>>I thought it was mediocre until I got to “Semiconductors didn't improve … performance by exhorting workers to do a better job, wash their hands more often or put in longer hours. It was accomplished by mechanizing a greater and greater portion of the process” – then I stopped reading.
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>>When we get to the first factual piece of text and it is just plain wrong I found I lost all motivation to continue reading.
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>What was wrong with that statement? Aren't CPU's made by a photographic process? That means a machine is doing the work.

VLSI has for decades been based on lithography. The statement above implies that all of the increased performance stems from automation and from automating "a greater and greater portion of the process". This is patently not the case. For a more enlightened view see:

http://www.eetimes.com/special/special_issues/millennium/milestones/harriott.html