The first iPads to come to market cost Apple $250.60 to manufacture, hinting at the computer giant’s potential profit margins on what is being called a game-changing tablet device. A teardown report from iSuppli offers insights into the iPad components Apple is using.
More than 40 percent of the iPad’s bill of materials is dedicated to the display, touchscreen and other user-interface components. The combined costs of user-interface-related components in the iPad totals about $110, or 43.7 percent of the materials cost of the 16GB, non-3G version of the iPad. That makes the iPad a radical departure in electronic design compared to conventional products.
“While the iPad has the potential to change the game in the computing, wireless and consumer worlds, it already has changed the game of how many electronic products are — and will be — designed,” said Andrew Rassweiler, director and principal analyst and teardown-services manager for iSuppli.
An Extravagant Display
The iPad’s design represents a new paradigm in terms of electronics cost structure and electronic content, Rassweiler continued. Conventional notebook PCs are “motherboard centric,” with all other functions in the system — such as the display, the keyboard, and audio — peripheral to the central microprocessor and the main printed circuit board (PCB) at the core.
“With the iPad, this is reversed,” Rassweiler said. “Everything is human-machine-interface centric, with the PCB and integrated circuits all there to facilitate the display of content as well as user inputs. The display represents a customized implementation of an IPS (in-plane switching) panel, driving up its cost relative to a more commoditized netbook panel.”
Not surprisingly, the most expensive iPad component is the display. The 9.7-inch diagonal, 262,000-color TFT-LCD screen with its 1024-by-768-pixel resolution cost $65. That’s more than 25 percent of the materials cost. The expense, in part comes from the integrated IPS…