Cover story.qxd 18/9/07 5:12 pm Page 14

nly a very few of us, when we look back That genius was , who won the over our careers, could say that we were Nobel Prize in 1956 for his work, in association O there at the birth of a new technology. Yet with Bardeen and Bratley, in developing the junc- that is precisely the claim to fame of a group of engi- tion transistor. At one time working within the Bell neers who, collectively, pretty much invented the Labs organisation, Shockley branched out in the semiconductor industry as we know it today. early 1950s to form Shockley Semiconductor. His The group formed , plan was to take with him some staff from , celebrating its 50th Anniversary. Their collective but a combination of their reluctance to move to How eight engineers brilliance was such that many of today’s leading the West Coast and a determination never to work semiconductor companies can trace their origins again with Shockley meant he had to take another changed the world. back to a small building in what was to become Sil- route – hiring some of the brightest US engineer- icon Valley. ing graduates. By Graham Pitcher. But it is the short period before Fairchild which In that respect, Shockley was a success. Num- is of great importance because if it wasn’t for the less bering amongst his employees were Bob Noyce and than perfect people skills of an electronics legend, , who went on to found . The things could have been so different. other six engineers were , , , , and . Shockley was, by all accounts, a disaster when it came to managing people and a catalogue of inci- dents can be found in the literature. But the crunch came when Shockley decided that he would no longer pursue silicon based semiconductors. The eight decided their collective future lay elsewhere. According to Julius Blank, a mechanical engi- neer by training: “There really wasn’t much of an industry then as far as silicon was concerned; it was all germanium based. Many of the tools needed to make silicon devices weren’t available and we could- n’t use germanium tools.” Harry Sello, who joined Fairchild shortly after its inception, noted: “They were exciting times and There at the start Photograph and log entry courtesy Department of Special Collections, Libraries

14 New Electronics www.newelectronics.co.uk 25 September 2007 Cover story.qxd 18/9/07 5:13 pm Page 15

FAIRCHILD’S 50TH COVER STORY

I can remember them as if it were yesterday.” He agreed with Blank on the need to be creative: “You had to make everything from scratch. Whether it That was then … was a diffusion furnace, etching equipment or mea- suring tools, we had to do it all.” Mark Thompson became ceo of Jay Last joined Shockley straight from MIT. “I’d Fairchild Semiconductor in May 2005, planned a career in research,” he noted, “but it did- having joined the company six months n’t turn out that way.” He was one of the eight earlier, writes Paul Dempsey. breakaways. “The eight of us each had a different “As one of the first semiconductor speciality; there was little duplication. There was a companies, Fairchild has followed the sense of excitement because what we wanted to do turbulence of the industry, including hav- was build a transistor – which Shockley didn’t want ing got into difficulties, being acquired to do. We made key technical decisions: silicon was and then divested. the material and diffusion was the process.” Why “If anything emerges from that, it’s silicon? “What makes silicon work is its natural that there are no guarantees in this busi- oxide,” said Sello. “It’s impervious to everything ness. If you stay competitive and innov- except hydrogen fluoride. Germanium, by contrast, ative, and if you are a good supplier, has no stable oxide, so we couldn’t make the struc- you can be successful. But fall by the tures we could using silicon.” Interestingly, Sello wayside in any critical dimension and power management: basic switching; noted that germanium transistors were being made you can cease to exist.” conversion; and regulation,” says at the time using ‘alchemical’ methods. His second point concerns how Thompson. “We are very strong in But what provoked the split from Shockley? Fairchild’s focus on power made the switching – it’s sort of a bank for the com- Blank gave some insight. “At the beginning, it was original job offer attractive, particularly pany – and our power conversion busi- exciting to work for Shockley. But after he won the given his history as general manager of ness has been OK. Nobel Prize, he began to go round the world. When Tyco’s power activities. “However, the key aspect is regula- he came back, he wanted to start new projects. It “Fairchild was in the early stages of tion and that is where, historically, we’ve was fun for a while, but you couldn’t get the basic converting from a classic multimarket been the most under invested. Yet, there’s work done.” company into one concentrating on an increasing interest in high efficiency Sello gave his view: “Shockley was a brilliant power. For my part, I remain convinced regulators and it’ll keep growing. So reg- solid state physicist; there wasn’t a question he that power is one of the most important ulation’s going to be the big deployment couldn’t address. But he was a better talker than drivers of the world economy. area for us over the next couple of “We must be strong in all aspects of years.”

