Erm... you can "rent" it from TSMC, you could before AWS existed, and in fact some of Apple chips are manufactured by TSMC (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_s

Erm... you can "rent" it from TSMC, you could before AWS existed, and in fact some of Apple chips are manufactured by TSMC (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_system_on_a_chip#Apple_A8X http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_system_on_a_chip#Apple_A8...) Now "an idea for something great in CPU design" is unlikely to result in a marketable chip these days, but chip startups exist, and some are very small. Adapteva for instance is a 5-people company.