> 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?

Of course there is. Even if the chip is never released to the public, the IP and processes used to produce a 7nm chip have great patent value.

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?