San Jose, Ca. - Apple has called on some of the suppliers of components for its earlier iPod audio/music players as well as one important newcomer, to help out as it ventures into video versions of the platform.

A dissection by iSuppli Corp.'s Teardown Analysis service of the new video-capable iPod reveals an important new supplier -- Broadcom Corp. -- which is providing its new BCM2722 VideoCore Multimedia Processor to handle the video functionality. > The Broadcom chip and other ICs account for 17 percent of the $151 total Bill-of-Materials (BOM) cost for the 30Gbyte iPod, according to iSuppli. Other key cost drivers include the hard disk drive and the display, which together account for another 70 percent of the BOM.

The old suppliers include PortalPlayer Inc. and Wolfson Microelectronics plc, whose chips have appeared in several iPod generations, and Cypress Semiconductor Corp., which scored its first iPod win with the nano.

PortalPlayer is providing its 5021C audio controller, the same part found in the nano. This sharing of the 5021C among different products likely is keeping down the cost for a non-standard part that probably is used only by Apple. Most audio controllers produced by PortalPlayer, along with rival SigmaTel Inc., are sold to several different customers.

Cypress is once again is supplying its Programmable System-on-Chip (PSoC)-based CapSense solution for the Click Wheel circuitry that translates user finger movements into digital signals. Apple chose Cypress when it switched from long-time supplier Synaptics Inc. to its own propriety solution for the Click Wheel.

Other key cost drivers for the new video iPod include the hard disk drive and the display, for which Apple has two sources: Toshiba Corp. and Hitachi Global Storage Technologies.

To learn more, go to www.isuppli.com.

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