Quantify Cost per Bit Gains over 1k

# Quantify Cost-per-Bit Gains Over the 1K Generation

The entire commercial case for the 4K generation rested on cost per bit, the metric system buyers actually compared across competing memory technologies.

By spreading the same packaging, testing, and handling overhead across four times as many bits, the 4K generation drove cost per bit meaningfully below the 1K generation despite higher per-die fabrication complexity.

This cost-per-bit improvement is what let dynamic memory keep displacing older, more expensive storage technologies system by system through the first half of the 1970s.

COST PER BIT, 1K VS 4K1K generationfixed packaging cost spread over 1,024 bits4K generationsame class of packaging cost spread over 4,096 bitsNet changemeaningfully lower cost per bit at 4K

Diagram above: cost per bit, 1k vs 4k.

WHY BUYERS CARED ABOUT THIS METRICComparison basiscost per bit, not cost per chip, drove purchasingCompetitive edgelower cost per bit let DRAM keep displacing older memoryGenerational logiceach future density jump repeated this same cost argument

Diagram above: why buyers cared about this metric.

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