If you want to learn about the history of VAX chips I very strongly recommend this oral history:

Supnik, Robert oral history

https://www.computerhistory.org/collections/catalog/10273826...

If you have any interest in VAX or DEC or chip design in the 80s. This is a must watch.

Later also goes into how Alpha was created in Part 2.

Bob Supnik is a really interesting guy. Probably best known these days for being a maintainer of the SIMH emulation environment. He's forgotten more about computers than most people will ever know.