for him. We’d been under his thumb for a year and it was getting less pleasant.” Shockley Semiconductor, then part of Beckman Instruments, had been set up to develop Shockley’s vision of a four layer diode that would work faster than transistors of the time and which would have wider application. But the atmosphere within Shockley was not good. “It was becoming Opposite page: counter productive,” Blank believed, Top: Shockley’s log recorded listener and his personality overrode “so we tried to alter the situation by the resignation of the eight the group.” going to Beckman. We had a num- Fairchild founders on 18 In part, the breakaway also came ber of meetings, but none of us were September 1957. about through market considerations. going to sneak off into the night. Middle: The original Fairchild Sello again: “We were starting to think what “In the end, Beckman changed his mind building in . would go in the market and that’s were there and we burned our bridges. We started to Bottom: The ‘’ was a difference in thinking. Shockley was- look for someone who would hire us as a This page: n’t market oriented.” group; starting our own company wasn’t Middle:Wafer processing at Last confirmed that impression. “We on the agenda. We had a list of about 30 Fairchild’s Portland, Maine, were all young and in awe of Shockley, companies and, strangely enough, facility in 1963. who won the Nobel Prize whilst we were Fairchild wasn’t on the list.” Bottom: One of Fairchild’s there. But we couldn’t continue working was a serial entre- early transistors.

New Electronics www.newelectronics.co.uk 25 September 2007 15 Cover story.qxd 18/9/07 5:41 pm Page 16

FAIRCHILD’S 50TH COVER STORY

con without the need to attach other pieces. That was why our devices were reliable.” Despite the contribution of all Fairchild people, two stand out – Intel founders Bob Noyce and Gor- don Moore. Sello noted: “Our work in silicon semi- conductors required the work of electronics oriented people like Noyce and the talents of Moore, who was a physical chemist. He understood what was needed for processing and manufacture. “As a chemist,” Sello continued, “I could under- stand the materials needs – acids, photoresists and gases – but as to what came out of the process, we relied on Noyce to tell us what the function was, did it work and had we put it together properly.” And Last makes another interesting point. preneur who was, at the time, the largest individual “When I go to a fab today – Intel, for example – I shareholder in IBM. “He had several companies,” can still recognise all the processes.” Blank recalled, “with Fairchild It didn’t take very long for the company to Aircraft and Engineering as change – a result of its initial success. Last left the ‘big daddy’. Someone after three years. “I’d directed the group that went to Fairchild and he made the first ic and I could see the role would thought it a good idea.” be making better and better transistors. I wanted And Fairchild was born as part to continue working in ic development, so I of Fairchild Camera and moved to Teledyne.” Instrument. Last noted: “As I Sello, by contrast, stayed for more than 20years, look back, it’s the timescale with part of that time spent in Italy spent setting up that amazes me. We started in a joint venture between SGS and Fairchild. October 1957 in an empty Fairchild, one of the first companies in the building with the general idea of how to build a nascent Silicon Valley, had a profound impact. Its transistor. We had to do all the other things needed list of alumni is a who’s who of the leading lights to make it a repeatable commercial product.” of the electronics industry. Apart from Noyce and Nevertheless, Fairchild managed to launch its Moore, there are names such as Jerry Sanders, first product in July 1958, just nine months after who founded AMD, Wilf Corrigan, who setting out. “We went from making a product that founded LSI Logic, and Charlie Spork, who left had never been done before to commercial produc- to head up . They are the tion,” Last continued. “Each person knew what ‘Fairchildren’. they had to do and, looking back, it’s a wonder how “Put together all the companies that came from quickly it happened.” Fairchild and they are all traceable back to Shock- Blank said one of the big decisions turned ley,” said Sello. around polarity. “Some said p type because it was “But I don’t see one man standing out today like easier and worked better. But silicon was the other Shockley,” he concluded. “If Shockley could have way round and we had to make an npn device. The understood the use and application of the transis- sales people said there was no market, but we had tor as well as he understood the physics, there to play to our strengths and deal in a market that would only be one semiconductor company in the didn’t exist.” world today and it would be called Shockley.” Above: Blank talked about the first Fairchild transistor. Micrographs show (top) the “We were trying to build a real silicon transistor and first consumer oriented linear got our first order from IBM. It was building a com- integrated circuit and (lower) puter for use in the F108 aircraft, which later was the semiconductor industry’s cancelled. IBM needed silicon devices because ger- first static flip-flop, the manium devices would have needed refrigeration.” backbone of Fairchild’s diode Last noted: “IBM needed it, we could supply it transistor logic technology. and price wasn’t too much of a problem.” Right: Sello compared Fairchild’s approach to that of Celebrating William Shockley’s Texas Instruments. “TI was the enemy,” he recalled, Nobel Prize in 1956. Shockley “but our planar technique made an ic in one piece

is sat centre right. with the whole pattern of the circuit put into sili- Photograph courtesy Department of Special Collections, Stanford University Libraries

16 New Electronics www.newelectronics.co.uk 25 September 2007