I seriously doubt if a new fab run is at all feasible. When the
time comes that CS50 scabs become rarer or marginally desirable due
to their age as noted... you're talking maybe 1500 total customers.
How many chips are you going to want to buy in a year?
The upfront "NRE" costs for a new chip vary from maybe $250k to $1M
in my experience. The low volumes could tend to make it higher,
while IF existing designs were used, that could potentially hold the
costs down (though I doubt it, as they'd need to be modified for
current fab processes?). For a few thousand chips a year total, and
maybe you could get high 2 figures for each chip... I just don't see
it, unless McCartney or some big shot wants to be our benefactor (but
most of those guys don't seem to share our nostalgia for the old
gear). And that doesn't count the # of different chips. My
question is if the different ICs could have their functionality
combined into one chip (given todays smaller device geometries), that
you could select the function of via pin signals on some very small
sub-assembly/connector. Perhaps the Yamaha and Curtis chips could
even be accomodated in such a design. Would be cool! Thoughts?
--- In yamahacs80@yahoogroups.com, "David Rogoff" <david@t...> wrote:
>
> --- In yamahacs80@yahoogroups.com, BlchrR@a... wrote:
>
> > Is a fab run for say the VCO and VCF chips a possibility?
> > These are i guess, the critical ones, of course, the Vca chips
> are also important.
>
> Someone talked about this a while ago - any more info?
>
> >
>>
> > Bearing in mind how many Ics are in the Cs80 building discreet
Voice
> Cards and TRG boards and such is going to be quite a job....
>
> Well, Crow is the master of this and has done some already
> (http://www.cs80.com/ne_proj.html). For the GX/SY modules, it's
> possible to make it fit, but that's not going to happen inside a
CS-80!
>
> I think, with maintenence, we can keep these running for many more
> years. For me, way more than half the appeal of the CS-80 is the
> keyboard/poly-aftertouch, ribbon, and controls. Worst case, I
could
> see gutting the beast and turning it into and amazing MIDI
controller
> for CS80V and other hardware/VA synths.
>
> It would also be fairly easy to tap the control voltages and gates
> going to the voice card and drive a modular (I know - linear
VCOs...).
> Yes, for an additional $20k, or so, you can have a modular CS-80
> that's bigger and heavier than a GX-1!
>
> David