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> 2D materials are clearly the future of the industry, with a lot of momentum pushing the field forward. You wonder about that statement. Costs will truly be o
by _hypx 4y ago
> 2D materials are clearly the future of the industry, with a lot of momentum pushing the field forward.
You wonder about that statement. Costs will truly be out of control in future nodes. To the point where basically no one can afford the transition. Will we enter a world where higher performance is possible, but no one pursues on the account that silicon is "good enough?" This would be the equivalent of the abandonment of supersonic flight.
Alternatively, we may see a radical shift in how the semiconductor world works. Instead of everyone moving to the next node, we instead see a split market. There will be a market for those who can afford to pay millions of dollars for a very special kind of chip made with special transistors. And there will be market for normal people.
- jiggawatts 4y ago> There will be a market for those who can afford to pay millions of dollars for a very special kind of chip made with special transistors. And there will be market for normal people. It is already like that, but it's not a binary choice. You pay $$$ to be on the "bleeding edge", or $$ for "previous gen", and if that's still too expensive, you can pay $ for "2 gens ago or older".
- m463 4y agoSometimes the bleeding edge costs less, its just not priced less. and if not binning helps. Slightly faulty memory chips/cpu cores/gpu units become the midrange or budget lines of a product in speed and/or capacity.
- marcosdumay 4y agoIt used to be that you paid $ for the top process, or you could reuse your investment by paying $$ for the previous one. Anything older was cost prohibitive. This was the real meaning of Moore's Law. But yeah, it stopped some 5 or 6 generations ago.
- dragontamer 4y agoMost microcontrollers are in the 28nm or older space, or approximately 10+ years behind. For example, TI's cost optimized MSPM0 released this year (2023) is on the 65nm node, or like 2006 era. A fair number of uC chips are 90nm, or 180nm as well. So you got cost-effective solutions on like 15-nodes behind.
- sbierwagen 4y agoThose fabs are former cutting edge, but now fully accounting-deprecated, so they're used for MCUs. But I wonder what the steady state looks like? Nobody makes 180nm equipment now. Eventually they'll run out of spare parts. What do things look like in another 30 years? MCUs made at 14nm? How big would the die be on like an ATtiny4? Bond wires crowded around 100x100 µm of populated silicon? Dicing saw kerf throwing away half the wafer?
- ianburrell 4y agoI wonder if there is a market for new fabs for old processes. Make them cheap, modular, easy to setup. Then use them for the embedded market. Maybe promise long lifetimes or multiple proceses to support legacy. Or force everyone on one process with huge supply. Basically, the screws and washers of semiconductors.
- xbmcuser 4y agoAfter the ban by USA on export of some chips to China. China seems to have invested heavily in these mature nodes in the last 2-3 years not just the bleeding edge so it would be hard for non chinese companies to compete in mature nodes in the future. China was already investing in foundries but the US recent ban seem to have pushed them to invest a lot more and accelerated their ability.
- shash 4y agoEnormously so. Like, you simply can't run motors directly from a 7nm chip. Not to mention, space and radiation hardening - lots of space stuff gets done at 180/130/90...
- _hypx 4y agoTrue, but this trend could really accelerate. I imagine something akin to how ultra-performance cars are priced compared to regular cars, and this gap doesn’t close anywhere near as fast as it used to.