When Jerry Sanders described chips as “crude oil,” the Pentagon knew exactly what he meant. In fact, chips were even more strategic than petroleum. Pentagon officials knew just how important semiconductors were to American military primacy. Using semiconductor technology to “offset” the Soviet conventional advantage in the Cold War had been American strategy since the mid-1970s, when Bob Noyce’s singing partner Bill Perry ran the Pentagon’s research and engineering division. American defense firms had been instructed to pack their newest planes, tanks, and rockets with as many chips as
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