Paying for the masks is the big upfront cost - into the $5 to $10s of millions depending on the process node.

Someone told me around $30 million for a 14 layer chip in TSMC 5nm but I couldn't get real confirmation.

No one who really knows can say due to NDAs. We just know rough order of magnitude price.

I can see $30 million for 5nm. With material costs approaching $20 to $30 a chip for mobile SoCs, you need quite a high sales price and volume for the economics to work.

14 layers is a suspiciously small number for 5nm.

It will be a big surprise if multiple patterning elimination can reduce the layer count so dramatically.

14 metal layers.

I assume it's bulk prices, requiring thousands/tens of thousands of wafers of commitment.

I don’t think they need to require it - you’d be crazy otherwise because you have to pay the multimillion dollar cover charge (to make the masks).

The smallest practical commitment would probably be 25 wafers. Any fewer and you would be wasting useful capacity.