It worked. Graphics processors were an early example: Nvidia was started in 1993 with only $20 million, and never owned its own fab. Qualcomm, after losing millions manufacturing its earliest designs, spun off its chip-making unit in 2001 to concentrate on design, and Apple started building its own chips without a fab a decade later. Today there are thousands of chip designers in all kinds of niches creating specialized chips for everything from appliances to fighter jets, and none of them have their own fo