How America Won Back Semiconductors from Japan

Our last video on Japan's semiconductor industry ended with the industry at the very peak of its powers.
Taking place over the span of 30 years, the island country's rise to semiconductor supremacy shook the industrial foundations of the West.
The Japanese semiconductor industry once seemed invincible. But what goes up must come down. In this video, we look at Japan's semiconductor decline.
Links:
- The Asianometry Newsletter: asianometry.com
- Patreon: / asianometry
- The Podcast: anchor.fm/asianometry
- Twitter: / asianometry

[@Asianometry]

Having watched this video, what do you think America should do today?

[@raylopez99]

Elect Donald Trump again? Impose a Brazil style "Made in the USA" autarky policy? I dunno... I personally think US patent laws should be more like Japanese patent laws where, by law, the inventor has inalienable rights that cannot be taken by the employer, kind of like the inventor of the blue light laser in Japan (which was litigated and made new law). It doesn't really pay, except for the fame, to become an inventor these days and even historically, with exceptions that prove the rule.

[@7891ph]

@Zebra Last While there's a lot of truth to your last point, US heavy industry has been pulling out of China (in bit's and pieces) since even before the 2016 elections. Other than the sunk cost of the physical plant in China, there's not a lot of things to recommend outsourcing to them anymore. And with the price of shipping from overseas going through the roof, a lot of businesses have done the math, and the math says it's cheaper to build it here. The largest problem is that the baby boomers are in the process of retiring en masse, which is the primary driver of the labor shortage. The next 5~10 year's are going to be interesting....

[@cyzcyt]

Next topic, spotlight on how South Korea beat Japan in semiconductors and flat panels

[@waynez5535]

@Zebra Last wishful thinking , you cannot possibly beat back China because the Chinese have always seen themselves as exceptional throughout the millenniums. It's 200 years of exceptionalism in the US vs 3000+ years in the East. Asias epicenter is China. That drive, coupled with intense competition and meritocracy is what pushes Chinese to further the boundaries. Just think for one second, the two largest institutions, Blackrock and Bridgewater are both planting itself in China. Warren Buffett Berkshire is also invested heavily in China. The banks Citi & Chase are in China and all partake in some way or form in financing the One Belt One Road Initiative. China has the biggest market for cars, air travel, technology, luxury goods, the entire luxury market of Europe depends on Chinese consumption. Meanwhile the US is figuring out its place. It's aircraft carriers aren't longer a threat to China. The United States is drowned in debt 30trillion to say the least. Years of American over expansion and world policing has ballooned it's maintenance budget and ever growing defense spending, which is neither practical nor sustainable. The Fed suppresses Gold prices to maintain dollar hegemony, but it's apparent, China and Russia are creating a new bloc of reserve currency. 1/4 of global oil exports go directly to China, and this very primary issue will eventually strip the US dollar of it's dominant reserve currency status, thus leading to asset price deflation in the United States.

[@martinbevk1695]

Self implode, an eternal nuclear winter sounds good

[@Robert_Ray_Z]

I just watched this video Yesterday. I found it interesting, mainly because I worked in Semiconductors through that time, starting in 1978 and retiring in 2018. I am one of the few on the planet to have spent a full 40 years in the cleanroom, the majority in Lithography. I maintained the tools, starting with Cobilt and P&E aligners, through the Canon and Nikon years, Then came ASML out of Veldhoven. I worked Field Service for ASML during their first 8 years of shipping steppers up to the Krypton Flouride 248nm era, then went back to the fabs for equipment engineering. In 2003 I went back to the last US Litho company, Ultratech Stepper, to spend my last 15 years working on a new technology, Laser Spike Anneal. I worked in over 70 different fabs, and dozens of companies over the years, and seen fabs start with all US Litho equipment, progress to 100% Japanese equipment, with Canon proximity and steppers and Dainippon Screen tracks, then to Dutch ASML steppers linked to DNS and TEL tracks before jumping from Litho the Laser Spike Anneal. For the most part, your video was a trip down memory lane, both literally and figuratively. Having been around the block in my travels, and having installed over 30 ASML steppers at Micron over the years, I chose to retire in Boise, as it was both the most demanding place to work that I ever worked due to the extreme high level of competence, and their strong will to succeed in the wave of Japanese memory competition. Also, Micron's home, Boise, is the most fun place to recreate in off hours due to their abundant outdoor activities. Once you retire, nobody cares what degrees you earned, or what you did for a living, you are just another retired guy, so thanks for putting out videos that bring back memories of my decades in the Semiconductor industry.

[@NeverTalkToCops1]

Your story is tiresome.

[@america0wns]

Very cool story. Not a lot of people can say they worked in the tech industry for 40 years.

[@FelonyVideos]

Nobody cared what we did when we were doing it, either, LOL. The sheep just want their magic TVs to the world for watching silly cats and porn. Fair enough. They have been fleeced solidly for 40 years now. Our only competitor, drug cartels!

[@atiessen]

My deepes respekt for your lifetime achivement. I am also in retirement as an key account manager and I totaly agree with what you said about life as a prisioneer.

[@embeDes]

Mr. Ray - you have a great last name for a guy working in a lithography business ;) Greetings from Poland!

[@ChristianKurzke]

Dram is for whiskey Dee-RAM is for computers!!!!!!!!

[@BobWidlefish]

Fact-check: true.

[@RobBCactive]

Now Sram is for bicycles ..

[@Puccini000]

Also not 1 megabit but rather one megabyte. 128K was one megabit

[@RobBCactive]

@@Puccini000 hmmm, but 4x256 nybbles makes 1024 = 1Kb or 128B (bytes)

[@Puccini000]

@@RobBCactive yes, it's 128 not 256 obviously

[@ph11p3540]

I am so glad I work in the potato chip industry and not the silicon chip industry. Sure the pay is not the best but it's recession proof. Everyone loves chips. It pays for the new chips for me to update my PC.

[@alexanderphilip1809]

no system is perfect.

[@sshko101]

Chip shortage is a real deal especially if it comes in the middle of a game.

