There are for sure companies buying chips to make miners to sell them, good business certainly.
I wish we could begin some type of "Crowd Fund" project for all of us other than the current makers of mining rigs.
I'm not sure how much money is involved with engineering and designing a 16nm chip?
I'm not sure how long the process is for engineering and designing a 16nm chip for bitcoin mining?
I'm not sure how much a substantial size order of the wafers for the chips would cost?
I'm not sure how much the engineering and design would cost for the boards the chips would go on?
Bottom line, I'm not sure how much the cost would be [Ball park figure from start to finish] to engineer, design and manufacture a 16nm rig(s). It may be that 2 or 3 different 16nm rigs could be designed and manufactured to meet the needs of all levels of home miners [no matter how small or large they are]. Maybe only one size should be made that would appeal to all levels...
Certainly, we as a community, can come together to figure out a way to do this. No?
EDIT: If we, as a community, are going to overcome the threat of 51% control by one company or 90% control by 3 or 4 companies, we have to work together to compete. We have strength in numbers. It doesn't matter how small or large an individual investment is. There is strength in numbers.
There would have to be a minimum dollar amount on what an individual invests. The issue is determining what that amount would be.
The minimum amount would basically be equivalent to the "cost" [from start to finish] for one rig. The issue is determining the cost from start to finish for that one rig out of many. The profits made from that rig by the initial investment would be left up to the investor by their operating costs when mining with that rig or number of rigs.
Once the community is able to determine the approximate amount of funds needed for a certain number of rigs, an escrow account of some type can be created for a crowd fund to receive the funding for that amount. Those funds would not be touched unless the determined amount is reached for implementation. If that amount is not reached by a certain time frame, everyone would simply get their funds returned back to them.
We would have to decide if the funds invested with bitcoin should remain in bitcoin or should the bitcoin be converted into USD to avoid volatility? There are all kinds of things to consider in a type of venture like this.