Doug S (foo.delete@this.bar.bar) on November 1, 2020 8:45 am wrote:
> Michael S (already5chosen.delete@this.yahoo.com) on October 31, 2020 8:53 am wrote:
> > I am not sure that it makes sense economically for FPGA company to become an early adapter of the
> > new process. Very new chips are tiny part of the revenue, so why overpay for their production?
> > It seems, typically FPGAs start to ship production parts on the process that is 1-1.5 years old.
> > With likes of Apple overpaying for new stuff, may be, by now it should e closer to 2 years.
>
>
> New chips may be a tiny part of their revenue, but if they can get customers to pay high enough prices
> for them that they make a nice profit why not sell them? If you assume they will go to that latest process
> eventually, they are going to have to pay the design/mask costs anyway it is just a matter of when.
>
> Also not sure why you think Apple is "overpaying" for new stuff. Apple is able to use all the new
> transistors they get with each process - most of them went into the NPU on the A13->A14 jump so they
> obviously have some reasons for that. In a couple years they will probably have their own modem ready
> and that will be their use for the additional billions of transistors N3 will provide.
>
> Anyway, supposedly the reason Apple gets first crack is not because they are paying more than others but
> because they are paying TSMC well in advance. Having a guaranteed customer of Apple's scale providing a
> lot of the funding and thereby reducing the risk makes it easier for TSMC to stay on the leading edge.

That's correct. I believe Huawei might have been more $ than Apple. But Apple funds new process development.

David