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Custom built photolithography hardware. Even with design documents of a 10nm chip and 20 people that understood them, I would need to spend a few billion dolla
by tdaltonc 11y ago
Custom built photolithography hardware.
Even with design documents of a 10nm chip and 20 people that understood them, I would need to spend a few billion dollars to build the manufacturing facility.
However, if 28nm becomes something of an industry standard, then Intel can't dominate the field just by being the only people that can build the facilities. The lithography and chip manufacturing could become standardized and all of the profit would flow to the people doing tricky things to design SOC. And that design work is much less capital intensive (compared to having to build your own manufacturing facility). That means people with more time and skill than money (ie founders) will be able to compete.
- mud_dauber 11y agoThe manufacturing may be standardized, but designer's productivity is still stuck in 2nd gear. Go ask a design manager about a smartphone baseband processor design costs. They are rising exponentially unless you have a great SOC design flow & a ready-to-use IP library.