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What takes time to bring a chip to market? As in the question, if you know exactly what needed to be designed (in concept), how long would it take you to have
by supernova87a 6y ago
What takes time to bring a chip to market? As in the question, if you know exactly what needed to be designed (in concept), how long would it take you to have a fab turning out units?
Is it the work to figure out how to lay down the component blocks on the die and all the circuit routing? Is it figuring out how to assemble the power-efficient components from the Arm library? Does that take years? Is it the instruction set? Is it the planning for manufacturing capacity?
I'm just curious to know what the actual work and division of labor / time is to "make a chip".
I would love to know for example:
-- Initial design, 10 people, 1 year
-- Prototype runs, 5 people, 6 months
-- Final design, 5 people, 1 year
-- etc etc.
-- Acquiring fab capacity / manufacturing hardware, 10 people, 1 year
-- etc etc.
But sounds like there's no way Intel or others can just "leapfrog" even if they knew what needed to be done and could abandon their prior choices.
- ksec 6y ago>But sounds like there's no way Intel or others can just "leapfrog" even if they knew what needed to be done and could abandon their prior choices. At best It take one year to build a Fab. It takes another one just to plan to built it. That is assuming you get the regulation approval with zero delay. Building a Fab means absolutely nothing if you cant get the process to yield. Look at Samsung Foundry in the past 3- 5 years. Intel's Leapfrog chances was their Intel Custom Foundry. Had they not mess that one up they would have a Fighting chance. Even if they had a Design that Leapfrog Apple's M1 today, it would still be let down by their 10nm SuperFin Process.