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Semiconductors tragedy: 5nm LSI SOC design cost will be around $500 millions
  • Vitaliy_KiselevVitaliy_Kiselev

    At 5nm it’s likely that only a few companies will be able to afford it. “It will be expensive,” Johnson said. “Manufacturing costs at 5nm will probably be 2.5 to 3 times more than at the 16nm/14nm generation. Design costs will continue to skyrocket. This will put fully integrated 5nm chips out of reach for a large number of consumer applications, and limit them to only the market segments demanding the highest levels of performance and (those) willing to pay for it.”

    At 5nm, it will cost $500 million or more to design a complex system-on-a-chip (SoC), according to Gartner. In comparison, it will cost $271 million to design a 7nm SoC, roughly 9 times the cost for a 28nm planar device.

    http://semiengineering.com/uncertainty-grows-for-5nm-3nm/

    Future of camera industry is written above.

    It is also one of core things that lies in Samsung decision to pull NX from market, as their NX1 LSI was 28nm and next 2016 LSI was designed as 16nm device with 2018 plan to go to 10nm. With their sales volume you can't cover even design expenses already.

  • 2 Replies sorted by
  • wordsofpeacewordsofpeace

    I don't see the point of camera companies going beyond a certain point in LSI. Sure they need to shift a lot of data in camera, but I think a point will come where that data shifting levels off, if it isn't already close now. I'm speaking generally here and as you say sales volumes of the NX1 couldn't support all the R&D costs for the next model.

  • Vitaliy_KiselevVitaliy_Kiselev

    I don't see the point of camera companies going beyond a certain point in LSI. Sure they need to shift a lot of data in camera, but I think a point will come where that data shifting levels off, if it isn't already close now.

    Did not understand fully that you mean. can you explain in more detail?

    Sensors become faster, and you need more and more postprocessing, plus video resolution increases. All this just requires more transistors. If you don't shrink LSI - it'll just heat more.

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