This book reviews the evolution of strategic alliances involving U.S. and Japanese companies in the semiconductor industry and analyzes whether alliances can contribute to the renewal of an industry faced with stiff competition from Japan. It includes case studies, alternative future scenarios, and suggestions for government and industry.

Reviews the evolution of strategic alliances involving U.S. and Japanese companies in the semiconductor industry, and analyzes whether alliances can contribute to the renewal of an industry faced with stiff competition from Japan. Provides an overview of the changing nature of technology linkages in this important industry.

Japan's new politics challenge some basic assumptions about U.S.-Japan alliance management. CFR Senior Fellow Sheila A. Smith explores this new era of alternating parties in power and reveals the growing importance of Japan's domestic politics in shaping alliance cooperation.

The third in a series of sector-specific assessments of U.S.-Japan technology linkages, this book examines U.S.-Japan relationships that develop or transfer aircraft technology, the motivations of participating organizations, and the impacts on U.S. and Japanese capabilities. Incorporating detailed accounts of the business and technology aspects of U.S.-Japan aircraft alliances, the volume also describes the U.S. and Japanese policy contexts, presents alternative scenarios for the future and outlines how linkages with Japan can be leveraged as part of a strategy to reenergize U.S. leadership in this critical industry.

The semiconductor industry is at the forefront of current tensions over international trade and investment in high technology industries. This book traces the struggle between U.S. and Japanese semiconductor producers from its origins in the 1950s to the novel experiment with "managed trade" embodied in the U.S.-Japan Semiconductor Trade Arrangements of 1986, and the current debate over continuation of elements of that agreement. Flamm provides a thorough analysis of this experiment and its consequences for U.S. semiconductor producers and users, and presents extensive discussion of patterns of competition within the semiconductor industry. Using a wealth of new data, he argues that a fundamentally new trade regime for high technology industries is needed to escape from the present impasse. He lays out the alternatives, from laissez-faire to managed trade, and argues strongly for a new set of international ground rules to regulate acceptable behavior by government and firms in high-tech industries. Flamm's detailed analysis of competition within the semiconductor industry will be of great value to those interested in the industrial organization of high-technology industries, as well as those concerned with trade and technology policy, international competition, and Japanese industrial policies.