News Analysis Semiconductors are at the heart of the U.S.-China competition for tech supremacy. They are expensive and critical, and the Chinese regime has vowed to outspend the United States by almost 50 to 1 in developing semiconductors. Semiconductors, or “chips,” are an integral component of the technological products, which drive a country’s economic development. They are generally made of nano-sized (one-billionth sized) crystals, the most common of which is silicon. Also called silicon wafers, semiconductors are thinner than a single strand of human hair and contain as many as 40 billion components. Only a small number of firms are capable of producing the highest quality semiconductors, which are incredibly complex. In addition to requiring advanced scientific knowledge, their manufacture is also extremely capital intensive—semiconductors are very expensive to develop and produce. Integrated circuits (ICs), which are made up of semiconductor material, are used in consumer electronics, including computers, mobile phones/smartphones, digital …