Fall 2026 Colloquium - Sangwoon Yoo
Hanbat National University, South Korea and Charles Babbage Institute
Title: Making East Asian Semiconductors in Cold War America: Migration, Knowledge Labor, and the Rise of MOS Technology
Abstract: How did East Asia emerge as the center of global semiconductor manufacturing despite the industry’s technological origins in the United States? Conventional explanations emphasize developmental states, industrial policy, technology transfer, or manufacturing labor within East Asia. This talk instead looks inside the American research system during the Cold War.
Focusing on metal-oxide-semiconductor (MOS) technology, I trace East Asian scientists and engineers who studied and worked in American universities and corporate laboratories before becoming important intermediaries in the semiconductor industries of Japan, Korea, and Taiwan. Their careers show that East Asian engineers were not simply recipients of American technology but participated directly in producing foundational semiconductor knowledge within the U.S. military-industrial-academic complex.
