Yes. AFAIU the cost of process R&D and building and running leading-edge fabs massively outweigh the cost of CPU architecture R&D. It's just a world of its own

Yes. AFAIU the cost of process R&D and building and running leading-edge fabs massively outweigh the cost of CPU architecture R&D. It's just a world of its own largely out the comfort zone of software people, hence we endlessly debate the merits of this or that ISA, or this or that microarchitecture, a bit like the drunkard searching for his keys under the streetlamp. It's also interesting to note that back then the consensus was that you needed your own in-house fab with tight integration between the fab and CPU design teams to build the highest performance CPU's. Merchant fabs were seen as second-best options for those who didn't need the highest performance or couldn't afford their own in-house fab. Only later did the meteoric rise of TSMC to the top spot on the semiconductor food chain upend that notion.