This is a lucid and well-researched history of what is now known as ‘The Chip’. It has been around for decades, but the chip was previously better known as the semi-conductor. Hence the key companies are acronyms that has this word – Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) and Semi-conductor Manufacturing International Corporation (SMIC).
Miller tells the story of the tech companies that arose from the use and manufacture of the chip. We have all seen computers and laptops with the logo ‘Intel Inside’. The story of how Intel got inside is part of the fascinating history. Another aspect concerns the question, how Taiwan, Korea, and Japan became giants in the field of manufacturing the chips when the technology emanated from Silicon Valley? We are also treated to how Silicon Valley got its name, and who the early denizens were. The chip industry is also about personalities, Noyce, Chang, Morita, and many others. It is a story about scientists and researchers as well as politicians and generals.
Factories in Asian countries produce the world’s supply of chips. But how do they make them? That brings us to the story of the small Dutch company called ASML. Chips are so sensitive that not only are the factories required to have the most stringent facilities and workers, they need precision machines – EUV lithography machines that produces the kind of accuracy to hit a 10 cent coin as far away as the moon.
Given the importance of the chip, a secondary industry emerged – espionage. Miller explains not just the military importance of the chip, but how that in turn, has a bearing on the world economy. The picture is complex because the making of the chip is the product of a highly integrated globalised process. It is complicated, but the book is not.
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Adam M. Glinsman
Very superficial analysis of the subject
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Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on 13 February 2023
It is all the more annoying as there is no quick and easy way to solve the problem. I cant send the book back as i am currently outside the uk
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