[@PainterVierax]

@@sshko101 Well actually it's more a sunflower oil shortage due to the war in Ukraine.

[@sshko101]

@@PainterVierax Weird enough sunflower oil prices still the same here, maybe it's just because of blocked ports. Last year we actually harvested record yield and second in the world in terms of grains and oil crops combined only after the US. We have actually the best in the world climate + soil combo for the sunflower. It's quite sad that big part of that is already stolen by the russians or got destroyed by their targeted missile strikes on our grain elevators.

[@PainterVierax]

@@sshko101 Yes AFAIK it's not a production issue, it's the fact exports are stopped. And it pushes prices to rise due to higher demand in the global market. Same issue with many seeds. And it's even worse with mustard which, combined with bad crops in Canada (the second supplier after Ukraine), resulted in empty shelves in stores. All of that because our countries relies too much on few large global suppliers in many industries instead of promoting smaller but more local solutions.

[@jeromebarry1741]

In 1989-1993 I worked in TI's DRAM design group. I was a layout designer on the 16MB DRAM built on 6" wafers. I left TI in 1983, TI sold the memory business to Micron in 1995. Today I'm contracting to Micron to design 16GB DRAMs built on 12" wafers. What a life I have had. When I walked into the Micron office last year, people from the old TI company recognized me.

[@lepidoptera9337]

So you made nothing other than endless iterations of a boring utility product all of your life. I really appreciate it. Somebody has to do the tedious work... it's like farming. If nobody grows the cow, then we don't get to eat it. I greatly prefer eating a steak over working in the stables, though. :-)

[@amorgan20111]

The fact that you kept saying "dram" and not "DeRam" really triggered me as a PC enthusiast

[@thor8086]

This creator does NOT come across as a real tech enthusiast rather a Taiwan tech news KZbinr expanding into other topics.

[@zes3813]

no such thing as tx or etc, cpeuxuax, say, can say any nmw s perfx

[@jimgolab536]

I was at Motorola Memory Division in the early and mid-80’s. The 1985 crash devastated the chip suppliers because right before it, the computer companies were selling into a boom and were so desperate for DRAM, that they would make the same order to multiple vendors, and then cancel the other orders once any one vendor fulfilled the order. This was sort of ok as long as the sales were growing and the vendors eventually sold the chips (likely at a lower price), and had a shot at future business, but was a catastrophe when the computer companies had the market downturn and cancelled most of their orders. Suddenly the chip vendors saw almost ALL of their demand go away, as well as all of their FUTURE orders. My company went in one year from having its best year ever to having its worst year ever. It was a bloodbath.

[@Taygetea]

Reminds me a little of the cascade that caused the current issues.

[@Grak70]

@@Taygetea a bit different today because demand is still ludicrously strong. To their credit however, this time most semi manufacturers resisted the siren call of overbuilding capacity. And now with interest rates the way they are, there’s no way more capacity that wasn’t already under construction is going to start.

[@rkan2]

@@Grak70 It is very much like it was during 2020 with COVID albeit much faster. Instead of a year it took like 2 quarters to go to rock bottom and then double the orders and then some since companies wanted to also start stocking up more.

[@kicapanmanis1060]

Thanks for the insight. Always valuable to have one from someone who was there. ,👍

[@TamagoHead]

Didn’t Bill Gates say that nobody would need more than 640k? I remember guys from my UG showing off core memory & talking about borrowing a pizza oven to get more DRAM. Wasn’t SRAM faster, but more expensive? I honestly forget what the gate structure was, but some old code was non-linear in that you could force a memory space into what was essentially cache. It was so long ago, my memory doesn’t register anymore.

[@robertpearson8546]

Edward Demming tried to teach managers how to do their job better. American managers ignored him. Japanese managers hired him. Japanese products went from "cheap junk" to world-class products. NOW American managers are willing to learn from Japanese managers (but NOT Edward Demming).

[@c1ph3rpunk]

Many don’t understand the impact Deming had on Japan until it became THE cool thing in the 90’s.

[@NeverTalkToCops1]

Demming? Eff that guy.

[@zeitgeistx5239]

Your repeating stereotypes. Because the Japanese don’t claim Demmings enabled their economic boom like Americans like to claim.

[@smergthedargon8974]

This reads like one of those crypto bot comments but without the following reply chain of accounts claiming what a genius some guy is.

[@robertpearson8546]

@@smergthedargon8974 Apparently you are unable to look up the facts!

[@silverbird425]

One thing about memory semiconductors, they are drop in replaceable by other brand of the same speed, or even by faster memory. Microprocessors and many logic chips are all different and are not drop in. You can see this with Intel and AMD chip based computer motherboards. So the Samsung and micron chips literally dropped right into the space the Japanese DRAM were in.

[@pauleplatt]

Hearing you say “dram” instead of “dee”-“ram” hurt my ears. During the early 80’s I was in Mostek’s DRAM design group. Not emphasized enough was the quality issue. US companies had the approach that they would replace faulty parts. This required expensive incoming inspections at companies such as HP and IBM. Those companies found they could skip inspection of Japanese parts. US companies adapted but it cost them in terms of customer perception. Another issue was parallel development. US companies were smaller than the Japanese. Typically you brought one generation to market and then moved to the next. Design teams were small. At IEDM and ISSCC you would see Japanese papers showing multiple development stages. As a highly manufacturable version was being released there was a next generation prototype being produced and an even further generation R&D chip exploring cell topology. That was something a company lacking government backing couldn’t compete with.

[@chrismccarty7000]

I was in the industry at this time and your reporting is highly accurate and insightful. You could do a side story that had just as a profound effect on the US Semiconductor industry that you touch on with Sematech. This is the transfer of technology from IBM through Sematech and the later divestment of semiconductor within IBM that lead to engineers and scientists going to other companies. Sematech cemented the fact that IBM was 5-10 years ahead of the world in implementing leading edge technology in the fab and packaging. They introduced the technology of CMP and Tungsten Plugs which changed the entire industry in just a few years. They were producing in volume submicron when everyone else was at double the feature size. They also introduced the concept of designing for equipment uptime and defect reduction. They had Silicon on Insulator in volume before anyone else. And if I remember correctly pioneered damascene for inlayed metalization instead of direct etch. The material set for metalization was far beyond everyone in production even compared to Bell Labs. Their prowess in packaging was equally impressive. This had a profound impact on the US both in technology and equipment. They are so far ahead it was like time travel. Another good story for sure.

