasheets, quotations & etc. No response at all!
Even I tried to call them using phone numbers on their web-site. Answering machine are talking on Chinese.
How you Guys are working with Allwinner? Or it’s Olimex Commercial Secret? 🙂 Just curious…
Allwinner web-site do not provide details about quotation, datasheets & etc.
Thanks,
Mike
Jun 11, 2015 @ 11:29:35
I know one thing – it was really hard for Olimex (convince Allwinner) to start working with them at the beginning. For the datasheets – you can get them from Olimex’s github. For small batches you can search for a distributor 🙂
Jun 11, 2015 @ 12:37:54
Your post just prove my words that Allwinner is focused mainly in their China business. US customers are small, no one make millions of tablets in USA. Allwinner is small company which sells lot of chips, they do not have forces to handle small orders and hundreds of small requests (by small think under 100K pcs), Olimex gained key partner status due to the OSHW development boards we make which help Allwinner to sell more chips as more people use their SoCs.
Jun 08, 2015 @ 14:23:12
So the conclusion has to be that CHIP is selling at a major loss.
Ben confirmed that Q88 A33 tablet PCBA with 512MB/4GB are $12-13 in bulk from multiple manufacturers. I just couldn’t see how CHIP was lower cost than those Q88 PCBA which are made by the millions.
These guys are going to have a mess on their hands when all of their peripherals get cloned.
As for the R8, why would anyone use it when the A33 is available?
Jun 08, 2015 @ 15:06:10
they do not sell at loss as they compensate the total with the shipping they are overcharging for outside US shipments, and the accessories
regarding R8 vs A33 I’m also puzzled, Cortex-A8 is bad choice for IoT where power consumption is major feature, A20-Lime with dual core Cortex-A7 runs 30% faster and consumes 30% less than A10-Lime which is with single core Cortex-A8, so go figure why for IoT they select less performant and higher power hungry SoC, on top of this I can’t see any power figures in the ‘datasheet’ and obviously this market is smaller than tablets and they can’t achieve so low cost
Jun 08, 2015 @ 16:44:47
Is this “30% faster” or “90% faster” as you mention in the original new product release article:
Jun 08, 2015 @ 16:47:34
you are right 🙂 my point was that double core Cortex-A7 is more power efficient than single core Cortex-A8
Jun 09, 2015 @ 18:57:04
But still…
1) I would be grateful if you can squeeze prices by few bucks. I’m really in mood to use Olimex devices rather than Pi stuff (who are even unable to engineer proper board power supply schematics after 2 attempts) or some overhyped “guess when you’ll be able to buy it” thing. Yet, people see things getting cheaper and so they demand to make devices cheaper, too. And since you’re known to be good at inexpensive devboards and modules for a while, I would like to see you on par with others and I would really prefer your boards over Pi and so on. However, price sometimes matters. And 25USD is well below of 33EUR…
2) Hey, guys, your delivery prices to Russia suck a lot. EMS is probably most silly option you can imagine at all, dammit. It is expensive like a hell, comparable to single A20 board! But in reality it is not much better than standard airmail delivery which is several times cheaper. Nearly all chinese shops and many EU shops use it and it … er, not much worse than EMS. So overall most Russians would just refuse to buy when they see EMS as the only delivery method. This is silly.
Then, I really do not get why I can’t use credit card below USD 300 and should deal with paypal morons instead. Paypal is really awful payment system. It really stinks. There’re far better competitors around. Paypal must die, preferably from competition. They’re really hostile to customers and it is easier to just abandon purchase than go through all their registration shit and somesuch. Paypal really deserves “worst payment system on the planet” title.
Jun 11, 2015 @ 12:43:46
All problems and restrictions come from your odd import customs. I do remember few years ago everything was OK and there were zero problems, we had lot of shipping options like DHL/UPS/post etc. But now all couriers refuse to ship to Russia and when 8 out of 10 parcels sent by post returns back we have no way to use these services anymore. I have no idea how Chinese post success to cross Russian border, but the parcels which came from Bulgaria/EU obviously can’t make it. EMS is the only service which works in Russia and somehow magically skips all import customs problems, perhaps they have some special status there which other services have not.
Jun 12, 2015 @ 17:44:42
I know, Russian customs suck a lot. Really moron and unpredictable entity. But they’re mostly troublesome when you’re about to supply bunch of same items so it looks like commercial supply channel – then you have to deal with customs for sure and those who supply 100s of boards have their channels and suppliers aware of how to deal with this customs crap. And yep, this is troublesome process, most of courier services gave up on this (Russian Post offers rather cheap delivery prices and owns large infrastucture which is hard to beat, overall it makes other courier services unpopular and it happens all troubles with customs and so on are somply not worth of it for many courier services).
But I meant “personal” purchases (e.g. 1-3 boards for prototyping, home automations and so on). If someone purchases 1-3 boards as individual, for prototyping, home automation and so on, customs do not care 99% of time. I bought some Pi’s, Cubuieboards and so on, mostly delivered by standard airmail. They used Chinese, Swiss, Hong-Kong and some other air mail services and all stuff has arrived successfully, with no damage and at very neat delivery prices.
