Not when you're estimating the cost to develop a specific chip. I can avoid the per-project NRE by simply not doing the project.
And, again, if a project produces more chips, then more of the fab production costs will be amortized across that project. The definition of Non-Recurring Engineering costs are that they are fixed and don't increase as the unit volume goes up: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-recurring_engineering
The way the fab could be considered NRE is if the fab were built only for this chip. (Or if a fixed percent of it was). In advance.
And, again, if a project produces more chips, then more of the fab production costs will be amortized across that project. The definition of Non-Recurring Engineering costs are that they are fixed and don't increase as the unit volume goes up: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-recurring_engineering
The way the fab could be considered NRE is if the fab were built only for this chip. (Or if a fixed percent of it was). In advance.