Industry Expert Blogs

We agree now that FD-SOI technology is Faster, Cooler, Simpler. But can it also be a cheaper technology? Let start with an overview of the current estimation of the development cost for complex SoC on advanced technology nodes. The following data are extracted from International Business Strategies, Inc 2013 report. The first picture shows the Hardware Design Cost evolution in respect with the target design node. The exponential nature of the growth rate is known for a couple of years at least, I think it’s good to remind these data points:

• 28nm H/W Design cost is: $50M
• 20nm H/W Design cost is: $95M
• 16/14nm H/W Design cost jump to $193M

Because a chip maker will have to integrate these development cost into the Integrated Circuit (IC) selling price, it should target a market large enough to sell several dozen million IC, if not hundred million. And this chip maker should target a technology offering the cheapest cost per gate data point.

Click here to read more ...