Spinning up a chip isn't as easy is uploading your Eagle CAD file to a Fab and punching in unit quantities. Each Fab's manufacturing process has certain design constrains that will most likely require some amount of custom design and layout. Certain designs might not even be possible on certain processes.
They certainly can go to TMSC or GF with their designs but it will take time (months or years) to validate the designs, and money to make it happen. And this doesn't even take into account Fab capacities. TMSC and GF might be committed to other firms and not have capacity for this new work.
The 5G rollout has already started and vendors should have been shipping their products by now. Not having anything for the first wave means you're going to lose most of the market.
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Spinning up a chip isn't as easy is uploading your Eagle CAD file to a Fab and punching in unit quantities. Each Fab's manufacturing process has certain design constrains that will most likely require some amount of custom design and layout. Certain designs might not even be possible on certain processes.
They certainly can go to TMSC or GF with their designs but it will take time (months or years) to validate the designs, and money to make it happen. And this doesn't even take into account Fab capacities. TMSC and GF might be committed to other firms and not have capacity for this new work.
The 5G rollout has already started and vendors should have been shipping their products by now. Not having anything for the first wave means you're going to lose most of the market.