ABSTRACT
The components sector has been the most dynamic part of the electronics industry and its technological advances–particularly the chip–have affected and will continue to affect not only the other electronics sectors but virtually every other industry. Within components, it is semiconductors which have provided the heartland technology of the microelectronics revolution. Hardware performance per unit of cost has advanced by a factor of nearly one million. The impact of this development on user sectors, such as telecommunications and computers, has made the semiconductor industry a truly propulsive one. Until the mid to late 1960s, American semiconductor firms such as Texas Instruments either merely exported to Europe or used their European subsidiaries only for making mature products, reserving new state of the art technologies for the more advanced US markets. Japanese investment in semiconductors in other developed countries began in the late seventies, the overriding reason being to pre-empt protectionism.
