Chip War Paperback – 4 October 2022

During the war in Vietnam, the American forces in a bombing campaign named ‘Operation Rolling Thunder’, stretched from 1965 to 1968, dropped over eight hundred thousand tons of bombs, more than was dropped in the Pacific Theater during all of World War II. This had little impact on North Vietnam’s military, since most of the bombs missed their target.Whereas, on January 17, 1991, two US F-117s stealth bombers, took off from their airbase in Saudi Arabia and released two two-thousand-pound LASER-GUIDED bombs on the twelve-storey telephone exchange building on Baghdad’s Rashid Street, scoring direct hits, knocking out Iraq’s critical communications center. Simultaneously, 116 Tomahawk cruise missiles fired from US naval ships offshore slammed into their targets; military command posts, air force headquarters and power stations, with pin point accuracy. The Iraqi military was in shock, disorganised and in retreat as the world watched these events from the comfort of their homes on CNN. The silicon chip had won the Iraqi war. This book is the fascinating story of this powerful technology that has structured our history and will shape our future.It is also unique in the sense that it covers multiple facets of the highly complex Silicon Chip; Technological, Historical, Commercial, Global and Strategic.Firstly, it traces the birth of the semi-conductor technology, starting from 1945, when William Shockley first theorised what he called a ‘solid state valve’. On the afternoon of December 16,1947, the first rudimentary semiconductor device was switched on successfully at Bell Labs’ headquarters by John Bardeen and Walter Brattain. The “transistor” was born. Soon Robert Noyce and Jack Kilby were credited for inventing the first ‘Integrated Circuit’. ‘Moore’s law’ laid the foundation for the exponential growth of the power of the silicon chip.Next is the excellent description of the entire global value chain and the companies involved in leadership positions at critical points. Chip design is led in the USA by companies like Apple, AMD, Intel, Amazon, TI, IBM, TESLA, Facebook, Nvidia and Google and these form the architecture or blueprint of the circuit on the silicon chip. Silicon chip manufacture is a capital-intensive operation costing over USD 20 billion, with short lifespans (high Clock Speeds) and hence independent chip manufacturers share their capacities across multiple customers to quickly absorb costs. Since chip assembly was labor intensive, it was off-shored to locations like Taiwan, South Korea and Malaysia. Soon Taiwan led by TSMC (founded by Morris Chang), emerged the global leader in chip fabrication. ASLM of Netherlands has over 80 percent market share in the EUV (Extreme Ultra-violet Lithography) technology that enables ‘printing’ of miniature circuits, as thin as 3 nanometers.Intel’s decision to exit from DRAM chips and enter logic chips is the story of ‘Only the Paranoid Survive’, once again brought in with a refreshing touch.Though ‘Moore’s Law’ is technically coming to its limit in terms of the density of transistors in a chip, the computing power of the chip is expected to rise at least a hundred-fold, thanks to new technologies like 3D FinFET transistors and ‘gate-all-around’.We realise the importance of the silicon chip, and in its absence all our appliances, cars, power stations and even a toaster would not function. In addition, as demonstrated in the Gulf War of 1991, silicon chips make the difference on the battlefield. The ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict is another example. Ukraine, with smart shoulder fired missiles like the Javelin that are guided by 20 silicon chips are able to effortlessly knock out Russia’s heavy armor and tanks.The sudden shortage of silicon chips in 2021 has awakened the world on the importance of this industry, the concentration of manufacturing and global choke points that need to be de-risked. While the cold war between USA and Russia is over, China is now a threat to the US military. China is in an envious position of being the biggest threat, and yet the biggest customer of US technology, importing more chips than oil. China has its eyes firmly on Taiwan and the Taiwan strait is militarily the most strategic theatre, should there be a conflict. Taiwan is a great temptation, since it manufactures 37 percent of all chips, and perhaps 80 percent of all high-end chips. Attempts by US to restrict export of latest chips to China have met with limited success. The chapter ‘Assault on Huawei’ narrates the US policy response to check the technological threat from China.The story of the chip is not over. With GPU, AI, 5G and many more advanced technologies, this is only the beginning of a new digital era.Not many books are so engaging, informative and thought-provoking. Exceptionally good.

I just finished reading this. This is easily one of the best books I have read in past few years. This tells the story of semiconductors industry from the beginning. How one of the mankind’s greatest innovations has been a playgoud of geopolitical power over last century.From Silicon Valley to rise of japan. From Taiwan’s entry into advanced manufacturing to tension between china and US to win silicon race. This also talks about companies like Intel , TSML, huwai, IBM, NVIDIA and how they are shaping computing for the world. Authors writing is fast paced and the subject matter is well researched. It’s a must read for every techie and non techie alike.

The book speaks volumes of development of transistor. How the circuit have changed and how the wired connections have evolved.The spacing of electronics generation-- has made it possible of what is there for the pinnacle of modern computing, and so forth.Thus modern chips how they are designed and how other modern computers architecture is based on.Overall a nice book to understand the basics of electronics and the modern evolution of Printed Circuit Board and modern architecture of Integrated chips.One can have a good read of the book.

“Chip War” is a detailed documentation of the history of silicon ships covering the early days of the industry and the early years of companies such as Texas Instruments and Intel, the attempts of countries such as Russia to emulate the American success, Japan’s (mainly Sony’s) rise, US’ eventual dominance, the emergence of Taiwan as an offshore centre and ending with the current geopolitical implications entering around China and Taiwan. The breadth of the book is tremendous, and Miller manages to cover it in about 350 crisp pages without skimping on the important details.The only complaint I had was that a major portion of the book is largely like a historical narrative on the subject, not surprising given Miller’s background as a historian. For someone like me who’s been a stock market analyst in the technology sector, most of the information was not new. But even then, there were these little nuggets of information, the small insights into events and people that took the industry forward and some interesting anecdotes that compensated for this. Also, the last part of the book which covers the future implications of this race between the US and China to get the upper hand in this area, exacerbated by China’s intent to eschew economic integration, constitutes a well-written opinion piece.Overall, “Chip War” is a fascinating read for all, easily understood by readers new to the topic and with enough nuggets to satisfy even those familiar with the topic. Jerry Sanders, co-founder of AMD, had famously said that semiconductors were the crude oil of the 1980s. Since then, their importance has only grown and one could argue that the outcome of this chip war has the potential to influence the future of individual countries and even humankind, making it an incredibly relevant topic and the book an interesting read.Pros: The breadth of coverage of the topic, interesting factoids and anecdotes, insightful discussion into the current and potential geopolitical implicationsCons: May drag a bit in places for readers familiar with the subject

Well researchedGood history of semiconductorsA bit slow at points but makes up for it with vast amount knowledge

Very well researched book on how the semiconductor industry grew around the world and which country controls what

One of the best books on technology history, rise of different countries and global geo politics.Must read for anyone who wants to understand the future.

Its a very good books. Except the printer has done his badly. Poor quality paper is used for printing which makes the book look old. For this reason I have cancelled the hard bound edition.