All SoC design comes from a fabricator's toolkit. When you do VLSI Design or Verilog layout, you always feed the compiler a "technology file" which describes --

All SoC design comes from a fabricator's toolkit. When you do VLSI Design or Verilog layout, you always feed the compiler a "technology file" which describes -- gasp -- building blocks of what is possible to synthesize from the builder's fab. So yeah, apple didn't start out by implementing digital circuits with vacuum tubes. Thank you for that insightful comment.