Nvidia CEO said they spent $10 Billon dollars on R&D for their new chip. What exactly does an R&D worker do all day? Where does this money go?

Question

How does a chip go from being an academic theory to a $10 billion R&D Project?

In: Technology

Answer 1

It is vague. Because it could mean $10b for just the current model or it could include all the previous models/architecture to finally get to where we are.

A lot of the money goes towards the machines. These chips have to be made using specific and very specialized machines. These machines typically cannot be reused because they are designed to assemble and make the chips at a microscopic level. And we get smaller and smaller with each new generation of chips. In other words we put more stuff on the chips if the machine can do it more precisely at a smaller level.