The wash out in the memory industry was generally the opposite. DRAM was a boom and bust market and during bust/oversupply windows vendors that under invested

The wash out in the memory industry was generally the opposite. DRAM was a boom and bust market and during bust/oversupply windows vendors that under invested in the next node technology got washed out when the next boom cycle happened. When the market is high volume, price per bit, and new nodes are every 2 or 3 years, you can't really compete it your are nearly 2x as expensive (30% linear improvement => 70% squared cost per bit). Of course you need to survive the dry times, but you make maximum margin when you are on the next fab node and your competition isn't. I think what you are saying makes more sense when applied to contract manufacturers than all semiconductor companies.