[lizknope]

What's interesting to one person can be boring to another. I'm assuming you are on the analog side and find that stuff interesting. I'm on the digital side and was in a serdes team for 10 years and I'm glad to be gone.

You're absolutely right though that companies pick the process node based on the application. Everything I'm working on now is 5nm or smaller. Our customers DO want faster processors but we also have lots of serdes for 400+ gigabit networking and other stuff. I have friends doing DC power converters in 180nm. That's over 20 years old now but still useful for a lot of applications.

I worked at another startup and you're right about some things not being VC compatible. They want big investments and big payoffs. They aren't interested in investing in companies with lower risk but steady smaller profits.