[@cyberpunk.386]

I feel for the Japanese companies. In times of emergency they found new ways of working together and make it worth. There are still a lot of good companies and talent there. For the benefit of good competition and advancing tech I would like to see Japan once again overcome its barriers and move ahead.

[@thor8086]

Agreed! Japan get your mojo from your grandpa's and show us what you've got. Japan had best work ethics and innovative minds in 70s through 90s. Most of semiconductor technology Taiwan has was based on Japanese technology. After US lost interest with developing Taiwan to compete with Japan, Japan helped Taiwan to compete with Korea

[@Wog68]

Japanese believe in passing on skills to next generation and continued innovation and they are meticulous at work.

[@fluffskunk]

We're sadly in a world where companies chase cheap labor and loose safety and environmental laws, because if you don't exploit poor countries and people, your competition will. It's a sick system.

[@niks660097]

@@thor8086 not just that during that time, there was a phrase "japan tested/made", almost every big companies have copied their production procedure..

[@humushumus2219]

@@thor8086 ".........innovative minds ...." Simply nonsense. Very little of the fundemental in any industry have ever come from Japan. This is well known. Work ethics yes.

[@TPM188]

TSMC Morris Chang said so many times in early 2000. If Japanese semi companies don't became fabless and join TSMC, eventually they will be losing the market. At that time , I thought that was TSMC's sales talk. Now I finally understand Morris Chang was serious. Japanese DRAM lost to Samsung and logic IC lost to TSMC + fabless. Not US government.

[@ab-lymphocite5464]

Eh not really. They died out before TSMC was relevant.

[@telesniper2]

AI will replace "fabless" design firms completely.

[@bennettbullock9690]

The epilogue of the video is interesting from a historical perspective. The American semiconductor industry did exactly what the Japanese did during the Meiji period and the post-WWII period - they responded to a superior enemy by biding their time and finding a niche in the market from which they could regain their place. It's one of those stories of adversaries becoming similar to one another.

[@d.jensen5153]

Best thing about Micron 64K DRAM was the windowed version that could be used as an optical image sensor. Wish I had one right now for my Siglo XXI sundial.

[@a4000t]

64k drams from Micron fails like no tomorrow in the Commodore 64.

[@nikdog419]

I've never heard [dee-ram] pronounced [dram] before today. I'm pretty sure it works like CMOS; MOS and RAM were already acronyms on their own, then came Complementary MOS and Dynamic RAM. Shortened to [see-moss] and [dee-ram]. I can't even guess what Synchronous Dynamic RAM becomes on the [dram] principle.

[@NeverTalkToCops1]

Yes it must be Dee Ram, never DRAM.

[@MrVenona]

That's because saying 'dram' is incorrect. It is 'dee-ram'. Just like SRAM is pronounced 'ess-ram'. And 'ess-dee-ram' for Synchronous DRAM.

[@zes3813]

wrr

[@christianlibertarian5488]

1989 was a watershed year for Japan in many ways. In the 1980's, Americans looked to Japan for all the cool new electronic stuff. But in the 1990's, we were scratching our heads, wondering when Japan was going to come out with another round of cool new stuff. Japan never did, at least not to the same extent. By 2000, Japan was talking about the Lost Decade.

[@chriswaters3442]

Now, 3 lost decades and counting. Japanese are not proficient at math.

[@jansix4287]

And do you have an idea why Japan stopped innovating?

[@joey199412]

@@jansix4287 No one knows for sure but my guess is a mixture of aging population which limits the amount of new thinkers entering fields. A culture with next to no entrepreneurship spirit. And a stagnating economy that resulted in a drop of Foreign Direct Investment. We are seeing something similar happen with South Korea and Taiwan and if China follows in the same footsteps (Everything points towards this being the case) it'll mean that China will stop innovating in the early 2030s as well.

[@jansix4287]

@@joey199412 But then again Japan innovated at high speed up until the 80s under much the same culture. 🤷

[@joey199412]

@@jansix4287 The companies were only 25 years old in the 1980s after the US let Japan self-rule again in the mid 1950s. They were still in the early innovative phase of their existence. Which was slowly eroded away to favor stability instead. You see this with large companies like Sony, Toshiba, Mitsubishi and Samsung. Even in the west you have examples like IBM.

[@Sams_Uncle]

What an analysis sir! Mind blowing!!

[@sirfer6969]

Great channel you have here, just discovered and been binge watching

[@royalwins2030]

Yes me too. You can't find the info and history all laid out tike this anywhere else

[@thor8086]

Be cautious, he portrays as a tech enthusiast but after a while, I noticed he is more Taiwan pride tech news and pro-China Taiwan-centric contents. Even in this video, he discounts US political and economical pressures as the causes of Japanese semiconductor technology downfall. Most Asian economists credit Plaza Accord, most semiconductor insider will credit US trade counter measures and South Korean DRAM success as the main cause.

[@timothybaker8234]

The worlds oldest continuously operating semiconductor plant is right here in South Portland, Maine USA.

[@bluestar2253]

Onsemi was bought by Diodes Inc in June 2022.

[@NeverTalkToCops1]

So what?

[@mrbigberd]

When you mentioned "single-sourcing" the 386, you forgot to mention they were breaking the law and trying to stamp out AMD and other x86 competitors. They were sued and lost, but like usual, the fines were less than the profits, so no lesson was learned.

[@JoeOvercoat]

A lesson was learned, just not the lesson they needed.

[@tailsu1]

Best Episode yet! ❤️

[@avejst]

impressive work as always 👍

[@zes3813]

wrgg

[@RonJohn63]

7:53 I was drooling at the interest rates before I saw your comment. Times were definitely different...

