[dragontamer]

There are only 4 companies that make chips anymore, at least at the latest CPU technology.

GloFo (serving IBM and AMD), TSMC (Serving Apple, NVidia), Samsung (serving Qualcomm, Samsung), and Intel (serving themselves).

GloFo ran out of money this year however, and will no longer compete with the high-end. Forcing AMD to make their next generation chip on TSMC.

Memory makers are their own market, and are ignored (ex: Micron).

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Fabless just means you send your chip designs to one of these fabrication labs (TSMC or Samsung... since GloFo is now out). And its TSMC or Samsung who makes the chips for you.

[eeZah7Ux]

This level of centralization is a disaster.

[dragontamer]

It costs over a billion dollars to build a new fab lab on the latest tech. Maybe $5 billion or more.

Fewer and fewer companies can even attempt to reach 7nm. Its the nature of the beast. The technology is approaching silicon's natural limits, and the amount of research and development needed to advance is getting more and more costly.

[eeZah7Ux]

Allowing the fabs to be in the hands of private investors and under a dictatorial government is well beyond "the nature of the beast".

That level of secrecy and lack of accountability is not a necessary evil.