Book recs for the tech wars
- “Chip War”, by Chris Miller
This was really the standout book of the bunch; it appears on many lists of “best books of 2022”, and the acclaim is well-deserved. Miller offers a real master class on how to write an accessible, engaging book about an esoteric technical subject. He starts with the narrative of how the U.S. invented the semiconductor industry, and how it defended its supremacy in that industry from challenges by the USSR and (especially) Japan. He then moves on to how the U.S. outsourced much of the industry to Taiwan, South Korea, and the Netherlands during the age of globalization, before finally discussing China’s challenge and the U.S. response in the 2010s.
All along the way, Miller explains the intricacies of chipmaking technology in surprisingly clear and simple terms, from the days when silicon wafers were cut by hand, to the days when cutting-edge chipmaking requires the world’s most powerful lasers and the world’s smoothest mirrors. At the end of this book, if you didn’t know already, you’ll understand the difference between the capital requirements of the NAND flash memory industry and the DRAM industry, between DUV and EUV lithography, and between a foundry and a fabless design firm. And you’ll have enjoyed learning about them, because they were interwoven seamlessly with stories about the colorful heroes of the chip industry, like Bob Noyce, Morris Chang, and Andy Grove.
My favorite thing about Miller’s book, though, is the relentless focus on why the chip industry is so strategically important. As I wrote in a post last year, it’s really all about precision weaponry. The pinpoint HIMARS strikes that are devastating Russian forces in Ukraine, the precision bombs that decimated Iraqi forces in 1991, and the long-range missiles that China is building for a possible war over Taiwan all rely crucially on advanced computer chips to tell them where the enemy is. Semiconductors mean death on delivery. And in the age of AI this will only be more true.
Anyway, to make a long story short, the U.S. is winning the semiconductor wars for now. Despite the fragmentation of the supply chain for the highest-end chips, all the basic components are in the hands of either the U.S. or its allies.