At 02:21 PM 10/07/04 +1000, you wrote:
>Has anyone seen the inside of a Garmin??
>
>I recently saw a Garmin 12 opened up. Most of the price must be in the
>software, because there is not much in the way of bits and peaces in there.
>
>SDF
Most of the price is the markups actually.
A GPS may consist of two chips - the RF front end and the signal processor.
Some signal processors have spare computing and memory capacity to do all
the application processing - read buttons, drive display, database handling
etc. So two chips and a little bit of power conditioning and there you are.
Much of the software in Garmin GPS units is common to them all I'd think
and even if it cost US$1,000,000 to develop when you amortise over hundreds
of thousands of units you are talking a few dollars a unit for software.
A mobile phone is probably more expensive than a GPS unit and I saw a
number of $50 US for the parts cost of one of them.
Mike
Borgelt Instruments - manufacturers of quality soaring instruments
phone Int'l + 61 746 355784
fax Int'l + 61 746 358796
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Int'l + 61 429 355784
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