Journal ArticleDOI
Silicon for industry: Component design, mass production, and the move to commercial markets at Fairchild semiconductor, 1960–1967
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In this paper, the authors examine the role of military patronage and procurement in the shaping of silicon technology and the consolidation of the semiconductor industry and argue that the silicon industry's expansion into non-military markets was indissociable from deep changes in manufacturing, organizational structures as well as component and system technologies.Abstract:
Most accounts of the microelectronics revolution have emphasized the role of military patronage and procurement in the shaping of silicon technology and the consolidation of the semiconductor industry. Little attention has been devoted, however, to the silicon industry's shift from military to commercial markets in the early and mid‐1960s. Drawing on an examination of Fairchild Semiconductor, the firm that initiated this shift, this essay argues that the silicon industry's expansion into non‐military markets was indissociable from deep changes in manufacturing, organizational structures as well as component and system technologies. Special attention is devoted to the ways in which Fairchild created a user base for its products in the computer and consumer electronics industries by hiring engineers from these sectors and encouraging them to design components as well as applications for the firm's potential customers. This article also examines how Fairchild introduced mass production techniques fr...read more
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Book ChapterDOI
Building High-Tech Clusters: Learning the Silicon Valley Way
Gordon Moore,Kevin Davis +1 more
TL;DR: Gordon E Moore is widely regarded as one of Silicon Valley’s founding fathers Brought back to his native California to work with Shockley Semiconductor, his membership in the traitorous eight who left to start Fairchild Semiconductors places him at the top of most 'genealogies' of Silicon valley Co-founder of Intel in 1968, and now Chairman Emeritus, Moore is perhaps best known throughout high technology for his 1965 prognostication on transistor density now universally known as Moore's Law as discussed by the authors.
Journal Article
Crystal Fire: The Birth of the Information Age, by Michael Riordan and Lillian Hoddeson
TL;DR: The transistor was invented by John Bardeen and Walter Brattain at Bell Laboratories as mentioned in this paper, and the Information Age was born in the early 1970s with the transistor and the microchip.
Journal ArticleDOI
From nuclear physics to semiconductor manufacturing: the making of ion implantation
TL;DR: In this article, the emergence of ion implantation as a major semiconductor manufacturing process from the early 1960s through the late 1970s is examined, and the key finding that ion implantations enabled the control of critical transistor characteristics, were both exploited by Mostek, a semiconductor start-up funded by Sprague.
Journal ArticleDOI
‘Raising the State of the Art’: Commercializing innovation in digital sound
TL;DR: The history of sound recording has often emphasized technological developments, leaving aside artistic and aesthetic aspects of recorded works, commercial opportunities, the listening practices of listening practices, and the listening habits of listeners as discussed by the authors.
Book
Making Silicon Valley: engineering culture, innovation, and industrial growth, 1930-1970
Abstract: The electronics manufacturing complex on the San Francisco Peninsula underwent enormous changes from the early 1930s to the late 1970s. Electronics firms in the area employed a few hundred machinists and even fewer engineers in the early 1930s. In the larger scheme of the entire American radio industry, they were marginal. They operated in the shadow of the Radio Corporation of America (RCA) and the other large eastern firms that had a virtual monopoly on the production and sale of electronic components and systems. Forty years later the Peninsula had become a major industrial center specializing in electronic components.
References
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Journal ArticleDOI
General Purpose Technologies "Engines of Growth?"
TL;DR: In this article, a decentralized economy will have difficulty in fully exploiting the growth opportunities of GPT's: arms-length market transactions between the GPT and its users may result in "too little, too late" innovation.
Journal ArticleDOI
Technological Change in the Machine Tool Industry, 1840–1910
TL;DR: For example, the authors argued that technological changes (shifts in the production function) have been far more important than has the mere growth in the supplies of capital and labor inputs, as conventionally measured (movement along an existing production function).
Journal ArticleDOI
Characteristics of the Surface‐State Charge (Qss) of Thermally Oxidized Silicon
TL;DR: In this paper, the surface state charge associated with thermally oxidized silicon has been studied experimentally using MOS structures and the results indicate that the surface-state charge can be reproducibly controlled over a range 1010-1012 cm -2, and it is an intrinsic property of the silicon dioxide-silicon system.
Journal ArticleDOI
Redistribution of Acceptor and Donor Impurities during Thermal Oxidation of Silicon
A.S. Grove,O. Leistiko,C.T. Sah +2 more
TL;DR: In this paper, the redistribution of impurities during thermal oxidation of silicon was studied both theoretically and experimentally, and it was shown that the redistribution process can be significantly influenced by the escape of impurity through the oxide layer as well as by the segregation of the impurity at the oxide-silicon interface.
Journal ArticleDOI
The Wizards of Armageddon
John Deasey,Fred Kaplan +1 more
TL;DR: The untold story of the small group of men who have devised the plans and shaped the policies on how to use the bomb is explored in this article, which explores the secret world of these strategists of the nuclear age and brings to light a chapter in American political and military history never before revealed.