Although the microchip is an American invention, early, unbridled competition among U.S. companies and the worldwide race for new products allowed the Japanese to move in on the microchip market. By the mid-1980s, Japan dominated the industry, in this country as well as abroad, and the U.S. semiconductor industry faced irrecoverable loss of production capability. Desperation led to the creation of Sematech.
In "Sematech, " Larry D. Browning and Judy C. Shetler trace the history of Sematech, a consortium formed by fourteen major American semiconductor manufacturers and the U.S. government....