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The cost per transistor is going down every generation, but the NRE cost of developing a SoC is going up and up. Pretty much doubling every manufacturing genera
by StringyBob 10y ago
The cost per transistor is going down every generation, but the NRE cost of developing a SoC is going up and up. Pretty much doubling every manufacturing generation (e.g. 40nm -> 28nm -> 16nm).
The cpu is actually a relatively small chunk of that cost these days, but once in volume production even this is dwarfed by software development costs...
- valarauca1 10y agobut once in volume production even this is dwarfed by software development costs... This is one of the strongest arguments for RISC-V Not only do you avoid licensing costs, but the ELF files you have from the 2-3year old model will still execute on your new model chip. All one needs to do is dynamically link against their new special instructions.
- petra 10y agoWhy doesn't software reuse between generations work?