[@jonathanreiter2852]

super nostalgic seeing overhead shots of Ronler Acres before D1X started to be built in earnest.

[@SezerPAL]

Feel like I've found a treasure thanks to your videos, thanks for all.

[@Bianchi77]

Nice video, thanks :)

[@XephiouS]

In Australia, we would pronounce it "dee ram"

[@Empyrean55]

South Africa too

[@prozacgod]

Pretty sure it said that way everywhere, it's so rare that I hear it pronounced as an actual word.

[@SY-ok2dq]

Maybe he said it that way deliberately, so he'd get a whole load of comments about it. That improves the appeal of the video to the KZbin promotion algorithm. He also pronounced "attribute" - used as a verb - the way you'd pronounce it if it was being used as a noun. Verb: Uh-TRIB-byoot (stress on 2nd syllable) Noun: AT-truh-byoot (stress on 1st syllable) And why do Americans say sem-eye rather than sem-mee??

[@Kenneth_James]

I love that Asianometry actually hits the newspaper records to get a better idea of what was really going on and the public sentiment

[@rzmonk76]

Love your work sir thanks so much

[@cyzcyt]

I love this series

[@MidiX2]

1 Week rise of Japan Semiconductors Industrie, 1 week later Fall of Japan Semiconductors . Holly shit thats some fighting going on in the Semiconductore Industry.

[@zes3813]

wrgg

[@mastershark]

DRAM, say it as D Ram

[@dmackle3849]

Yeah, sorta like sea moss! Hurt my old school ears every single instance.

[@staninjapan07]

Great video thanks

[@mbontekoe3358]

Some points I worked at Toshiba around 1990 when it was the #1 semiconductor company in the world, initially due to the 8kx8 DRAM which was selling ex-works for around 20$ - the pressure on the market was Windows 3.0 because now each 386 based computer needed 4 times more memory than a 286 DOS computer - this was a step function. It was actually cheaper for a customer to make DRAM using gate array technology than to purchase the DRAM. Toshiba gained traction over the #2 NEC by keeping an older capacitor design, while NEC implemented the "trench" capacitor, while the trench capacitor was the way to go in the mid term it lowered the yield and consequentially the capacity of the Fab; so NEC could not deliver and Toshiba could. The problem of the US fabs were observed when TI marketed a 32K Dram - i.e a 64K Dram where only half worked - Clive Sinclair was a user with is his 32K Spectrum which he could ship when real 64K machines were unavailable due to shortage. In '91 in the semiconductor division we were told that rotating hard disks had reached there limit of capacity ( I then had a company Toshiba desk top with a double height 5.25" 80MB drive) and that semiconductor (non-volatile) drives would supersede them. 30 Years on I have just purchased a Toshiba 18TB rotating 3.5" drive which is around 5 times less per TE than a solid state equivalent. Indeed the company in the later in the 90's became bogged down in allowing US access to the Japanese market mainly by deal with Motorola to open the Japanese market to MOT and fabbing product for MOT for their worldwide sales. There were cross licensing agreements for high volume products but Toshiba was not able to compete on price against MOT and so the decline began.

[@lepidoptera9337]

What nobody seems to notice is that DRAM was only a minor part of a computer. The Japanese never made an even halfway decent CPU and they never captured any significant market share outside of the memory business, either. The hard drive business is basically a legacy business. Hard drives are in a desperate death run with Flash that they will inevitably lose. The cost comparison is false, anyway. The unit cost of a hard drive bit is only significantly lower than that of a Flash bit if the drive is being used to store cold data. Drives have basically become the new tape. Backing up an 18TB hard drive now takes on the order of four days, which will soon make them useless for personal use. Only a data center can run infrastructure that has 30 day cycle times or more.

[@lebien4554]

Would be very interesting to see a video on how the Plaza Accord affected the Japanese economy. Did it actually castrated their growth as is often believed?

[@anikiace2253]

plaza accord sent japanese economy into a boom. a boom that is so great they lost control of it. it was all good up to 1990, then easy bank loans went out of hand, bad debts accumulated, but the govt was slow and bureaucratic, they didnt take much action to stop it. and it finally crashed like the 2008 mortage crisis.

[@chriswaters3442]

The Japanese mentality is the issue. Japan is extremely adept at making excuses for its repeated, incessant failures.

[@anikiace2253]

@@chriswaters3442 sweeping racist statements missed the whole point altogether.

[@NeostormXLMAX]

@@chriswaters3442 lol like american mentality of always never taking responsibilities for the problems they cause and blaming it on others? i love how the filipino independence movement is some how called the "filipino insurrection" some how fighting off the brutal oppression of the americans is an "insurrection" and i love how americans paint their war with the spanish as liberating their colonies yet their treatment was far worse than the spanish, and the countless civilian bombings in iran and iraq the complete multiple other throw of democratically elected leaders and creating states like banana republics? and then arresting people like julian assange an AUSTRALIAN citizen for "treason" for exposing american war crimes? but yeah, its always china and russia which are the absolute worst, america didn't do bad shit ever, also america tOtaLlY won ww2 by themselves, despite barely contributing at all in the western theatre and also fighting japan which is already at war simultaneously with over 16 different countries.

[@franciscoflamenco]

@@chriswaters3442 Yes, raising from a backwater afterthought of a nation to a world renowned world power twice within the span of a century is definitely an example of "repeated, incessant failures".

[@ultrawan88v2]

14:47 I love the Star Wars reference 🤣🤣🤣

[@daneshedd2553]

Your videos make my day :)

[@heyidkrn6251]

Great vid

[@telesniper2]

14:40. The reason why memory became less significant is interesting, and has a broad range of technical implications. The problem is, memory ICs could not be made to operate at the same speed as processors. This gap widened more and more, starting in the late 80s. This is the primary reason CPU designs started to become very complicated, with complex caching, out of order instruction, speculative execution, and just about any type of technique they could come up with to prevent a fetch from main memory. If that would have never happened, the history of computing since would be VERY VERY different. We would still be using processors that could be understood by a single (albeit smart) person. But anyway, yeah another implication was that logic design exploded, while memory was "feh".

