Cheap Atoms

Last time I mentioned new cheaper processors like the Intel Atom. But why exactly is the Atom so cheap to manufacture? Admittedly I don't work in hardware so I can't say for sure, but here's my educated guess.

I figure processor manufacturing has 2 major "costs" associated with it; research and development and actual production costs. For R&D costs the CPU must be designed (and presumable tested "virtually"). The Atom should be cheaper because it's a significantly less complex design. According to Intel's Ark site, some Atoms have as few as 47 million transistors. Compare that to a Core 2 Quad which may have as many as 820 million transistors. Obviously the Atom is less complex and therefore should be easier to design and test.

The second area is actual production. CPUs are manufactured on circular wafers. The wafers are approx. 1 foot in diameter. The CPUs are built through lithography bit by bit. The interested thing is, the costs are basically the same regardless of what is being manufactured. If the wafer contains Atom processors, quad processors, RAM, etc. the costs are basically the same. But here's where the size comes into play. The Atom is about 26 mm² whereas the same quad core about is 214 mm². So this means a single wafer will yield approximately 2,800 Atoms or 340 quad cores. So in terms of production costs one Atom costs 1/8th the cost of a quad core.