Other people have called this the greatest strength of Nintendo: build stuff with slightly older parts that are cheap and proven to work, so that you don't have

Other people have called this the greatest strength of Nintendo: build stuff with slightly older parts that are cheap and proven to work, so that you don't have to sell at a loss That aside, I'm in the process of designing an USB gadget and I find process shrinks quite pesky. Of course it'll reduce production costs for the manufacturer of the IC but it also reduces flanking times which causes more electromagnetic interference issues for me. So insisting on using large ICs built using old process nodes is a very valid decision if you work in an area where reliability trumps a $0.001 per piece cost saving. Like in cars, robots, or industrial machines. That said, I see it more and more that German companies outsource all of their production until they eventually have so little building skills left inside their building that innovation stops. It's kind of the same issues that drove Boing to recycle old designs, but in Europe it's happening with thousands of small companies, instead of one big one.