[@tdtrecordsmusic]

cool channel idea. Luv the stories. All my life I've been hoarding all the electronics I can get my hands on. I recycle, study & re-use. Nothing goes to waste. It's cool, caz I find stuff I'd never have the the idea to purchase. Topologies which are never taught... etc... Hearing all these names and the history behind them feels all too familiar :) I've never thought to associate a topology to a country, but now I'm going to be on the lookout for patterns ;p

[@uirwi9142]

Your videos are brilliant. Thank you for sharing all this knowledge with us.

[@kpopkpop5235]

if you dont know anything,

[@cejannuzi]

Plaza Accords--the US's idea of managed trade. Also drove them out of processor chips. Japan had to relent--the US is their master when trade comes up. They also barred Japan from getting serious about an OS for the desktop.

[@jaysonwallker1648]

I worked as an electronic technologist at a company called Mostek years ago in Texas. They bought our company, shut it down, sent the equipment back to Japan. So, believe me, there's no love lost here with me.

[@SidewaysCytlan]

"Dram" -> "Dee ram" It's the first time I've heard someone say DRAM as "dram". It's "Dee ram" because it's "Dynamic RAM". It's an abbreviation built upon another abbreviation.

[@richardbloemenkamp8532]

So "dram" is quite valid. In general with abbreveviations people spell out all the letters or none at all: "dram" or "dee ar a em" because it refers to dynamic random access memory. Commenters claiming it should be "dee ram" shoot themselves in the foot. You might as well say "dra em" because it is a dynamic-random-access type of memory otherwise known as the memory of Dr. Dra. ;-)

[@SidewaysCytlan]

​@@richardbloemenkamp8532 It is "valid" if you think it's an acronym, but it's not. It's half abbreviation (which you spell out letter-by-letter like URL) and half acronym (that you pronounce like a word, like RAM). But it's language, you can pronounce it any way you like. Fine, I'll grant that. The bigger issue with using a non-standard pronunciation is that makes it sound like the person doesn't know a whole lot about the subject when they don't even get the industry standard pronunciation correct and it can be quite confusing until you realise what they're actually trying to say. For a video like this you'd want to avoid that. Not using industry standard pronunciations is shooting yourself more in the foot that insisting otherwise if you want to appear knowledgeable. (Please don't pronounce URL as "earl") Edit: Spelling.

[@richardbloemenkamp8532]

@@SidewaysCytlan I'm just a bit annoyed that people stuble over such a minor language detail when the video clearly shows that he know more about the subject than 99.9% of the population. I think this YT-er lives in Asia. My own experience in asia is that when they speak English, they sometimes use a bit different words and a bit different pronunciation, but they adapt to English. How many Americans and Europeans switch to Mandarin when an asian person is around? Me too, the first time I heard "dram" I thought what is that, but you understand soon enough. After that seeing all the comments just on this one point, I'm a bit disappointed.

[@dubya85]

@@richardbloemenkamp8532 it shows he doesn't really know the subject matter. I would say like a paper pusher rather than someone who actually operates.

[@SidewaysCytlan]

@@richardbloemenkamp8532 That's a fair point. The channel's name is ASIANometry after all. Maybe that pronunciation is more common in Asia or certain parts of it where this creator is/most focused on. I can't recall if I ever heard "dram" during my travels in Asia, but I've mostly been to Japan where "De-rammu" is the most common, at least these days.

[@DockBev]

Looking back Bell Labs had to hold the hands of the Japanese to show them how to make a transistor. I worked for Western Electric at the Merrimack Valley plant doing QC Inspection Audits for the Winston Salem plant. Edward Demines said it best "companies that fail to plan are planning to fail." The way it goes for many US Companies

[@fluffskunk]

If you drink every time he says "Dram" you'll be dead by the end of the video.

[@jessebrook1688]

It's kind of inspiring and dispiriting at the same time that companies are willing to share research resources when their backs are against the wall, but why can't they (and we, by extension, companies being made of people, after all) swallow our pride and do it sooner to create innovation before it's time, instead of just reacting. The research sharing of that type could be particularly useful in today's semiconductor and battery fields. I am a car guy, so because that's where the auto manufacturers are focusing, that's my focus, too, but those fields are also where we need the most new ideas soonest, and not just for cars. Chips for specialized applications that can be turned out with less waste faster, with more flexible supply chains. Batteries that aren't bottlenecked by one component. These are both things we are in particular need of in a number of fields.

[@MarcLuscher]

'dram' is a unit of measure. common R/W RAM types are pronounced D-RAM and S-RAM

[@msmith3395]

It's pronounced "dee-ram", not "dram" :)

[@NISHUGARVU]

My channel, my pronounciation.

[@timschulz9563]

​@@NISHUGARVU It's not yours ;)

[@himanshusingh5214]

It's English, you can pronounce it anyway.

[@dubya85]

It gives away his lack of computer background. Imo.

[@MiraPloy]

@@dubya85 Absolute nonsense if you think this guy lacks computer background lol

[@e_valley2707]

Very US perspective. How did the tariffs affect the innovation and research process in Japan? And, why didn't the Japanese manufacturers built US plants as the automakers did? Stuff missing here.

[@cannygau4447]

America employee is lazy ! You will see TSMC & Samsung dead in USA too !

[@brandonblue2994]

I watched one video and I never left.

[@sshko101]

Still on that video?

[@greenknight907]

Do a video on phillips and the euro market please

[@jfkastner]

NS32000 was a fantastic design, i wrote machine code for it ;-) unfortunately it failed in the market ...

[@danmenes3143]

It's also a CPU, not a DRAM chip. Not the right still for this video.

[@atomicboy8972]

The 80's is when every worker in the US became a team member (join our team) and do fake exercises during work hours, except in the US emphasis is supposed to be on the individual, Off hours you are on your own.

[@NeverTalkToCops1]

That team stuff was all bee ess.

[@zes3813]

wrr

[@misterstaple]

This video is superb

[@donchaput8278]

There are a lot of parallels with China, their manufacturing and the Housing / Financial crisis they are in right now. It will be interesting to see if a similar outcome occurs.

