IBM's Z-series CPUs are pretty ridiculously enormous in this regard. The z196 is 512mm^2[0] (compare with about 260mm^2 for a top-of-the-line Intel Xeon), and

IBM's Z-series CPUs are pretty ridiculously enormous in this regard. The z196 is 512mm^2[0] (compare with about 260mm^2 for a top-of-the-line Intel Xeon), and is able to run at 5.2GHz on a 45nm process. Because IBM can basically charge anything they want for these monsters[1]; their yield of working chips per wafer can be pretty terrible and they'll still make money. Intel, on the other hand, needs to be able to sell as many chips as possible per wafer, because they have vastly lower margins. This is also why they do stuff like fusing off dead cores and cache to produce working lower-end parts from dice that aren't 100% functional out of the factory. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_z196_%28microprocessor%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_z196_%28microprocessor%29 [1] Locked-in customer base, service costs dwarf hardware costs, etc.