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How Japan Learned Semiconductors

Asianometry1 HN recommenders · 2022–2023
228K views · explainer · evergreen · Uploaded 2022-06-05

Asianometry traces the 30-year rise and peak of Japan's semiconductor industry from the 1950s to the 1980s, covering how a postwar country gained competence in an emerging technology.

HN points to it as an excellent history of how Japan entered chips, including government-coordinated cooperation like the VLSI project.

Semiconductors & chip manufacturingTech industry & business modelsHistory of computing

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3 comments from Hacker News

@dijonman22022 · in “Apple M2 Die Shot and Architecture Analysis – Big Cost Increase and A15 Based IP”

Chip manufacturing is difficult, this reminds me of the Japanese entry into the semiconductor market. There is an excellent video on this for anyone interested in Japanese culture and the war against USA via semiconductors: [VIDEO]

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@kalleboo2022 · in “Japan, U.S. to launch R&D for 2-nm chip mass production”

Japan's original chip industry lead was created by the government funding a bunch of also-rans to cooperate (and have each participant focus on one part of the job) instead of compete (where every team is spread too thin trying to do the whole hog) [VIDEO]

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@amrb2023 · in “A CERN for Open Source Large-Scale AI”

Japan did have the VLSI project a group of there largest companies: [VIDEO] For Europe I could see a bigger group of companies, schools and researchers working towards open models with funding. This would allow EU companies to be competitive with the US while not duplicating effort, more eyes on the problem too. Maybe alignment work could be a goal, since the driver is not profit at any cost this time.

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