A shift is underway to develop chips for more narrowly defined market segments, and in much smaller production runs. Rather than focusing on shrinking features and reducing cost per transistor by the billions of units, the emphasis behind this shift is less about scale and much more about optimization for specific markets and delivering those solutions more quickly.

As automotive, consumer electronics, the cloud, and a number of industrial market slices edge toward more targeted designs, the metrics for success are shifting. Large SoCs glued together with software will continue to push the limits ofMoore’s Law in high-volume markets such as mobile phones, but it’s becoming clear that is no longer the only successful path forward. Squeezing every last penny out of the design and manufacturing processes is proving less important in some markets than providing a compelling solution within a given time frame.