Re:The Race to 10/7nm
by vessenes on Wednesday May 31, 2017 @05:53PM
(#14456231)
This is vastly overstated by the way. Maybe to design a de-novo X86 competitor chip. ARM's entire operating expenses in the last 12 months are about $700mm, for every single bit of their company. No way that a single 7nm chip costs $270mm for design.
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Design is not the same as tape-out. ARM designs the logical structure of its chips (the VHDL or Verilog). They then license that design to customers (such as Apple, Samsung), who customise it.
The tape-out is completely separate from that. You need to do the physical layout and produce a set of lithographic masks that are incredibly expensive. Back in 2000, a set of masks for the most advanced technology at the time was already in the millions of dollars. Things have gotten ridiculously more complex since then.