What is EMS? EMS is branch of very same “Russian Post” crap. The very same Russian Post who would deliver “standard airmail” either. There is no difference in quality of service or whatever between EMS and rest of Russian Mail. The ONLY difference between standard air mail and EMS is the fact EMS haves HUGE DELIVERY PRICE. Several times higher compared to standard air mail. So EMS is probably most pointless service in the world. Needless to say, it is unpopular in Russua. Who would pay another board cost for just some delivery crap? This is silly. Not to mention it have to be done via PayPal who is very hostile service overall, and twice as bad in Russia. Looking on how PayPal performs, I got impression they’re trying to get rid of all customers, especially Russian ones. So I would prefer just payment by credit card. Why it is not available below $300? Any sane reasons for that?
Jun 12, 2015 @ 00:41:34
They could be offsetting the cost using partnership funds. It does come preloaded with x,y and z, after all. “Open source” doesn’t mean “poor”. Take LibreOffice (https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/images/4/47/TDF2014AnnualReport.pdf), which brought in 595k Euro in donations alone. It would be a pretty bad ass marketing campaign.
Jun 12, 2015 @ 04:32:33
How you ask? Well the local EMS contractor factors in the bribe which is the only reliable way to do business in the Slavic world… LOL so a small bribe is perfectly acceptable remedy to the defective cultural issues of complete lack of work ethic.
Jun 12, 2015 @ 08:41:10
Quite wrong, Olimex is operating in Slavic country (Bulgaria) and never had to pay bribe to run it’s business. Not saying that in Bulgaria has no bribery – but it’s your own choice and usually in the internal government tenders, EU funds distribution etc. where hungry clerks spend other people’s money.
Check this article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bribe_Payers_Index and see which countries and companies pay most of the bribes in the world
or Google for Nike, HP, Qualcomm, Wal-Mart, Siemens or Philips +”bribery scandal” 🙂
Matthew 7:5 , who has more moral and who is the bigger sinner who take or who give the bribe?
Jun 12, 2015 @ 18:01:25
That’s what I like about Olimex: you always trying to be honest about what you sell and what you do. You also proven to be openminded enough. That’s what makes it fun to use your devices: there is good docs and predictable intentions.
Jun 12, 2015 @ 18:03:51
Nope, dude, those who involved into bribery should be JAILED, actually. That’s how it meant to work. Corruption is not a good thing and it corrupts both parties. And if you support corruption, it tends to get even worse. Really wrong way of doing things.
Jun 12, 2015 @ 12:01:48
I hope one day OLIMEX Ltd grow up and can design your own SoC and we can buy not only board but also MPU from you, why not ?
Jun 14, 2015 @ 11:03:14
Pocket olinuxino please!
Jun 15, 2015 @ 09:41:45
The CHIP project with all of its SKU’s, low margins, and high expectations, basically need to do everything perfectly otherwise they will go under. Most HW companies run a margin of at least 60% — so if you buy the stuff for $10, then you sell it for $25. The reason you do that is in case you end up being stuck with tons of inventory when a new product comes out, or you get a big customs bill, or you are forced to buy parts at a bad margin to fulfill an order. But really the biggest reason is getting stuck with inventory. These guys are really playing with fire — and lots of people’s money. One screw-up and poof there goes the money.
Jun 15, 2015 @ 09:52:50
can LCD 4.3″ connected directly to gpio LCD, empowered by lipo battery?
Jun 18, 2015 @ 21:18:05
Olimex,
1.) If you know the die size of the Allwinner chip in question we can guesstimate what their own cost is. I would not be surprised if their manufacturing cost is ~$1/chip, meaning that if they sell it at $4 they are still making plenty of money. Alternatively, if they think a deal is strategically important perhaps they may be willing to sell it around $1 each?
btw. Not sure if you saw this post.
http://www.adapteva.com/andreas-blog/semiconductor-economics-101/
2.) These types of volumes make ZERO difference to AllWinner’s bottom line. To make the equation work out, they need to sell millions.
Andreas
Jun 19, 2015 @ 07:44:18
Well the interesting part is the “Pocket Chip”. Considering you can probably run Debian on it and add a GSM/LTE module to it, it’s probably the most exciting mobile device we had for years.
Jun 19, 2015 @ 11:50:48
What they are really good is at marketing.
When you read the project page, it blasts this marvelous 9$ C.H.I.P.
and all kind of magic you can do with C.H.I.P , like playing video games.
Then reading the fine print you find out that in the base model there is only composite video. Probl is, most monitors nowadays do not have composite input! Moreover for HDMI outup you need to pay 24$ .
All above is quite subtle and wrapped in fantastic marketing. I wonder how many people will buy the base C.H.I.P and then realize it does not plug into their monitor.
