Debunking the myth of the $100M ASIC
Andreas Olofsson, CEO, Adapteva
EETimes (10/3/2011 1:08 PM EDT)
A false belief that leading-edge chips cost up to $100 million to develop has severely decimated levels of venture capital investment in semiconductors, diminishing innovation in our industry and our economy. The fact is, engineers can create a profitable chip company with less than $2 million of total investment. I know because we have done it.
An exponential increase in mask costs is cited most often as the reason chips have become so expensive. Mask costs have risen from $100,000 to as much as $1-$3 million, but this factor alone cannot explain why some chips costs $100 million to develop.
E-mail This Article | Printer-Friendly Page |
|
Related Articles
- A Rad Hard ASIC Design Approach: Triple Modular Redundancy (TMR)
- ASICs Bring Back Control to Supply Chains
- Add Security And Supply Chain Trust To Your ASIC Or SoC With eFPGAs
- Solving the problem of growing ASIC respins
- VLSI Physical Design Methodology for ASIC Development with a Flavor of IP Hardening
New Articles
- Quantum Readiness Considerations for Suppliers and Manufacturers
- A Rad Hard ASIC Design Approach: Triple Modular Redundancy (TMR)
- Early Interactive Short Isolation for Faster SoC Verification
- The Ideal Crypto Coprocessor with Root of Trust to Support Customer Complete Full Chip Evaluation: PUFcc gained SESIP and PSA Certified™ Level 3 RoT Component Certification
- Advanced Packaging and Chiplets Can Be for Everyone
Most Popular
- System Verilog Macro: A Powerful Feature for Design Verification Projects
- System Verilog Assertions Simplified
- Smart Tracking of SoC Verification Progress Using Synopsys' Hierarchical Verification Plan (HVP)
- Dynamic Memory Allocation and Fragmentation in C and C++
- Synthesis Methodology & Netlist Qualification