Curiously, there aren't a lot of books about the chip industry. Rating them is all very subjective but, in my view, these are the ten best:
Revolution In Miniature, Macdonald & Braun
History of Semiconductor Engineering, Bo Lojek
Only the Paranoid Survive, Andy Grove
SPINOFF, Charlie Sporck
The Man Behind The Microchip, Leslie Berlin
Chip Management, Tsuyoshi Kawanishi
The Chip, T.R. Reid
Accidental Empires, Robert X Cringely
The Conquest of the Microchip, Hans Queisser
Digital Nomad, Makimoto and Manners
I'd also recommend We Were Burning, which is a good canter through some of the history of the Japanese semiconductor (not just chips) industry. Has a CE bias, but nowt wrong with that.
http://books.google.com/books?id=PE1bQS9VpWoC&dq=we+were+burning&source=bl&ots=lY7EpZvgN2&sig=OCADfCr28G_V7MqXsWxCwylIny8&hl=en&ei=Iiu8S-6GIJqi0gTwzsH7DQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CBEQ6AEwAQ
Thanks Rupert. I know the book, and you're right it should be included, and the reason it wasn't is because the author once wrote a stinking review of one of my books! So i should apologise for letting my personal bias affect my judgment.
The Pentium Chronicles by Robert P. Colwell is also an excellent book.
Thanks, Moritz, I'll give it a go
A brief biography of Jack Kilby -- only 100 pages long -- is a good read. By a fellow TI engineer/author named Ed Millis, it is entitled Jack St. Clair Kilby: A Man of Few Words.
Thanks Dave. I have ordered a copy from Amazon. Years ago, when the ISSCC was still in New York, I interviewed Jack Kilby in the coffee lounge of the Hilton Hotel in Rockefeller Plaza. He was immensely impressive - few words but all pure gold.
You may also be interested in "Collaboratism - People, Processes and Profitability in the Semiconductor Test and Assembly Business" by André van de Geijn. Even as a long-term semiconductor veteran, I found this book a good read. Details at http://www.andrevandegeijn.com/book/Book.html
"Crystal Fire" by Riordan and Hoddeson gets my vote, but I work at a Bell Labs spinoff.
It's more about the computer industry than semiconductors, but The Soul of a New Machine by Tracy Kidder is a great read about how engineering teams work.