[@ganjarwb57]

The difference is China, unlike Japan, won't cave in to US demands.. There won't be an agreement like Plaza Agreement between US and China... The current US-China trade war has proven that China would rather put out their own tariffs to counter US tariffs...

[@enkii82]

@@ganjarwb57 that was exaactly my thought!!1 seeing how the US screwed up the Japanese twice. I think the Chinese may have learned from the Japanese mistake not to cave in. I think China does not wan to end up like Japan's economy.

[@thor8086]

@@ganjarwb57 I agree with your assessment for now. But what would be the end result? Russia, or slow death similar to Iran or North Korea? Or join American alliance again like Turkey? Japanese look pretty smart!

[@aloksharma4611]

Thanks!

[@MarcosGarcia-kx4rb]

So to sum it up. Enterprises bitched asking for state protection. It didn't work so they had to compete. And then they realized they could make a better or same job than their competition. WHO WOULD HAVE THOUGHT THAT!???

[@soothsayer2406]

Can you comment on the effect of the economic neutering effect the Plaza accords of 1995 had on the Japanese chip industry?

[@RogueReplicant]

1985

[@vejet]

Wow, that was one heck of a temporal pincer move at the End Game! 😲

[@ssmart2512]

good videos! You did a great job! Keep it up!

[@alexanderphilip1809]

10:16 source of strength for any sector of a nations economy. After 60+ years we Indians are yet to learn this.

[@Meteorknite]

Polticians are from medieval age where they want same old british ruled era bussiness families to have all the monopoly. US suffering from same thing, only china isnt

[@deepinsight1175]

Intel has the second largest reaserch and development center in Bangalore India. Brilliant Indian engineerers have architected some of the highest performaning Intel products. Dating back to original Pentium it's architect was an Indian Vinod Dham. Today president of Intel foundries is an Intel veteran an Indian Dr Randhir Thakur. Of course another Indian Raja Koduri who is now head of intels accelerated computing and graphics. He also leads differentiated IP across computing, graphics, media, imaging and machine intelligence capabilities for the client and data center segments, artificial intelligence, and emerging opportunities like edge computing. Not to forget Indian engineers have heavily contributed to IBM. Ceo of IBM is now an Indian. In 1980's IBM wanted to establish an reaserch and development center in India. But was not allowed as India was a closed economy and there was hugely negative attitude towards foreign investment. Even coca cola was asked to leave India. So brilliant Indian talent went to where the work was available. Which was united states. Today India through its brilliant scientists and engineer's are heavily contributing to Ai supercomputing machine learning and cloud technologies. Qualcom has around thirteen thousand engineer's in India doing really advanced reaserch for over 15 years. Sane goes for amd.

[@keyboardt8276]

@@deepinsight1175 the thing though is that the work of these brilliant Indians gets used by MNCs to increase their profits rather than benefiting India

[@grahamflower6202]

I also worked in Semiconductors from 1979 to 2018. I was primarily involved in design but also did have some involvement with yield improvement. While I believe that this video is accurate in the details it proposes it does miss a major trend. In 1988 the first startup decided to have no fab. (Chips and Technologies). The idea of outsourcing fabrication and focusing on design was an important driver of taking advanced and aggressive design forward as a number of companies focused very heavily on design and advanced aggressive design. Today several of the largest American semiconductor companies are fabless and yet are in the top 10 in worldwide sales. Qualcomm, Broadcom, Nvidia and AMD are among these. So while the video has accuracy it does miss a substantial part of the story.

[@haraldsyilivesterkarugaba1430]

what do you think about Semiconductor War: Japan vs US by youtuber LIN Yi kzbin.info/www/bejne/lWi7cntshKyHorc

[@arthurbrax6561]

amazing video. From what I read Japan is talking with TSMC so they can open a brand new fab in Japan

[@AdityaChaudhary-oo7pr]

Great video which shows technological advancement, uncertainties in semiconductor industry, government interventions , trade practices, Research and Development and Trade consolidation . Emergence/fall (Sea Saw battle) of Semiconductor manufacturing Industry in Japan/US/South Korea.

[@willd1mindmind639]

I think the name of the video is misleading as it should technically how Korea and Micron defeated Japan in the memory industry, since at the time the US dominated the chip industry because they invented it. Also it was during this time in the 70s and 80s that the U.S. began to research large scale integrated circuits which was the basis for designing the next generation of computer architectures and software stacks, moving away from the older mechanical mainframe architectures. And you actually have a video on this on your channel from Feb 2022. Not to mention the key to Intel's chip resurgence had more to do with IBMs development of the IBM PC compatible standard and choosing Intel as the main chip provider which happened before Japan forced them to exit the memory market. Meanwhile micron, being a company founded in the late 70s, simply hung on and eventually became a leader in the memory market for PCs, especially in the area of consumer upgrades of PC memory in the 90s and 2000s.

[@user-hn4qr8ty6f]

Japanese semiconductor researchers who have been laid off are finding employment at Samsung, SK Hynix, TSMC, etc., and providing technical support.

[@Patrick_B687-3]

Excellent!

[@atul2048]

It’s not dram until it’s pronounced as dee ram

[@signupisannoying]

Japan didn't lose because it made mistakes, because mistakes can be corrected (just like how US made mistakes but recover from them). I think Japan lose partly because of lessening ambitions of the people. It's hard to stay motivated after experiencing 12 years of real estate and stock market decline by about 70%.

[@ElectronFieldPulse]

Their country has been on a managed decline for a couple of decades now. Population is shrinking, country is losing its relative power it once enjoyed with the rise of other SEA tigers.

[@Wog68]

Every country has their own priorities. US prioritize mass production and current market for the benefit of investors, Japan prioritize in skill building and passing on to next generation. It is the focus on the knowledge of people is important, not just profits of the few. Japanese are well trained, meticulous at work and they work hard. Japanese employers invest in education, appreciate innovation and believe in co-operation.

[@hhvictor2462]

The mid 80s crash negatively influenced the electronics industry in New York City. Hiring agencies that specialized in the electronics field suffered from an extreme lack of available open positions.

