Miller, an associate professor of international history at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University in Medford, Mass., says semiconductors"A lot of the key trends that shaped international politics over the past several decades, and also shaped international economics and the formation of global trade and national supply chains, ultimately is really a question of semiconductors," he said.Chip War: The Fight for the World's Most Critical Technology.
Transistors placed together on a tiny piece of semiconductor material, like silicon, make up an integrated circuit. The closer these transistors are to one another, the faster a signal travels. And a modern-day microchip houses billions of transistors, despite its nanoscale size. "We're looking at ways of making those devices better: How can you make them work faster for our communications systems, and how can you integrate those with with silicon," said Dallesasse, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University of Illinois.