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api 4 days ago

Was the US ever a major manufacturer of even pre-IC solid state electronics?

I was born in 1978 and was really into Heathkits and breadboard projects and stuff when I was a child and early teen. My dad was (and still is) an analog electronic engineer and gave me lots of surplus oscilloscopes and frequency counters and other coolness too. I distinctly remember often seeing "Made in Korea," "Made in Japan," "Made in Taiwan," etc. on circuit boards and chassis assemblies. The single word "Korea" was very common on components. This would have mostly been stuff from the late 1970s and 1980s.

At the very least it seems like electronics from at least the early-mid solid state era onward into the IC era has always been a globalized industry with a globalized supply chain. I feel like you've got to go back to vacuum tubes to find self-contained nationalized electronics industries.

Back then as now a lot of stuff was designed in the USA and Europe but manufactured elsewhere. Just like Asia has a ton of top tier manufacturing and logistics talent, the US and Europe have a ton of top tier design engineering and coding talent.

I still do agree that there is strategic value in making sure the US at least has some domestic capacity to manufacture leading-edge chips and electronics, not just to maintain some talent here but in case a major global conflict breaks out that deeply fractures all these supply chains. Same for Europe and any other country. China meanwhile would do well to develop its own domestic software and design talent pool.

Mainan_Tagonist 4 days ago | parent | next [-]

Chip War by Chris Miller is a good read: https://www.amazon.com/Chip-War-Worlds-Critical-Technology/d...

FuriouslyAdrift 4 days ago | parent | prev [-]

It was called silicon valley for a reason. From the 1950s until the 1980s, the US was the dominate manufacturer of integrated circuits and the the origin of most fo the technology.

Everything started to globalize starting in the late 1970s to early 1980s which really kicked off with the end of the gold standard and the Volker Shock.

The Japanese and Germans, which had IC industry already, picked up steam and started to export as the economics changed.

China, Korea, Vietnam, etc. are recent entries (2000s)