Some really good points there. It's all about motivating change,...

Some really good points there. It's all about motivating change, and both cost and performance will be essential to that, both for the product designer and the fab.

The costs to the product designer will include not only the cost of the IP, but also their internal costs for redesign and hiring etc. The costs for the fab include both of these plus any retooling, which is massive.

For both designer and fab, there will be a cost benefit analysis. In their analysis (whether done consciously or unconsciously), in order to motivate change, the benefits of changing cant just be just equal to the costs, or even outweigh them slightly, but rather should clearly outweigh them, representing a clear advantage. The threshold for change is often a little more than equal in a cost benefit analysis, coz we are always accustomed to absorbing some degree of pain. Why change if it roughly equal or even only a little better? That's not human nature, human nature requires a little bit more of a push than that.

I'm guessing the reason most metal oxide ReRam have not taken off is precisely because of this. While these ReRams have a lot of advantages, there isn't a broad advantage in terms of all the costs and all benefits to really make that push.

I think that, if any ReRam is going to make any first inroads, it has to be silicon, as this removes the (vast majority of) retooling costs, and allows the negotiations to focus on how much the savings are passed on to (a) the fab and (b) the product designer and (c) the tech developer (ie wbt, or us). This is a much better starting position than metal oxide IMO.

I suspect that an initial agreement, if it is really gna get the participants over the line, may also need to include some one off concessions. Personally i would welcome any, as it is all part of doing business, as long as the limitations of the concessions were clearly spelled out, e.g. such as contract phase 1, phase 2 and so on.

Anyway, all just my Sat am musings, and all imo. Happy to be corrected etc.

glta