Posted by Eric Huang on January 27, 2011
“With a global market share of 95%, Renesas currently quotes US$2.20-2.50 for its USB 3.0 host ICs, much higher than US$1.70-1.80 quoted by ASMedia Technology, Etron Technology and VIA Labs of which their products were just adopted by Asustek Computer, ASRock, Elite Computer Systems and Gigabyte Technology for entry-level motherboards, the sources indicated.” Digitimes, January 26, 2011
So the price point as reported by Digitimes in April 2010 (and repeated by me) is on this trend:
Basically this is good news overall, even if Renesas keeps it’s price up, this price of a Host Controller has dropped 70%.
The chip is cheaper to integrate into motherboards.
More people integrate.
The market grows.
Renesas (and their competitors) make money with higher volumes making money on each chip.
(If they didn’t, they wouldn’t make chips anymore).
More consumers adopt USB 3.0.