That IBS chart seems a bit baloney, why does the cost and cost share of software grow so dramatically at smaller nodes? It seems like most of the cost share increase would come from validation and physical design.
I personally think that at this point, success (and hardware interest) in commodity RISC-V server hardware is mainly contingent on the availability of major compilers and runtime libraries, but that is necessary regardless of process technology. I don't know of many operators/users of server hardware who have any considerable investment in any ISA-locked software (except the odd proprietary package which would not honestly be too difficult to convince vendors to basically just recompile).
Those "chip design estimates" are nearly always bs. For example, their "estimate" for what a 7nm chip would cost to develop was the next gen nvidia GPU. Literally one of the most complicated and expensive chips to design and yet for some reason they chose that to be representative of average.
>why does the cost and cost share of software grow so dramatically at smaller nodes?
My guess is that the main reason is market segmentation. If you're willing to work at a smaller node, then you're willing to spend more money, and the software vendors can charge more.
I personally think that at this point, success (and hardware interest) in commodity RISC-V server hardware is mainly contingent on the availability of major compilers and runtime libraries, but that is necessary regardless of process technology. I don't know of many operators/users of server hardware who have any considerable investment in any ISA-locked software (except the odd proprietary package which would not honestly be too difficult to convince vendors to basically just recompile).