Research firm breaks down what's inside the new Microsoft Surface RT tablet, which is powered by the NVIDIA Tegra 3 processor.
Microsoft Surface tablet breakdown
The Touch Cover serves as an example of a feature that can encourage users to upgrade to a higher-end model that generates more profits for a company—similar to premium-priced tablets that feature larger quantities of memory. With options like the Touch Cover or extra flash, a manufacturer can offer a low-end model at a base price that meets a psychological threshold—$499 in this case—with the hope that consumers will impulsively opt for extra features or memory upgrades that generate major profits.
IHS estimates preliminarily that the Touch Cover costs Microsoft $16 to $18 per unit. The Touch Cover accessory integrates a printed circuit board (PCB) assembly with numerous chips, including a Freescale microcontroller and an Atmel touchscreen controller.
Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. is the biggest design winner in the Surface, based on our teardown sample. Various divisions of Samsung supply components or complete subsystems for many of the most expensive portions of the individual tablet dissected by the IHS iSuppli Teardown Analysis Service: the display, the NAND flash and the battery pack. However, most of these parts are available from multiple sources, and other suppliers are likely utilized in other individual Surface tablets.
Another major winner is Nvidia Corp., which supplies the Surface’s processor. The Surface RT is based on an NVIDIA quad-core Tegra 3 processor, which uses the ARM architecture. The Tegra 3 costs an estimated $21.50, accounting for 8 percent of the Surface RT’s BOM.
Also scoring some major wins in the Surface RT is Atmel, which supplies multiple touch controllers in the Surface itself as well as in the Touch Cover.
