Cheap Eurochips. Electronics from the technological gap debate to the Common Market (1966-1987)

The paper presents the evolution of the national and common policies concerning semiconductors in Europe in two decades crucial for the development of the semiconductor industry. The starting point could be taken in the public debate about the technological gap grown between the US and Europe spurred in 1967 by the book "Le defis americain" by Jean-Jacques Servan-Schreiber. Despite the awareness of the European delay in advanced technologies, such as semiconductors, and the action of various politicians convinced that only a federated Europe could get an important role in a global perspective, no coordinated action was taken by the European government until 1984, when the first Frame Program was launched, including the ESPRIT initiative for the electronic sector. These and other joint activities formed the basis for the growth of the European semiconductor environment that touched its top success at the end of the XX century.