Comment by LeFantome

The idea that a chip takes more "personnel" than an operating system or a codec is wrong. An individual can make toys of either software or hardware. "Real" ones take dozens or hundreds of people. There are 5000 people involved in the Linux kernel. That is design, not production. Production (manufacturing) is what is free in software.

The Linux kernel may be "free" but it represents millions of man hours (or years) of engineering. Creating a viable RISC-V chip would be easier.

Creating the AV2 video codec cost money. I assure you. There is a reason that the Alliance for Open Media is a list of Fortune 500 companies and not a bunch of individual developers.

I have worked in industries dominated by a single chip supplier that made the chips that everybody used. Video surveillance is a good example. It would have been much cheaper for the major players in that industry to fund the collaborative development of chips they could all use and that could maybe be "tweaked" to add differentiated value for the largest players. It would save them money. It would give them more control (even more valuable).

I assume you know what a "chiplet" is. RISC-V is going to change things. In my view, you are focused on the wrong constraints.

We are both saying that money matters. We are simply coming to different conclusions about what that means.