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The paper referenced was written in a way to help people outside the industry understand the economic advances we all enjoyed during the run up to the dilemma we face today. As an insider who understands these advances, you might want to skip the first five or six pages. Beyond that though, I...
The economic data are very well aligned with the paper published here a couple years ago, "Moore's Law is Dead; Long-live the Chiplett." Keep in mind, Moore's Law was a purely economic statement / prediction; of course, based on the anticipated advances in fabrication technology.
I think shrinking continues for another decade or so, but the economic advantages (leverage) of shrinking have clearly wound down. While often ignored, Moore's Law was about the economics driven by technological advances. Fixed costs have exploded during the last decade and variable costs have...
The economic frictions of legal, accounting and regulatory compliance have all increased considerably during the last couple of decades. In some sectors, these increased fixed costs have already led to consolidation and a lack of new companies entering the sectors.
You are spot on. There has been an enormous misallocation of resources and capital to produce nothing useful. Capital misallocations were instrumental in the 2000/01 and 2008/09 market crashes.
As of August 2020 the estimates of total worldwide electricity used for crypto-mining range from...
"Cost" and "Price" are two entirely different things. Price is always based on the balance of supply and demand - those price hikes are largely due to demand being higher than supply. Cost, however, is much more predictable. Depreciation is the biggest factor for cost per wafer, but even as...
Yield typically improves over time, so cost per known good die decline. Depreciation costs also decline. However, the variable cost to run a wafer (net of yield improvements and lower depreciation of fixed costs) don't decline notably.