Hacker Timesnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

I wonder if the decline of Moore’s Law will eventually lead to the commotidization of ASIC fabrication?

Of course fabricating a chip will never be as cheap as writing a bit of software, but maybe it will eventually be as cheap as, say, injection molding a piece of plastic?



Heading the opposite direction - at least for the bleeding edge 7nm/5nm/3nm ASICs you want in your next computer or smartphone.

Manufacturing costs (particularly fixed costs) are going up exponentially. We're getting stuck on economics before physics. You need to be able to sell 10million+ parts to cover your costs.

There's more opportunities if you don't need the best performance or lowest power and use an older manufacturing process node like 65nm.


No matter what, you'll need to clear a certain volume floor. Masks are expensive [0] especially for nicer process nodes.

Once you have a mask set and fab time, it's off to the races. IMO $1M really isn't bad for a simple chip run.

[0] https://anysilicon.com/semiconductor-wafer-mask-costs/




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: