I'm not an IC designer, but from what I understand MOSIS (https://www.mosis.com/what-is-mosis) is reasonably priced, for some definition of "reasonable". You don't get to use the latest technologies/feature sizes, but you do get to do small volume prototype runs for somewhere in the neighbourhood of $10,000.
Looking around a bit to verify the pricing landed me at: http://www.cmc.ca/en/WhatWeOffer/Make/FabPricing.aspx. Those prices are likely subsidized from somewhere, but they bring things into the "totally approachable" realm. Here in Canada, if you were going to do an IC fabrication startup, it'd probably make a lot of sense to go through NSERC anyway; they have a lot of programs where you can get a significant portion of your employment and R&D costs covered.
Yeah, they were talking about this on the Amp Hour a few episodes ago. There's some universities that actually fab a physical chip as part of their coursework using MOSIS. If I remember correctly there was an edu discount.
Looking around a bit to verify the pricing landed me at: http://www.cmc.ca/en/WhatWeOffer/Make/FabPricing.aspx. Those prices are likely subsidized from somewhere, but they bring things into the "totally approachable" realm. Here in Canada, if you were going to do an IC fabrication startup, it'd probably make a lot of sense to go through NSERC anyway; they have a lot of programs where you can get a significant portion of your employment and R&D costs covered.
Edit: Looks like TSMC will also do things like this directly, but without specifying prices: http://www.tsmc.com/english/dedicatedFoundry/services/cyberS...