Chris Miller : Chip War

A KGB spy returns to Moscow with an IC made by Texas Instruments. "Copy it" says the Soviet boss. Copy what? The SN51x - just a collection of NANDs and NORs apparently, but, as has been shown, that's all you need to build a computer 😊


I have frequently found it helpful in my own thinking to consider that fundamental understanding for many solid state problems is achieved when four questions can be answered:

  1. What are the atoms involved and how are they arranged?
  2. How did this arrangement come into being?
  3. How does this arrangement lead to certain mechanisms of electronic and atomic motion?
  4. How do these mechanisms give rise to the observed properties?
HRH William Shockley - winner of 1956 Nobel Prize in Physics


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