Jun 24, 2015 @ 11:25:26
Just wait until they realize CHIP’s “HDMI” doesn’t actually have sound…
Jun 26, 2015 @ 01:46:21
has anyone really looked at the sheet that the author specified? The specs on that sheet are for a 4G of RAM with 64G of storage? This was $16. The Chip comes with 512M of RAM and 4G of storage, so clearly this sheet doesn’t match the product sent to nextthing.co .
Jun 26, 2015 @ 08:08:10
yes, now learn the difference between gigabit and gigabyte 🙂
Aug 15, 2015 @ 10:37:44
BTW, not sure if this was mentioned before, but the CHIP guys stated that CHIP will be $9 post-kickstarter as well.
http://bbs.nextthing.co/t/final-price-of-c-h-i-p-ntc-confirms-still-9/190/3
It looks like an all-or-nothing huge bet. Simply put, they want to become the next Raspberry Pi.
My guess – they plan was this:
1) start with a large Kickstarter marketing campaign which enabled them to gather millions of $. This might look like an impressive achievement for some but this is just to get them started.
2) use every $ from those millions (plus extra revenue from shipping charges) to offset some of the initial R/D costs and pricing for actually bringing down costs long-term.
3) Get key partner status ASAP and then do some heavy bargaining with Allwinner re. RAM and Flash using large volume arguments to actually bring down BOM plus manufacturing under $9. I suspect some other Chinese chip vendors will jump in the IoT bandwagon which could make negotiation easier
4) Pray and hope to score some very large large-volume contracts in education deals around CHIP in the future could also boost volume to the next level of magnitude. US doesn’t seem to be a target (maybe developing countries?) The lack of FCC certification is glaring.
5) They could switch to some other chipsets WiFi/BT option as well in the future. Maybe there is an upcoming Allwinnner IoT chip (or some other Chinese chip vendor) that combines all these things in a single board and they are betting for its arrival. The miraculous success of ESP8266 didn’t go unnoticed.
Sep 13, 2015 @ 10:38:13
i am very much happy to purchage this 9$ chip when sales starting
Oct 29, 2015 @ 23:38:07
It seems some of the early backers got theirs.
http://www.element14.com/community/groups/open-source-hardware/blog/2015/10/29/hands-on-with-chip-the-worlds-first-nine-dollar-computer
I am very curious to see what will happen with their price in the future …
Nov 26, 2015 @ 10:41:36
Well, they admitted they lied about the $9 price for C.H.I.P.
http://www.thestreet.com/story/13378853/1/next-thing-co-admits-to-lying-about-9-computer.html
Nov 26, 2015 @ 10:43:27
In related news, Raspberry Pi Zero just got launched for an incredible price of $5 https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/raspberry-pi-zero
Nov 29, 2015 @ 23:29:27
Read the article closer. They apologized for lying about $9 because they are going to sell it for $8 on cyber Monday only. It’s a press release joke for marketing.
Dec 01, 2015 @ 20:17:30
I know. I didn’t want to spoil the article 🙂
Anyway, it’s interesting that Raspberry Pi is questionably not as good as CHIP. Their lack of Bluetooth implies a very contorted (and more expensive) setup if you want to add a keyboard and mouse. The lack of WiFi in the age of IoT is a minus.
Dec 02, 2015 @ 05:33:33
This is becoming really interesting. The Orange Pi folks are also working on a new “Orange Pi One” board, trying to make it cheaper than $10. And their existing “Orange Pi PC” board costs $15.
http://www.cnx-software.com/2015/11/26/raspberry-pi-zero-is-a-5-board-based-on-broadcom-bcm2835-processor/#comment-504411
Mar 12, 2016 @ 04:29:46
CHIP got the combo right for the IoT devices. CPU+Wireless+Flash+Charger+USB
I was doubting if CHIP can sustain their price at $9/-. Looks like they can
https://bbs.nextthing.co/t/final-price- … till-9/190
Olimex should come out with a board with CPU+Wireless+Flash+Charger+Camera+USB, the cost can be slightly higher say $15 or $20.
Mar 12, 2016 @ 04:32:29
CHIP got the combo right for the IoT devices. CPU+Wireless+Flash+Charger+USB
I was doubting if CHIP can sustain their price at $9/-. Looks like they can
https://bbs.nextthing.co/t/final-price- … till-9/190
Omilex should come out with a board with CPU+Wireless+Flash+Charger+Camera+USB, the cost can be slightly higher say $15 or $20. Basically this board will be Pi Zero + Camera + Flash + Charger + Wireless and (minus HDMI).
Apr 23, 2016 @ 23:07:02
Olimex doing free advertisement for Next Thing? Whats underneath the table agreement?
Mar 02, 2017 @ 05:02:18
No, there’s no agreement, they would not get Olimex to advertise this (besides the fact that this article is totally wrong. 🙂
Mar 24, 2017 @ 23:11:56
Having fun reading this while playing with my C.H.I.P. 🙂