Tiger Technology: The Creation of a Semiconductor Industry in East Asia (review)

Abstract

Not so long ago, most East Asian countries were economic backwaters, no better off than the other struggling nations of the Third World. Today, Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, and (to a lesser extent) Malaysia have achieved an economic status that puts them squarely among the middle-class nations of the world while experiencing rates of growth that, if continued, will propel them even higher. So rapid and extensive has been their ascent that it is frequently described as nothing short of miraculous. In Tiger Technology, John A. Mathews and Dong-Sung Cho examine a particularly significant component of the industrial advance of these hitherto poor countries, the manufacture of sophisticated semiconductor components for sale on the world market, a process they dub "developmental resource leveraging" or simply "technology leveraging." As the recent histories of these countries have shown, the acquisition, absorption, diffusion, and improvement of these technologies has been a new and distinctive pathway to economic development. Successful semiconductor industries do not depend on a country's natural resource endowment or geographic location. What matters is access to sophisticated technologies, coupled with the nurturing of the knowledge and skills necessary for their efficient production.