Chips don’t generally get a good press. It’s true. Have you heard of the saying “a chip on the shoulder”. It refers to people who often seem bitter, hold grudges, and are easily provoked into arguments. What about “had your chips”? It means that someone’s luck has run out. They have completely failed, or that they have lost their position and power. The “chips are down” is another popular idiom. It refers to a person who is in a difficult, urgent, or desperate situation. For a long time, chips and anything related to chips have been the toast of the stock market. Investors just couldn’t get enough of chip designers, chip makers, and producers of chip-making equipment. Consequently, chip stocks have been powering many global indices to eye-watering levels. The likes of NVIDIA, with its market value of US$5.5 trillion, has come to dominate both the S&P500 and Nasdaq100. Meanwhile, Dutch chip-equipment maker ASML has grown to sit atop the Netherlands AEX index....