The reality, at the moment, is that Intel may well be the only company that can push the industry forward. Each time you introduce a new processor node, the co

The reality, at the moment, is that Intel may well be the only company that can push the industry forward. Each time you introduce a new processor node, the cost of the fab goes up dramatically, and now we're talking about $14 billion for the next Samsung fab. (This is Rock's Law.) If you go back a few years, there were a couple of dozen chip manufacturers around the leading edge, including Toshiba, Siemens, Sony, Fujitsu, NEC and Philips. With each new step, one or two of these companies can't find or justify the money to build a very expensive fab for the next process, so they drop out. Today, we're down to four or five: Intel, TSMC, Global Foundries (ex AMD+IBM), Samsung and maybe Europe's STM. So Toshiba, Siemens, Sony, Fujitsu, NEC, Philips and several others have all dropped out. Which of the four or five leading companies have got both the money and the need to keep pushing on? Looks to me like Intel and Samsung. The only other option I can see is Apple putting a ton of money into TSMC, which current makes most of its money fabricating chips for mid-market companies like Mediatek. That's a possibility because it would stop Apple from being too reliant on Samsung. Rock's law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock's_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock's_law