[@Bean-Time]

Hearing you say DRAM wrong makes me dubious about the other info in the video

[@kamaruleffendi]

This reminds me of Back To The Future part 2

[@ohhyokkwon2586]

Japanese companies controlled the memory chips (Dram) in the 1980s and 1990s, but they were not in the processor business as far as I am aware. Memory chips are commodities, unlike processor chips. The Koreans took over the memory chip business with over 60% market share in the 2000s and have controlled it since, along with Micron. Since 2010, Samsung and SK Hynix has controlled around 75% market share of Drams. Samsung keeps its market share slightly below 50% on purpose to avoid anti monopoly laws in the US and EU. So the Japanese were only dominant in memory business for a very short time.

[@PainterVierax]

not in the processor business!? NEC made 8086 and Z80 CPUs whereas Hitachi made enhanced 6809 CPUs then its own in-house architecture.

[@ohhyokkwon2586]

@@PainterVierax ok. Maybe, but they were a minor player. Intel controlled the CPU business in the 1990s and 2000s. Nobody outside of Japan ever heard of NEC processors.

[@PainterVierax]

@@ohhyokkwon2586 You talked about the 80s and NEC was huge during that decade, not only in Japan but in the whole Asian area. Sure facing the Wintel monstrosity they declined during the 90's but just like many others, including US and EU companies. Altough the processor business is not only the personal computer market. Many players ditched it in favor of more specialized applications that sometimes Intel still didn't touched nowadays. In fact the server market itself was way more diversified during the 90's and 00's than the last decade.

[@Bialy_1]

@Zero Why would USA want to weaken/relinquish SK or Taiwan?... because of your warm feelings that you have for Japan? heh

[@miraphycs7377]

no now Taiwan TSMC

[@alterego157]

Vassal can't sit higher than the master

[@ashishpatel350]

Dram pronounced like deeeezzzz nutzzz

[@MrRantWhy]

You did a great job on putting this video together! Just a heads up tho dram is actually pronounced D-ram the letter D then ram. Just like how CMOS is pronounced C-mos. Also kilobits, megabits, and gigabits. Are used for measuring the speed of data transfer. Kilobyte megabyte and gigabyte are the measurement of storage. Kilobyte, megabyte, gigabyte, would be the correct term for your video. Thank you for a great video!

[@HennerZeller]

DRAM chips are actually sold with bits not bytes as units. Typically the addressable units are not 8 parallel bits, so bytes would be confusing.

[@alexsuykov]

8264 (64k x 1bit) and 41256 (256k x 1bit) are some of the chips he's talking about. 64 and 256 kilo-bits respectively, not bytes. A typical arrangement would be to use e.g. 8 x 8264 to get 64k *bytes*, with each chip storing one bit from every addressable byte.

[@toebs_]

Agree on the dram part, but yeah, saying that bits is not a measure of storage makes no sense. And to actually nitpick here, the correct terms would be kibibits etc.

[@tomswan3401]

1 byte=8 bits. So one can use bytes or bits for storage or for speed (megabyte per second).

[@NeverTalkToCops1]

CMOS is pronounced Chomsky, you know why.

[@scottfranco1962]

The "dumping" wave was led by Micron for their own benefit. They were perhaps the first tech company that showed they could have a big effect by spreading money around Washington. The rest of us paid for that. DRAMs in the early days were a big cost item for computers. The 64k "wall" was a big step, forgotten now. It meant that the entire memory space of the 16 bit address processors could be filled with a single chip, and led to the implementation of transparent bootstrap roms, which, with a cpu hardware bit, could be read, but writes would go to main memory. This allowed the computer to copy it's bootstrap rom into dram, then turn the bit off and run in full 64kb with dram only.

[@Funica11]

It's quite nonsense to hear about dumping. It was the US that defeated and occupied Japan and forced Japan to accept the devaluation of JPY, which is an extremely low exchange rate as the punishment for the war and the privilege, benefit, and war reparation of the victor Allied nations. But decades later, the US is upset about it, then claimed the Japanese as dirty bad bastards. I see why the Japanese had so struggled for the relation with the US, then attacked Pearl Harbour. We feel communication with the US is like this one with a kid. kzbin.info/www/bejne/mWbZgoyvp9ysnsU

[@NeostormXLMAX]

@@Funica11 Samsung will be next victim to the states

[@georgethompson1460]

@@Funica11 yes because sneak attacking someone with carriers before declaring war on them is fair and honourable.

[@meldridgereedjr2842]

You should read Peter Zeihan's books.

[@NeverTalkToCops1]

No. The era of books is over.

[@mingming9604]

I didn't even know Micron was an American company...lol.. now i know thanks to this video. US semiconductors still have some hope i guess..

[@valerievankerckhove9325]

Wow, it's so interesting to watch this again considering the current events. Now it makes a bit more sense why China targeted Micron and the US reacted so badly.

[@kimchi_taco]

I think one of major reason why Japan fall is they suck at software. Modern chip design, lithography, quality control, etc require very complicated software engineering. Japanese somehow strong at analog engineering but suck at digital.

[@lzh4950]

Heard Japanese companies also have a global monopoly over photoresist chemicals, as S Korea found out after Japan cancelled their exemption from export customs bureaucracy, allegedly in retaliation to a Korean court ruling that Mitsubishi Heavy Industries was to compensate comfort women who'd worked/been enslaved under it until WW2

[@SeoWoojin55]

Korea actually managed to weather out those restrictions and it ended up.hurting Japanese businesses which had relied on Korean companies as their largest costumers. Now, Korea has domestic self-sufficiency for 95% of the materials it uses for semiconductor manufacturing. Not to mention it hurts Japan in the longer run because a lot of their industrial base is reliant on the crucial technological components Korea exports to them.

[@user-hn4qr8ty6f]

@@SeoWoojin55 Did you know that the CEO of Samsung came to Japan to apologize on behalf of the South Korean government and obtained permission to use photoresist, hydrogen fluoride, and fluorinated polyimide? Samsung's main bank is a Japanese bank. If Samsung goes bankrupt, the Japanese bank will only become the owner of Samsung.

