> Making chips is a commodity business. The skill is in the design and patenting

There's no point in designing (& patenting) a fancy chip that can't be manufactured in yields high enough to get a profit, is there? An approximate analogy would be wireframing a web application prototype (design) vs. egnineering the site so that it scales to millions of users (making chips).

More on-topic, IBM probably announced a 7 chip that can't be manafactured with acceptable yields yet. Hypothetically, Intel could design a 5nm chip with < 0.1% yields: but what would be point?

Without owning the foundry, it's not clear if this is an IBM tech demo that goes nowhere, or if it effects GF's roadmap. GF uses a Samsung process for 14nm (really 14/20 hybrid), so it really looks like IBM is out of the foundry business as far as taking a process all the way to manufacturing.

GF might leapfrog down to 7nm, but if they aren't even fully 14nm at this point, does that really seem plausible?