Comment by bArray
11 hours ago
> Those with a bit of silicon savvy would note that it’s not cheap to produce such a chip, yet, I have not raised a dollar of venture capital. I’m also not independently wealthy. So how is this possible?
What kind of order of magnitude of cost are we talking about?
What are the next steps - is there some service to cut the wafer and put into a package for you?
The masks alone are single digit millions, but with all the design tools and staff costs typically tens of millions is the benchmark number for a tape out in this node.
After coming out of the fab, the chips go through probing, packaging and reeling.
> The masks alone are single digit millions,
Ah, another reason why hardware erratas get fixed so rarely (I assume - along with retesting of course).
Can you share something about the subsequent per-chip manufacturing costs?
Rule of thumb is that a processed wafer from 28nm and older is around $3k/wafer and the cost goes up kind of exponentially towards the smaller nodes. Also, in general, the fab wants you to order a "FOUP" of wafers at a time - that's 25 wafers at a go.