I'm sure there's a lot of interesting dirt here. But some of the analysis is a little weird. The cost-per-transistor metric isn't the right one, for a start. Imagine a world where you could get all the 1975-era 5v 74HCxx chips you wanted for free, with zero manufacturing cost. Would you choose to build a smartphone out of them? Of course not. The newer transistors are better (faster, lower power) and the products built out of them are more valuable.
So yes, production costs have increased. And that may have (is having, I guess) effects on the speed at which new technologies are adopted (i.e. the crossover into "worth it" is delayed).
But isn't that just a way of saying that semiconductors are finally becoming a mature technology? That's not really such a shock, nor does it justify the poo-flinging at TSMC.
So the real question in my mind is whether TSMC is having problems that the other foundries (Samsung or Global Foundries, say) are not. Given that Intel has been sampling 22nm parts already, it seems like the real news hers is that TSMC sucks and the bit about production costs are just ammunition.
Thanks to the end of Dennard scaling, newer transistors are only marginally better. If NVidia doesn't care about those marginal improvements in performance and power, it seems legitimate for them to complain about price.
If an entire industry's financial projections are based on exponential improvement then becoming a mature technology is apocalyptic, especially if it happens earlier than predicted.
So yes, production costs have increased. And that may have (is having, I guess) effects on the speed at which new technologies are adopted (i.e. the crossover into "worth it" is delayed).
But isn't that just a way of saying that semiconductors are finally becoming a mature technology? That's not really such a shock, nor does it justify the poo-flinging at TSMC.
So the real question in my mind is whether TSMC is having problems that the other foundries (Samsung or Global Foundries, say) are not. Given that Intel has been sampling 22nm parts already, it seems like the real news hers is that TSMC sucks and the bit about production costs are just ammunition.