[@SD-tn9ce]

it should be very interesting do a video on China semiconductor,

[@jyy9624]

The first time I used a computer was my Filipino Taiwanese friend's TRS 80 in 1980 - he was telling me how Taiwan is becoming the center for PC manufacturing

[@danielmantione]

Heheh... Micron memory is a harassment for lovers of old computers. It's nowadays one of the main causes of defects in old Commodore 64, Atari, Acorn and more computers and the situation is that bad that it is often recommended that if Micron MT4264 chips are encountered, they should be removed for prevention. Absolutely no problems with Matsushita, Oki, Mitsubishi, Hitachi and NEC memory... that stilll runs reliable in your Commodore or Atari anno 2022! So yes, there was a problem with American memory.

[@danielmantione]

@@tomnguyen2949 That's a completely different topic... A Commodore 64 has no BIOS nor any overclocking options, user has no influence over the hardware and config of machine, it's how they came out of the factory. It's just an observation that Commodore 64s (and many other 8-bit computers) with Micron memory all fail (sometimes over half the RAM chips are found bad), while those that have Japanese RAM have no memory problems, despite being 40 years old.

[@danielmantione]

@@tomnguyen2949 Yes I am indeed collecting antiques, but that is the topic of the video: Japan initially won because they made better DRAM in the 80s. I can confirm from my own experiences Japanese RAM was better.

[@danielmantione]

@@tomnguyen2949 Well, facts speak otherwise. There was a quality problem.

[@danielmantione]

@@tomnguyen2949 FYI Bil Herd, lead designer of the Commodore 128, made some comments about Micron and their quality here: kzbin.info/www/bejne/aKi4fX6qfqpgias

[@johngordon1175]

The Japanese chose to align themselves with the United States despite the fact Americans have always viewed the Japanese as being no real different to the Chinese and treated them thus, however the Japanese view the Chinese as the “old enemy” so have held to disrespecting them. Regardless of the Americans.

[@mannyespinola9228]

Thank you for this video

[@hypercomms2001]

Fascinating. Thank you.

[@jeffreyjohnson3320]

Intel did not shut down eight factories in 1985. They closed an assembly plant in Barbados and a test facility in Puerto Rico. Both were grossly uneconomic compared to facilities in Malaysia and the Philippines and were casualties of the overall downturn in profit -- not the exit from DRAMs. Intel converted their one and only DRAM fab in Oregon into a fabrication development facility, at great expense.

[@effexon]

Doh those images from japanese city street... japan was literally on top of world, cars, electronics, components, industries...

[@aboutme7509]

japan semiconductor was not collapse because of they themselves make the mistake, but America semiconductor pulling a string on a political level, every time when they lose their ground. How come now the only company that can produce a 86bit, 64bit cpu and its ip still owned by an American company. So its ok for American company(or Israel) to conquer all of its market globally, but not ok for another country to do so.

[@OmgEinfachNurOmg]

Yeah, this is something that a lot of countries do: protect their domestic firms. Those "free market guys" are only about free market when it comes to foreign companies

[@georgedang449]

The Japanese government was supposed to protect their own the moment a foreign government stepped in. Private companies cannot hope to hold their own against entire nations. The problem is Japan is an occupied nation with foreign troops on it's soil. It never had sovereignity or self determination. This is where Japan and China diverge.

[@ultrawan88v2]

@George the implementation of Plaza Accord really shows Japan being pressured. Unlike China.

[@aboutme7509]

@@georgedang449 You should really dig deeper, and if you did, you will disgusted by the so called free market or fair competition terms means. If USA conglomerate did not stop/cut japan from leading the semiconductor industry, we don't have to wait until 2010 for TSMC to provide the market for a more advanced chip fabrication.

[@georgedang449]

@@aboutme7509 Indeed. We use free market as a sham to enact protectionism when it suits us. We accused Japan of dumping, because they're selling cheaper to gain market share, while being more efficient and able to finance more, aka, better at doing business. What we did against China stinks even worse of hypocrisy. We still pretend the Chinese economy to be a command economy instead of market economy, therefore doesn't have a fair market value. Then we use American market value to measure Chinese production cost, and call everything cheaper than that dumping.

[@ryandarrah4247]

favorite channel, I proudly recommend it to many. you tell one of the greatest stories ever told, its real, and the story only becomes more and more important. you also tell the story well, the competence of this channel is breathtaking.

[@mapmuncher5587]

Report crypto scammers lol

[@skyisoceanblue]

They are annoying as hell, with all those fake discussions and testimonials.

[@MithunOnTheNet]

Already reported three so far. Bloody annoying!

[@ketutwiadnyana2610]

Wow. Epic!

[@Snoopy-TheShihTzu]

When he said “DRAM” instead of “Dee RAM”.💀

[@MikeTrieu]

Why is he still pronouncing "DRAM" like that? I thought he would have learned from the last video about this subject he posted? It's like hearing nails on a chalkboard when he does this 😑 I mean, he knows how to say "NMOS" vs "CMOS". What can't he understand "SRAM" vs "DRAM"?

[@480darkshadow]

It’s an inside joke for the channel

[@annoloki]

**lol** lighten up!

[@gaunterodimm3606]

@@480darkshadow Not very helpful for people trying to learn about the subject. If he want's to make educational videos that's not the way to do it.

[@Martinit0]

To boost the number of comments - that is seen as engagement by the YT algo and so it's more likely to be seen as interesting.

[@andrewdunbar828]

Because he's talking about 1/16 ounces of alcohol.

[@alansouza5791]

É uma pena que não tem legenda em português.

[@anonymous.youtuber]

Since Google translates “Portugese” to “English”… good luck with that. What gives ?

[@MarcosGarcia-kx4rb]

@@anonymous.youtuber caption translation is very poorly you still must have some knowledge of English to make sense of the translated captions.

[@maximme]

the best part COPY EXACTLY but when others use it, its somehow not acceptable. HAHAHAAAA