I work in III/V semiconductors. The product development goes like: identify need, design, attempt a proof of concept, DoEs to determine manufacturing costs/via

I work in III/V semiconductors. The product development goes like: identify need, design, attempt a proof of concept, DoEs to determine manufacturing costs/viability, repeat until you have a statistically controlled viable process. There is essentially no room for technical creativity like there is in software. If we spent an extra year on our worst performing product (we've done this), we would get at best 5% improvement with iffy reproducibility. I dont know about construction or batteries.