How Chinese engineers helped build the US semiconductor empire: a timeline

US domination of the field of advanced electronics has been propelled in part by many Chinese academics

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Chinese scientists and engineers have played a vital role in America’s leadership in the field of advanced electronics. Photo: Shutterstock

Published: 6:00pm, 3 Sep 2024Updated: 4:31pm, 25 Sep 2024

From building the first electronic computer to maintaining a stronghold of semiconductor design, the United States has long been a beacon for advanced electronics development.

But behind America’s rise stand many Chinese scientists and engineers whose important contributions have largely remained in the shadows.

Gerald Yin Zhiyao, co-founder and chief executive officer of Advanced Micro-Fabrication Equipment Inc China (AMEC) – China’s leading semiconductor equipment maker – recently highlighted the scale of these contributions.

During a show in July run by the Shanghai Stock Exchange and China National Radio Network, he said that over the last 40 years, many of the most advanced semiconductor etching machines had come out of Silicon Valley, the centre of US tech innovation.

“When you actually look at the equipment, who’s making it, it’s actually 70 to 80 per cent Chinese students,” Yin said. He spent decades working in the US and co-founded the Chinese Engineers Association of Silicon Valley in the late 1980s.

But now, “80 or 90 per cent of them have already returned” to China, he added.

As China and the US fight for dominance over key science and technology, the transfer of talent between the nations has underpinned the field of advanced electronics.