The small foundries betting on open silicon

A handful of smaller chip fabrication plants running older, fully depreciated production lines have found a new customer base in openly licensed chip designs, which typically do not need the leading-edge processes that dominate industry investment.

For these foundries, older equipment that would otherwise sit idle or be decommissioned becomes commercially viable again. For open-hardware designers, it means access to manufacturing capacity without competing for slots on the newest process nodes.

The arrangement suits both sides precisely because neither is trying to compete at the performance frontier.