U.S. companies like Applied Materials, Lam Research, and KLA are part of a small oligopoly of companies that produce irreplaceable machinery, like the tools that deposit microscopically thin layers of materials on silicon wafers or recognize nanometer-scale defects. Without this machinery—much of it still built in the U.S.—it’s impossible to produce advanced semiconductors. Only Japan has companies producing some comparable machinery, so if Tokyo and Washington agreed, they could make it impossible for any firm, in any country, to make advanced chips.
