To the Digital Age: Research Labs, Start-up Companies, and the Rise of MOS Technology

Notes

319 NOTES INTRODUCTION 1. Doug Andrey, Semiconductor Industry Association, conversation with the author, 19 June 2000. Microcontrollers are typically less powerful microprocessors with more function integrated on the chip, enabling them to function as single-chip computers. They are used in such applications as automobiles, cameras, and consumer electronics. 2. Bruce Deal and Jan Talbot, ‘‘Principia Moore,’’ Electrochemical Society Interface, spring 1997, 19. In 1999 the Semiconductor Industry Association reported digital integrated electronics sales of $130 billion, with bipolar sales making up roughly $1 billion, the rest being MOS. Andrey, conversation. In 1965 Gordon Moore gave a paper on the MOS transistor at the IEEE Annual Convention. He called it an ‘‘interesting gadget,’’ noting several possible applications for it, but concluded it would ‘‘not cut heavily into the general area presently occupied by transistors.’’ Gordon E. Moore, ‘‘The MOS Transistor as an Individual Device and in Integrated Arrays,’’ 1965 IEEE International Convention Record, Part 5, 48. The triumph of the MOS transistor has been most complete in digital electronics, the largest market for semiconductors. The bipolar transistor is still heavily used for analog applications. 3. In asserting the simplicity and scalability of the MOS transistor, two important quali- fications have to be made. The MOS transistor was simpler than the bipolar transistor, but as it developed over time, it became an extraordinarily complex technology in its own right. While the MOS transistor scaled, that scaling was far from simple; almost every new generation of MOS technology required a host of innovations to make this scaling possible. The complexity of an MOS process from the mid-1990s can be see in C. W. Koburger III et al., ‘‘A Half-Micron CMOS Logic Generation,’’ IBM Journal of Research and Development 39 (January/ March 1995): 215–27. 4. Intel’s most recent MOS process is described in Intel Corporation, Annual Report, 2000, 2. The gate dimension from the RCA transistor is from C. W. Mueller and K. H. Zaininger, ‘‘MOS-Unipolar,’’ 14 December 1960 (in author’s possession). I thank Charles Mueller for sending me this document. 5. This fundamental continuity can be seen in Intel’s four chief executive officers, all Ph.D.-level semiconductor technologists. 6. When I queried Gordon Moore about his (and Intel’s) response to technologies such 320 Notes to Pages 4–5 as Josephson junctions, gallium arsenide for digital logic, high electron mobility transistors, and ballistic transistors, Moore, in his typically understated way, said that he ‘‘had developed fairly strong ideas about what made sense and what didn’t.’’ He considered that none of these technologies had advantages for making the complex digital circuits that Intel concentrated on. He said ‘‘it was easy to focus.’’ Gordon Moore, note to author, 21 April 2001. 7. The consulting firm Integrated Circuit Engineering estimated Fairchild’s 1985 MOS sales at $25 million, accounting for roughly 5 percent of Fairchild’s total integrated circuit sales. This placed it in twenty-seventh place in MOS sales among the fifty companies tracked. Integrated Circuit Engineering, Status 1987: A Report on the Integrated Circuit Industry (Scottsdale, Ariz.: Integrated Circuit Engineering: 1987), 2-11–2-12. Fairchild Semiconductor was acquired by National Semiconductor in 1987, and in 1997 National spun off a group of assets, including some associated with the original Fairchild, under the name Fairchild Semiconductor. Although there are some continuities between the old Fairchild and the new Fairchild (the new Fairchild is based in Portland, Maine, at one of the old Fairchild sites), this is more a case of using an existing brand name to jump-start a new enterprise—one cannot consider them the same company with a continuous history. Richard B. Schmitt, ‘‘Schlumberger Reaches Accord to Sell Fairchild—Agreement with National Semiconductor Corp. Valued at $122 Million,’’ Wall Street Journal, 1 September 1987, 1; Crista Hardie, ‘‘National to Spin Off Logic,’’ Electronic News, 24 June 1996, 1; Crista Hardie, ‘‘Fairchild Banner Flies Once Again in Maine,’’ Electronic News, 17 March 1997, 14. 8. John Hoerr, ‘‘System Crash,’’ American Prospect, 1 December 1994, 68–77; Gene Bylinsky , ‘‘America’s Best-Managed Factories,’’ Fortune, 28 May 1984, 16–24. The story of the ordeal of IBM, culminating in the disastrous early 1990s, has not been fully told. The best outline of it so far has been given by Charles H. Ferguson and Charles R. Morris in Computer Wars: The Fall of IBM and the Future of Global Technology (New York: Times Books, 1994). For a statement of IBM’s cessation of bipolar...