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A comment on As Moore’s Law slows, Apple is forced to use cheaper chipsets in non-pro iPhones. Parent comment

Re:As Moore’s Law slows, Apple is forced to use cheaper chip... by chasil on Monday March 14, 2022 @10:29AM (#30672853)
What is interesting is the observation that cost-per-transistor is rising:

"2018 was Apple’s last major step down in cost per transistor due to TSMC’s N10 to N7 process node shrink. With the transition from N7 to N5, the cost benefits were relatively small due to SRAM scaling issues. N7 is entering its 5th year of production, and N5 is now at its 3rd, yet the only hint of per wafer pricing changes have been in the wrong direction... Due to the way the 3 major DRAM companies have slowly increased output, cost per bit of DRAM has not really fallen."

Sophie Wilson (inventor of the original ARM instruction set) has been saying that cost-per-transistor has been rising for several years.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zX4ZNfvw1cw

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Re:As Moore’s Law slows, Apple is forced to use cheaper chip... by zozbot234 on Monday March 14, 2022 @11:05AM (#30673286)
That's not a new observation, as you mention. However as trailing-edge nodes improve and mature, their cost-per-area should still tend to drop over time. So, in a way, Moore's law might still be full effect despite developments "running ahead of it" at the leading nodes.
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Re:As Moore’s Law slows, Apple is forced to use cheaper chip... by dylan522p on Monday March 14, 2022 @03:25PM (#30677003)
Sophie's analysis contemplates a set unit volume and fixed costs related to design and verification and tape out. Mine is on pure cost/transistor based on wafer costs as a player like Apple has the units to spread fixed costs over.
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Re:As Moore’s Law slows, Apple is forced to use cheaper chip... by chasil on Monday March 14, 2022 @07:12PM (#30679765)
Thanks for the reply, and authoring the article.

I've had several objections to previous comments that cost-per-transistor is rising, and I'm glad to see another confirmation.

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