https://semiaccurate.com/2015/11/18/arm-charts-path-printed-...
These aren't better than silicon, but they probably will be close enough shortly.
After that, Moore's Law should go operational. And these have a huge advantage in terms of non-recurring expense.
Think taking all of the "maker" stuff but creating a chip instead of a PCB.
You missed the point. The point isn't to replace 14nm transistors.
The point is to allow engineers to do VLSI design like PCB design.
There are lots of interesting things that can even be done with 5um or 10um transistors, but we can't get there because the non-recurring expense is too high.
Here is an example: guitar pedals--specifically the analog delay ones. These pedals all use an ancient MN3205 bucket brigade CCD chip. The chip is dead simple to make, but since the volume is too low to offset the NRE, nobody is willing to make it.
If, however, you could design that chip with an NRE of $1,000 instead of $100,000, you could make a tidy profit. In addition, you would probably pull all of the other functions of the pedal into the chip as well.
There are also other nice benefits to using older and larger transistors. One of them is voltage tolerance. Modern transistors can't take voltages at even 3.3V in many cases, while the old 10um transistors could go to 18V (old school 4000 series CMOS was specified from 3V-18V for most chips).
The point isn't to replace silicon transistors. It's to create a completely separate market at a different volume point.
> These aren't better than silicon, but they probably will be close enough shortly.
If you had said:
> The point isn't to replace silicon transistors. It's to create a completely separate market at a different volume point.
We would have no disagreement. You changed your initial entire statement.