Successive waves of foreign takeovers have accelerated the decline of the once leading sector.
In 1952 Geoffrey Dummer, a British engineer working for the Ministry of Defence, was challenged with finding ways to improve the radar systems his team had pioneered during the Second World War. One of Dummer’s proposals was to lay an electrical circuit on a layer of silicon to increase the radars’ reliability. It quickly became clear to him, however, that the effects of the circuit would reach far beyond the navigation systems he was attempting to finesse.
Dummer presented the concept to MoD officials, business leaders and then to the US Electronic Components Symposium in Washington DC. “I shook the industry to the bone when I lectured on the chip,” he said in an interview two decades later. “I was trying to make them realise how important its invention would be for the future of microelectronics and the national economy.”
It wasn’t the British government, nor its defence research institutes, that would go on to develop Dummer’s proposals. It was an American company, Texas Instruments, that seven years later would patent the world’s “first” integrated circuit, the foundational technology upon which the electronics industry and much of the modern world has been built. Semiconductor chips are now used to manage the flow of electricity in phones, computers, cars and household goods.
The origin story of the semiconductor industry should have served as a cautionary tale in Britain. Over the subsequent decades, British scientists and engineers made some of the most significant breakthroughs in the sector. Yet, as with the integrated circuit, it has largely been overseas businesses that have commercialised that research. Even those companies that have successfully monetised British semiconductor advances, such as Arm and Imagination Technologies, have been acquired by foreign owners in recent years.
Two stories have drawn this issue into sharp focus since the start of the pandemic. The first is the shortage of computer chips, which has exposed the fragility of global supply chains. As office workers returned home during lockdowns, there was a surge in demand for laptops, tablets and thus the semiconductors that underpin them. Disruption to freight routes and ports caused by the pandemic had, however, constrained supply of these components, pushing up prices and causing long waiting times for goods, including fridges and dishwashers as well as cars, computers and smartphones......
In 1952 Geoffrey Dummer, a British engineer working for the Ministry of Defence, was challenged with finding ways to improve the radar systems his team had pioneered during the Second World War. One of Dummer’s proposals was to lay an electrical circuit on a layer of silicon to increase the radars’ reliability. It quickly became clear to him, however, that the effects of the circuit would reach far beyond the navigation systems he was attempting to finesse.
Dummer presented the concept to MoD officials, business leaders and then to the US Electronic Components Symposium in Washington DC. “I shook the industry to the bone when I lectured on the chip,” he said in an interview two decades later. “I was trying to make them realise how important its invention would be for the future of microelectronics and the national economy.”
It wasn’t the British government, nor its defence research institutes, that would go on to develop Dummer’s proposals. It was an American company, Texas Instruments, that seven years later would patent the world’s “first” integrated circuit, the foundational technology upon which the electronics industry and much of the modern world has been built. Semiconductor chips are now used to manage the flow of electricity in phones, computers, cars and household goods.
The origin story of the semiconductor industry should have served as a cautionary tale in Britain. Over the subsequent decades, British scientists and engineers made some of the most significant breakthroughs in the sector. Yet, as with the integrated circuit, it has largely been overseas businesses that have commercialised that research. Even those companies that have successfully monetised British semiconductor advances, such as Arm and Imagination Technologies, have been acquired by foreign owners in recent years.
Two stories have drawn this issue into sharp focus since the start of the pandemic. The first is the shortage of computer chips, which has exposed the fragility of global supply chains. As office workers returned home during lockdowns, there was a surge in demand for laptops, tablets and thus the semiconductors that underpin them. Disruption to freight routes and ports caused by the pandemic had, however, constrained supply of these components, pushing up prices and causing long waiting times for goods, including fridges and dishwashers as well as cars, computers and smartphones......