Oral History of Simon Sze
Oral History of Simon Sze Interviewed by: Jeff Katz Recorded: February 11, 2014 Mountain View, California CHM Reference number: X7089.2014 © 2014 Computer History Museum Oral History of Simon Sze Jeff Katz: Good morning, we are at the Computer History Museum on February 11th 2014. I’m with Dr. Simon Sze. And I’m the interviewer. We’re going to do an oral history of Dr. Sze and his experiences with early and very important semiconductors, namely the invention of the floating gate, which is a fundamental piece of all non- volatile memories. We’ll get into that in a little while in more detail. Dr. Sze, I’d like to start with some easy questions. Tell us a little bit about your early life. Simon Sze: Okay. Katz: Where were you born? Where did you grow up? And what was your family background? Sze: All right. I was born in Nanking, China, on March 21st 1936. That’s more or less during the Chinese Japanese war. And my father was a mining engineer. Actually, I originally decided to study mining, but I changed my mind later. And around twelve [in 1948], when I was twelve years old, we moved from mainland China to Taiwan. So, I did my middle school study there, and then my college there. After I graduated from the National Taiwan University, I came to the United States. Katz: Did you have siblings that came along? Sze: Yeah, one brother two years younger. Katz: And were you all a technical family if your dad was a mining engineer? Sze: My brother is a chemical engineer.
[Show full text]