
Moore’s law may be running out of steam, but chip costs will continue to fall - tdaltonc
http://www.economist.com/news/technology-quarterly/21662644-chipmaking-moores-law-may-be-running-out-steam-chip-costs-will-continue
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tdaltonc
It looks like the business of chips is transitioning from a capital intensive
industry to a design intensive industry. That could Harold a new wave of
silicon startups in the valley.

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CyberDildonics
Where do you think the capital has been going all this time?

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tdaltonc
Custom built photolithography hardware.

Even with design documents of a 10nm chip and 20 people that understood them,
I would need to spend a few billion dollars to build the manufacturing
facility.

However, if 28nm becomes something of an industry standard, then Intel can't
dominate the field just by being the only people that can build the
facilities. The lithography and chip manufacturing could become standardized
and all of the profit would flow to the people doing tricky things to design
SOC. And that design work is much less capital intensive (compared to having
to build your own manufacturing facility). That means people with more time
and skill than money (ie founders) will be able to compete.

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mud_dauber
The manufacturing may be standardized, but designer's productivity is still
stuck in 2nd gear.

Go ask a design manager about a smartphone baseband processor design costs.
They are rising exponentially _unless_ you have a great SOC design flow & a
ready-to-use IP library.

