Tiger Technology
The Creation of a Semiconductor Industry in East Asia

This book examines the dynamics of the semi-conductor industry in East Asia.

John A. Mathews (Author), Dong-Sung Cho (Author)

9780521035675, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 5 March 2007

416 pages, 29 b/w illus. 26 tables
22.8 x 15.1 x 2.3 cm, 0.61 kg

'An illuminating study.' Financial Times

This book grows out of a five-year collaborative research project undertaken by the authors in East Asia. They have worked with firms and institutions in Korea, Taiwan, Singapore and Malaysia, to inquire into the micro-processes of firm-level organizational learning that underpin technology leverage in an industry such as semiconductors. The processes investigated are not specific to microchips, but can be seen working in one knowledge-intensive sector after another. Mathews and Cho argue that indeed these are the processes that will shape industrial evolution in the twenty-first century, not just in East Asia but in the developed world as well. Tiger Technology concludes with an important observation - that wealth can be generated just as much through management of technology diffusion as through conventional concerns with innovation, provided the institutions of leverage are carefully constructed.

List of figures
List of tables
Preface
Abbreviations
Introduction
Part I. The 'Real' East Asian Miracle: 1. Tiger chips: the rise of East Asia in the global semiconductor industry
2. Technology leverage as latecomer strategy
Part II. National Institutional Pathways: 3. The Tangbun boom and the chaebol: how Korea did it
4. A cat can look at a king: how Taiwan did it
5. Jack and the beanstalk: how Singapore and Malaysia are doing it
Part III. The Technology Leverage Strategy: 6. East Asian semiconductor industries: national strategies and sustainability
7. Limits to technology leverage strategies
8. National systems of economic learning: lessons from East Asia
Appendix I. Exchange rates: 1975–97
Appendix II. Chronology
Glossary
Bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: Political economy [KCP]