Chip War

This was a good one. I liked reading it. It was a lot more business oriented than I expected, very much a historical exploration focused on international interactions, supply chains, and the prominent figures who influenced the industry. I was hoping for a little more of a technical exploration of semiconductors. There was some of that, including a bit about EUV technology, but it wasn’t the main focus.

I think the main point of the book is that we’re growing up in a world dominated by these chips, and it’s not always apparent how much they dominate it. They’re in everything, and the supply chain has a few choke points. It’s such a revolutionary technology, but it’s also moving quicker than almost anybody expected.

People made predictions about how many transistors could fit on a chip that must have seemed like crazy numbers at the time, and then those numbers kept getting surpassed. It feels like Moore’s law just keeps going. Yeah, it was good. It was enjoyable.