Chip War: The Quest to Dominate the World’s Most Critical Technology (Book Recommendation)

It’s always good to expand your circle of competence and learn new things.

Chip War: The Quest to Dominate the World’s Most Critical Technology, by Chris Miller, is a fascinating book that walks you through the history of the semiconductor industry and all of its major players. While also explaining why semiconductors are critical to the modern world.

I went into this book with zero expectations.

In fact, I thought the subject matter would be boring and abstract.

I was dead-wrong.

Chip War explains exactly why semiconductors are critical to almost everything we use.

And, the book details how semiconductors have revolutionized war, international politics, national security, and espionage.

Last year, the chip industry produced more transistors than the combined quantity of all goods produced by all other companies, in all other industries, in all human history. Nothing else comes close.

— Chris Miller, Chip War

60 years ago, a cutting-edge microchip carried four transistors. Today, a single chip within the iPhone 12 houses 11.8 billion.

But, that early jump from zero transistors to four changed everything.

At the start of the Vietnam War, the U.S. Military listed the Thanh Hoa Dragon’s Jaw bridge as the 14th most important enemy target. The bridge, was 540 feet long — with a rail track in the center, and highway lanes on either side.

The United States Airforce launched 871 strikes against the bridge.

But none of their conventional bombs could hit the target.

Looking for a more precise way destroy their target, the Airforce contracted Texas Instruments to help design the first ever laser-guided bomb — the Paveway I.

This new weapon would utilize transistor technology to hone-in on its target, rather than relying on pilots to manually aim and time their attacks.