"Innovation" in the sector always came at tremendous cost. The startup cost for the foundry for a new node has been increasing every generation (requires more w

"Innovation" in the sector always came at tremendous cost. The startup cost for the foundry for a new node has been increasing every generation (requires more wafers and time to amortize over), and the cost per wafer (on a production basis, not including the amortized development cost) has been increasing over time as well (and you're going to be competing with AMD, Nvidia, and Apple for fab space... those are deep pockets to fight against). And finally, the (per customer) development cost at each node is becoming more expensive as well. All of this means theres tremendous value in exploiting mature processes. And it's going to continue to be this way for quite a long time based on all the trendlines and projections that the big players put out.