All the companies in charge of producing the wafers of the processors or GPU, are reducing their manufacturing processes at a very high rate. So high that, if 5 years ago we were anchored in the Intel 14 nm process (as a lower process). Today, TSMC is about to begin the first production of its 5 nm process. And there are already plans, both by this company, and by Samsung, to produce at a 2 nm node by 2023.
Each of these node jumps implies a huge economic outlay for these companies. Not only need create the new process. They must also create the software, the machines for production, test it, etc., before being able to assure their customers that the manufacturing results they will obtain are optimal. To get the idea, in the following graph you can see how the production costs of the wafers are skyrocketing.
Jumping from the 16 nm to the 7 nm node has basically tripled the production price. But, if you look at the new 5 nm node, that price is quintupled. And, of course, all these costs will end up affecting the price of sale of these components.
PC components may no longer be affordable for everyone because of their price
All the great producers of PC hardware components need to use some factory. Both AMD and NVIDIA (to name a few) need to use the factories of TSMC or of Samsung to produce your CPUs or your GPUs. And, each time one of these factories reduces the node, this causes the sale price of the component to increase, given that the price rises to produce the wafer. To reach 7 nm, almost 300 million dollars were invested. But, to reach 5 nm, almost 550 million have been invested. And, to reach 2 nm, it is not ruled out that the billion dollars will be reached.
Which, clearly, could be indicating that the wafer manufacturing price I could keep increasing. And this will have a very negative impact on our pockets. Because these cost increases are going to be the users who have to end up paying them. And it is likely that consumer computing will end up becoming a farmhouse for only a few very large companies.
At the moment, the only two customers who will use the 5 nm node They are going to be Apple and Huawei. AMD does not plan to use this new node until next year, at the earliest, with the AMD Zen 4 models. Since new processors with the Zen 3 architecture will continue to use a refined mode of the current 7 nm node (7 nm +).
