Responding to the Challenge of HDTV

The following discussion is a restatement of the argument in Borrus Michael , Competing for Control: America's Stake in Microelectronics (Cambridge, MA: Ballinger, 1988), pp. 36–38.

This conclusion is based on calculations in Dickens William Lang Kevin , “Why It Matters What We Trade,” in Tyson Laura D'Andrea Dickens William Zysman John , eds., The Dynamics of Trade and Employment (Cambridge, MA: Ballinger, 1988).

Office of Technology Assessment, International Competitiveness in Electronics (Washington, D.C.: USGPO, November 1983).

It is important to emphasize that the electronics trade balance is heavily influenced by the decisions of U.S. multinationals. Some estimates indicate that as much as a third of the electronics imports from individual East Asian countries come from U.S.-owned operations.

Lenz Allen , “Slimming the U.S. Trade and Current Account Deficits,” The AMEX Bank Review, Special Papers, No. 16 (October 1988).

Fisher Lawrence M. , “U.S. Share Declines in Electronics,” New York Times, January 5, 1989, p. C1.

“Preliminary 1988 Worldwide Semiconductor Market Shares: Japanese Gain Share: Memories and Micros Dominate Market,” Dataquest Newsletter, January 1989, pp. 1 and 3.

It should be noted that the decision of U.S. semiconductor firms to stop building chips for consumer electronics at the beginning of the massive growth in imports of consumer products and much earlier than the acquisition of major U.S. consumer firms by foreign firms.

Testimony by Jeffrey A. Hart before the Subcommittee on Telecommunications and Finance of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, September 7, 1988, p.8.

It should be noted that several U.S. semiconductor firms, including Harris and National Semiconductors, remain highly competitive in CMOS circuitry.

Workstation firms are now introducing NTSC video image processing in the high-end of their product lines.

Current estimates suggest that installing a 600 megabit per second fiber optical link from the trunk to the average home will cost around 2,000 dollars. Telephone companies and cable operators are beginning to install fiber instead of wire cables because fiber costs, especially maintenance costs, have become much more competitive.

Donahue Joseph , of Thomson Consumer Electronics in Indianapolis, estimates that the annual R&D expenditures of Thomson, Zenith, and Philips in the United States are around 150 million dollars per year.