Microchip

For PlayStations and DVD players, computers and cars, we have the microchip to thank. Yet when, asks business journalist Zygmont, do we stop to fully contemplate such microelectronics, which, ""like steel,"" changed life so fundamentally? Zygmont (The VC Way) charts the human story behind the development of the microchip-how the genius of scientists like Bill Shockley, Jack Kilby, Robert Noyce and Gordon Moore contributed to discovery after brilliant discovery, from Texas Instruments' first stabs at a portable calculator to today's high-powered laptops. (There was plenty of Melrose Place-type drama along the way, too, as top talent jumped from firm to firm.) Fortunately, Zygmont has a knack for translating complex material into readable narrative. But don't confuse this book with beach reading; it is, after all, about integrated circuits and the various properties of silicon. What's most compelling in this thoroughly modern history is the race to miniaturization, and the competition between minds that created ""the biggest change that has occurred in our culture during the past four decades.""