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5. It Takes an Industry: THE MOS COMMUNITY
- Johns Hopkins University Press
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139 FIVE It Takes an Industry T H E MOS C O M M U N I T Y Although the fate of the MOS transistor ultimately hinged on its success or failure at specific companies, its development was a cooperative effort, sometimes intentionally, sometimes not, between companies who were nominally competitors. This industrywide effort had the potential to benefit all who were working on MOS, both through transfers of information and through the creation of an atmosphere that supported the new technology. Transfers of information occurred through conferences, interfirm meetings, confidential exchange agreements, acquisition of artifacts, and movement of personnel. Major research labs received information from start-ups, and vice versa. In conferences and professional journals, researchers (generally Ph.D. scientists) described their latest work using the conventions of academic science. But because of the craft nature of semiconductor production, much information of an operational or engineering nature was transmitted informally. The planar process used to make both MOS and bipolar transistors provided a common foundation that allowed for cooperation. Several firms went out in directions contrary to that of the rest of the industry, but they did so to their own detriment, as they were unable to take advantage of work done elsewhere. 140 T O T H E D I G I TA L A G E Conferences and Papers Particularly in the early days of MOS, professional conferences and journal articles were important vehicles for sharing information. They provided a means for the industry’s leading researchers—mostly Ph.D.’s—to come together, report their latest findings, and discuss technical issues candidly. At a time when there was uncertainty about the causes of MOS instability, conferences allowed rapid dissemination of information and helped researchers achieve consensus. Conferences, modeled on the conventions of academic science, simultaneously served individual ambitions and corporate purposes. Two conferences that were particularly important at this stage were the IEEE Solid-State Device Research Conference (SSDRC) and the Electrochemical Society meetings. Contrary to its name, the SSDRC typically consisted of work at a level more abstract than actual devices, detailing the results of experiments on simple test structures. The physicists, chemists, and electrical engineers in attendance were interested in phenomena affecting the fabrication of devices, but they were not, in general, the ones responsible for fabricating devices. The papers presented at these conferences and published in professional journals were concessions by industrial research labs to the aspirations of their researchers. Most had Ph.D.’s and had come from academic scientific environments that had strongly rewarded publication. Researchers wanted to publish so that they could be seen as advancing knowledge generally, not just within their company, and gain wider recognition. Bruce Deal, a chemist at Fairchild, came to the semiconductor industry from Kaiser Aluminum. At Kaiser, Deal conducted research on the oxidation of aluminum but was not allowed to publish most of his work. Deal’s frustration with Kaiser’s secrecy was one factor that led him to the semiconductor industry. A group of researchers at Shockley Semiconductor specifically asked Shockley for permission to publish their work as a way to improve morale. Individual researchers would push to publish their work quickly, for if they did not, someone else might well publish before them and receive the recognition.1 At the same time, the industrial research labs greatly benefitted from being able to appropriate this openly exchanged information. A typical practice among labs was to publish internal reports on conferences detailing the key papers given by other labs. Even though the SSDRC went to great lengths to [54.157.61.194] Project MUSE (2024-03-19 11:21 GMT) 141 It Takes an Industry simulate an open academic environment, the proceedings of this conference were of more than academic interest. Researchers from RCA (and one imagines other companies) organized to cover all the sessions, taking copious notes on each presentation, so that details could be spread throughout the corporation. The key figures organizing these conferences were senior researchers from major industrial research labs, and not surprisingly, these conferences reflected the agenda of these labs.2 The 1964 IEEE SSDRC, a conference typically attended by the top semiconductor researchers in the country, showed the growing interest in MOS structures . In a review of the conference, an RCA engineer asserted: ‘‘The conference is usually dominated by one major topic which seems to be the hottest thing in that particular year.’’ And in 1964 ‘‘it was the...