
Recently, I was reviewing the cost per million gates (Figure 1) and the approximate cost of semiconductor fabs as shown in Table I below. It appears that only a few semiconductor companies will have the wherewithal to finance them. Additionally, the cost per million gates seems to be going in the wrong direction. Is “Moore’s law ” hitting an economical barrier rather than a technology barrier? This has started controversy in the industry with Nvidia2 openly criticizing its fab partner TSMC. Read More