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The product cells of finite CW complexes give the tensor product of their cellular chain complexes. The boundary formula is the displayed signed product rule. The sign comes from moving the outward normal of the second factor past the $p$ oriented tangent directions of the first factor. This is the cellular counterpart of the Eilenberg–Zilber theorem.

If $k$ is a field and $H^{\ast }(F;k)$ has finite total dimension, the cohomology cross product gives the displayed graded-ring isomorphism for arbitrary spaces. Over a field, every chain complex splits into its homology with zero differential and contractible summands. The Eilenberg–Zilber theorem thus replaces the fiber chain complex by a bounded finite-dimensional complex; dualizing its tensor product with $C_{\ast }(X;k)$ gives a finite direct sum of shifted cochain complexes of $X$. Its cohomology is the displayed tensor product. Finiteness prevents the infinite-product obstruction that can occur for two infinite discrete spaces. The standard product formula and its finiteness hypothesis are discussed in pi.math.cornell.edu/~hatcher/AT/ATch3.pdf, Theorem 3.15.