Pragmatic is very impressive because they're a startup that (a) is building their own chip fab and (b) said fab is much faster and cheaper than existing fabs.

Pragmatic is very impressive because they're a startup that (a) is building their own chip fab and (b) said fab is much faster and cheaper than existing fabs. They claim [1] to be able to make chips from a new design in only ~4 weeks compared to the usual 3-6 months required by anyone else, which is huge for R&D. They manage this by using an unusual relatively low-performance process (which is also what allows them to use plastic substrates), but it's arguably a worthwhile tradeoff (in return for slower larger transistors, you get significantly lower equipment cost and lead times). That the chips are flexible is almost an afterthought, I think, albeit a nifty one. They've also announced efforts [2] toward open-sourcing their PDK, joining the growing movement toward open source chip design. [1] https://www.pragmaticsemi.com/foundry https://www.pragmaticsemi.com/foundry [2] https://www.pragmaticsemi.com/newsroom/blogs/democratising-ic-design https://www.pragmaticsemi.com/newsroom/blogs/democratising-i...