Henry Kressel is Managing Director of Warburg Pincus, LLC. He began his career at RCA laboratories where he pioneered the first practical semiconductor lasers. He was the founding president of the IEEE Laser and Electro-Optics Society (LEOS) and co-founded the IEEE/OSA Journal of Lightwave Technology. He is the recipient of many awards and honors, a fellow of the American Physical Society and the holder of 31 issued US patents for electronic and optoelectronic devices. Thomas V. Lento is Founder and President of Intercomm, Inc.

• List of figures; List of tables; Acknowledgements; 1. Genesis: inventing electronics for the digital world; 2. Building digital systems; 3. Edison's legacy: industrial R&D; 4. R&D goes global; 5. Financing innovation: venture capital; 6. Manufacturing: globalizing faster than ever; 7. Your government is here to help; 8. The digital world: industries transformed; 9. The digital world: a global village; Appendix 1.1 Smaller, faster, more efficient MOSFETs; Appendix 1.2 Building multi-transistor logic gates ; Appendix 1.3 MOSFETs in memory devices; Appendix 1.4 CMOS reduces logic gate power dissipation; Appendix 1.5 Laser diode basics; Appendix 1.6 Light emitting diodes (LEDs); Appendix 1.7 Photodetectors; Appendix 1.8 Making fibre optic cables; Appendix 1.9 Principles of LCD displays; Appendix 2.1 The demise of analog computers; Appendix 2.2 IP, TCP, and the internet; Appendix 2.3 Building an object-oriented program; Index.

'Competing for the Future is a must-read for anybody interested in applying science to the marketplace, whether it be the entrepreneur, the technical researcher, the investor, or the manufacturing floor supervisor. Dr Kressel's 50-year historical perspective is literally one-of-a-kind, given his pioneering place in history at the beginnings of laser technology, semiconductor transistor manufacturing, and the venture capital industry.' Alan Willner, Professor of Electrical Engineering Systems, University of Southern California