Name: Pierre's review of Chip War by Chris Miller
Item: Chip War
Rating: 5
Author: Pierre

Chris Miller

An epic account of the decades-long battle to control what has emerged as the world’s most critical resource—microchip technology—with the United States and China increasingly in conflict. You may be surprised to learn that microchips are the new oil—the scarce resource on which the modern world depends. Today, military, economic, and geopolitical power are built on a foundation of computer chips. Virtually everything—from missiles to microwaves—runs on chips, including cars, smartphones, the stock market, even the electric grid. Until recently, America designed and built the fastest chips and maintained its lead as the #1 superpower, but America’s edge is in danger of slipping, undermined by players in Taiwan, Korea, and Europe taking over manufacturing. Now, as Chip War reveals, China, which spends more on chips than any other product, is pouring billions into a chip-building initiative to catch up to the US. At stake is America’s military superiority and economic prosperity. Economic historian Chris Miller explains how the technology works and why it’s so important, recounting the fascinating events that led to the United States perfecting the chip design, and to America’s victory in the Cold War by using faster chips to render the Soviet Union’s arsenal of precision-guided weapons obsolete. But lately, America has let key components of the chip-building process slip out of its grasp, leading to a worldwide chip shortage and a new war brewing with a superpower adversary that is desperate to bridge the gap. Illuminating, timely, and fascinating, Chip War shows that, to make sense of the current state of politics, economics, and technology, we must first understand the vital role played by chips.

The Fight for the World's Most Critical Technology

Chip War

Karen Hinh

Pierre

Excellent book: geopolitics and advanced electronics. Hyper-relevant and, despite the flag on the cover, not overly nationalistic. Very educational: it even clears some myths (including about supply chain, for example). I recommend this book to anyone interested in global dynamics and technological progress.

Maurice FitzGerald

Readable compelling. A little overboard on the internet of things. Thinks we need chips in coffeemakers

Andrew John Kinney

I was completely engaged while reading this, because I worked at Texas Instruments, and subsequently at Silicon Valley-based companies for over 30 years. Almost half the book is devoted to the history of the semiconductor industry, and as one who has spent the vast majority of his adult life involved in the tech industry, I found this part fascinating. I did not know that Taiwan's TSMC was founded by an American, Morris Chang, who had been passed over for CEO at Texas Instruments. I had somehow missed the fact that Bob Noyce, of Fairchild Semiconductor fame, also founded Intel. I was not aware of the Dutch company, ASML, and the phenomenal machines it builds to etch ultra-fine silicon chips. Part of my ignorance is explained by the fact that I long ago left the engineering side of tech to enter supply chain management, but I felt a little sheepish nonetheless, not knowing some of the facts about the industry. My other excuse is that I've been on the assembly / integration side of things from the start, not on the semiconductor foundry / fab side.

The book explains the various types of chips, from memory to analog to RF to logic to processors to GPU's, and the various architectures like X86, ARM, and RISC. Chris Miller does an excellent job describing just how amazingly difficult it is to manufacture high-end chips, and how few companies and countries can actually do it. The EUV etching machine manufactured by ASML to create these high-end chips is arguably the most complex machine tool ever created by humans. No other company can successfully build them, and only a few, like TSMC, Intel, Samsung and a handful of others can successfully use them to fabricate silicon wafers. Notably, none of those companies are in China. The only places high end silicon can be successfully manufactured is Taiwan, Korea, Japan, USA, Singapore, and a few places in Western Europe. But over 40% of new computing capacity comes from TSMC in Taiwan, and that's a problem.

A big reason the Ukrainians are defeating the Russians is because they are using Western "smart" weapons which are full of semiconductors - think Javelin anti-tank missiles, Stinger anti-aircraft missiles, and Harpoon anti-ship missiles, not to mention drones. The technological advantage of the US military is huge, but many of the chips used in US weapons are made (the silicon, anyway) in Taiwan. More than 90% of chips are designed in the US or UK, but the majority are manufactured in other countries, mostly Taiwan. This is a large national security problem for the US, given China's public policy to "re-integrate" Taiwan.

Given the strategic nature of high-end computing systems and the need for chips in almost everything, from cars to iPhones to washing machines, it was high time the US got a little bit serious about an industrial policy to encourage US chip makers to manufacture at least some of the silicon wafers for key devices in the US via the CHIPS Act. The bad news is, it takes 4-5 years to get a wafer fab up and running, so we won't see the benefits too soon. We'll just have to hope China does not invade Taiwan before 2027 or so, and I really hope the Pentagon is releasing lots of orders to replace all the weapons being used in Ukraine, because Taiwan also needs as many anti-ship, anti-aircraft, and anti-tank weapons as they can stockpile.

Chip War is an excellent overview of where we are and where we're going with regard to semiconductors, and the reality is we are going to need more and more (and hopefully better and better) each year. At least some of the highest-end chips need to be manufactured in the US if we want to a) be safe from blackmail or attack by China, and b) retain our current edge in high tech.

Comprehensive overview of the history of the semiconductor industry and its impact on global trade and geopolitics.

In depth background and stories of the industry's most integral innovators and executives that left their mark in academics, industry, or both.

Mikey

Comprehensive overview of the history of the semiconductor industry and its impact on global trade and geopolitics.

In depth background and stories of the industry's most integral innovators and executives that left their mark in academics, industry, or both.

Karen Hinh &
Chip War by Chris Miller

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Karen Hinh &Chip War by Chris Miller

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Karen Hinh &
Chip War by Chris Miller