Computer chips

The invention: Also known as a microprocessor, a computer chip
combines the basic logic circuits of a computer on a single silicon
chip.
The people behind the invention:
Robert Norton Noyce (1927-1990), an American physicist
William Shockley (1910-1989), an American coinventor of the
transistor who was a cowinner of the 1956 Nobel Prize in
Physics
Marcian Edward Hoff, Jr. (1937- ), an American engineer
Jack St. Clair Kilby (1923- ), an American researcher and
assistant vice president of Texas Instruments
The Shockley Eight
The microelectronics industry began shortly after World War II
with the invention of the transistor. While radar was being developed
during the war, it was discovered that certain crystalline substances,
such as germanium and silicon, possess unique electrical
properties that make them excellent signal detectors. This class of
materials became known as “semiconductors,” because they are
neither conductors nor insulators of electricity.
Immediately after the war, scientists at Bell Telephone Laboratories
began to conduct research on semiconductors in the hope that
they might yield some benefits for communications. The Bell physicists
learned to control the electrical properties of semiconductor
crystals by “doping” (treating) them with minute impurities. When
two thin wires for current were attached to this material, a crude device
was obtained that could amplify the voice. The transistor, as
this device was called, was developed late in 1947. The transistor
duplicated many functions of vacuum tubes; it was also smaller, required
less power, and generated less heat. The three Bell Laboratories
scientists who guided its development—William Shockley,
Walter H. Brattain, and John Bardeen—won the 1956 Nobel Prize in
Physics for their work.Shockley left Bell Laboratories and went to Palo Alto, California,
where he formed his own company, Shockley Semiconductor Laboratories,
which was a subsidiary of Beckman Instruments. Palo Alto
is the home of Stanford University, which, in 1954, set aside 655
acres of land for a high-technology industrial area known as Stanford
Research Park. One of the first small companies to lease a site
there was Hewlett-Packard. Many others followed, and the surrounding
area of Santa Clara County gave rise in the 1960’s and
1970’s to a booming community of electronics firms that became
known as “Silicon Valley.” On the strength of his prestige, Shockley
recruited eight young scientists from the eastern United States to
work for him. One was Robert Norton Noyce, an Iowa-bred physicist
with a doctorate from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Noyce came to Shockley’s company in 1956.
The “Shockley Eight,” as they became known in the industry,
soon found themselves at odds with their boss over issues of research
and development. Seven of the dissenting scientists negotiated
with industrialist Sherman Fairchild, and they convinced the
remaining holdout, Noyce, to join them as their leader. The Shockley Eight defected in 1957 to form a new company, Fairchild Semiconductor,
in nearby Mountain View, California. Shockley’s company,
which never recovered from the loss of these scientists, soon
went out of business.Integrating Circuits
Research efforts at Fairchild Semiconductor and Texas Instruments,
in Dallas, Texas, focused on putting several transistors on
one piece, or “chip,” of silicon. The first step involved making miniaturized
electrical circuits. Jack St. Clair Kilby, a researcher at Texas
Instruments, succeeded in making a circuit on a chip that consisted
of tiny resistors, transistors, and capacitors, all of which were connected
with gold wires. He and his company filed for a patent on
this “integrated circuit” in February, 1959. Noyce and his associates
at Fairchild Semiconductor followed in July of that year with an integrated
circuit manufactured by means of a “planar process,”
which involved laying down several layers of semiconductor that
were isolated by layers of insulating material. Although Kilby and
Noyce are generally recognized as coinventors of the integrated circuit,
Kilby alone received a membership in the National Inventors
Hall of Fame for his efforts.
Consequences
By 1968, Fairchild Semiconductor had grown to a point at which
many of its key Silicon Valley managers had major philosophical
differences with the East Coast management of their parent company.
This led to a major exodus of top-level management and engineers.
Many started their own companies. Noyce, Gordon E. Moore,
and Andrew Grove left Fairchild to form a new company in Santa
Clara called Intel with $2 million that had been provided by venture
capitalist Arthur Rock. Intel’s main business was the manufacture
of computer memory integrated circuit chips. By 1970, Intel was
able to develop and bring to market a random-access memory
(RAM) chip that was subsequently purchased in large quantities by
several major computer manufacturers, providing large profits for
Intel.
In 1969, Marcian Edward Hoff, Jr., an Intel research and development
engineer, met with engineers from Busicom, a Japanese firm.
These engineers wanted Intel to design a set of integrated circuits for
Busicom’s desktop calculators, but Hoff told them their specifications
were too complex. Nevertheless, Hoff began to think about the possibility of incorporating all the logic circuits of a computer central processing
unit (CPU) into one chip. He began to design a chip called a
“microprocessor,” which, when combined with a chip that would
hold a program and one that would hold data, would become a small,
general-purpose computer. Noyce encouraged Hoff and his associates
to continue his work on the microprocessor, and Busicom contracted
with Intel to produce the chip. Frederico Faggin, who was hired from
Fairchild, did the chip layout and circuit drawings.
In January, 1971, the Intel team finished its first working microprocessor,
the 4004. The following year, Intel made a higher-capacity
microprocessor, the 8008, for Computer Terminals Corporation.
That company contracted with Texas Instruments to produce a chip
with the same specifications as the 8008, which was produced in
June, 1972. Other manufacturers soon produced their own microprocessors.
The Intel microprocessor became the most widely used computer
chip in the budding personal computer industry and may
take significant credit for the PC “revolution” that soon followed.
Microprocessors have become so common that people use them every
day without realizing it. In addition to being used in computers,the microprocessor has found its way into automobiles, microwave
ovens, wristwatches, telephones, and many other ordinary items.