Speed
under Tarui's direction. They were to masks that could be amortized only been developed in the 1960s at West work together for four years. over relatively long production runs. inghouse, was limited to rather small Sharp and other pioneers in the use But the PROM did have a drawb.ack. PROMs in the region of about 2k, while of !Cs were excluded because MlTI felt Once programmed for one applica the Perlegos device paved the way for VLSI circuits would be very difficult to tion, it could not be used for another. 1-Mbit EEPROMs, which Atmel ex make and the high price would make That problem was solved at lntel in pects to announce by year-end. them impractical for calculators. 1972, when Dov Frohman developed Perlegos' EEPROM required devel Tarui's idea was to get the research the ultraviolet-eraseable PROM (UV oping a thin-oxide technology-with ers to work on "basic and common" PROM or EPROM). One could erase oxide layers as thin as 100angstroms- technologies. "You know," he points its contents by exposing the chip as it involved a tunneling phenom out, "even in Japan it is very difficult to through a quartz window on the sur enon. While the EPROM would enjoy a get competing companies to really face of the package to ultraviolet much broader market and was a main work together, so by limiting our re· light. Then one could program the stream product, his EEPROM offered search to basic and chip anew. specialized capabilities that had not common technol been available earlier. ogies, we could de GEORGE POUGOS In 1981, Perlegos left Intel to become velop something Dov Frohman's a founder of Seeq Technology. He left useful for each EPROM was an ex in October 1984 to become chairman, company. So the tremely significant president and chief executive officer of companies cooper product, though it Atmel Corp., a manufacturer of high ated and we got was curbed by speed non-volatile memories and logic some very good limited memory devices. people." only 2 kilobits There was an and by being a p JOHN BIRKNER, H.T. CHUA other reason for channel part. The Harris, Intel and others made great pro cooperation. "At man who took that gress in programmable and re-pro the time," Tarui re device further, grammable memory. But memory isn't calls, "we had no George Perlegos, everything. There's also logic. One confidence that we spent six years go man who made the big breakthrough in could compete or ing for his doctor programmable logic was John Birkner, succeed. So execu ate at Stanford, and who has a 1971 MSEE from the Univer tives at the various left school with sity of Akron. companies were • "only" an MSEE Birkner worked at Goodyear Aero very cooperative." because he ran out space, Philco Ford and Computer Tarui formed six of funds in 1978. Automation before he joined Mono groups, three to fo But he started lithic Memories Inc., a leader in cus on lithography working long be PROMs, in 1975. MMl was looking and one each to fo fore he finished his into field-programmable logic de cus on crystals, pro schooling. He vices that would be significantly bet cessing and evalua worked at Ameri ter than those on the market from tion. These groups can Microsystems Signetics and those that lntersil al were led by Masato from mid-1972 to most brought to the market. shi Migitaka of Hita JOHN IR 'ER, H.T. CHUA early 1974, then Birkner and H.T. Chua, a design en chi, Tadashi Naka joined Intel, where gineer at MMI, developed a device they mura of Fujitsu, he stayed until Feb called, at first, a field-programmable Yoshiyuki Takeishi ruary 1981, concur logic array. The FPLA was later called of Toshiba, Takashi Jently spending Programmable Array Logic and it came Iizukaof MJTI's Elec purt of the time in a 20-pin, 300-mil DlP, when earlier t ro technical Lab, (1978 and '79) devices required a 600-mil DIP with 28 Taiji Oku of Mitsubi teaching at Santa pins. The PAL was fast-with 35-ns shi and Akira Kawaji Clara University propagation delay that was later im of NEC. and part of the time proved to 30. Earlier devices had 80-ns Equipment man (to 1978) studying propagation delay. ufacturers, like Ni at Stanford. The Birkner/Chua PAL wasn't rev kon (Nippon Ko He made some olutionary, but it stormed the m.lr� gaku), Canon, important contribu ket, acquiring licensees like National Anelva and JEOL, tions at Intel. First, Semiconductor, Texas Instruments played an impor· in 1974, based on and Advanced Micro Devices be tant role, too. Sho Frohman's work cause it added features that others jiro Yoshida of Ni and work on lacked. One significant feature was kon, working with stacked gates and the use of programmable l/0 pins. the VLSl research channel injection Earlier programmable logic devices ers and other Ni by Yasuo Tarui, he had committed UO pins. A user who kon engineers, de developed the first needed three input pins and 12 out ,·eloped the Nikon n-channel EPROM, put pins, for example, could not use tepper. MITI pro an Bk part, the a device that had eight input and vided money to Ni 2708. He also made eight output pins. The new PAL kon and others to the first 5-V eliminated that problem, thereby develop equipment EPROM, the 2716. helping customers and semiconduc that would be re All earlier EPROMs tor vendors reduce inventory. quired for VLSJ cir and most of the ear Birkner and Chua did something cuits. Ii er memory de else to make their product a leader: The dramatic de- vices required three They made their PAL easy to use. velopments in VLSI YASUO TARUI voltages. They offered a development tool, the can trace their ancestry to dramatic Then, in 1978, Perlegos made the PAL assembler, and they wrote a achievements in isolation-achieve first commercial electrically erasca handbook with many applications ments like Peltzer's lsoplanar, Rich ble PROM, the 2816, that didn't suf examples. man's Coplamos and Murphy's buried fer from density limitations, as did Birkner left Monolithic Memories in collector. But Short's dielectric isola earlier MNOS EEPROMs. This made July 1986; Chua left in July 1987, just tion, though it chewed up real estate, it possible, for the first time, to erase before the company's acquisitiol'\ by continued as a powerful technique, and reprogram a large PROM in cir Advanced Micro Devices; and Andy especially as embodied in Radia cuit, even remotely via modem or Chan, a close associate at MMl, joined tion's PROM. radio signal, and without time-con the pair in January 1988. They are all Radiation's PROM represented an suming ultraviolet exposure, and peersat Peer Research, a company they important leap ahead, as it enabled en without the need for a quartz win started on February 16, 1988, the first gineers to tailor a ROM to their own dow on the package. day of the Year of the Dragon-a sym needs without requiring expensive The MNOS EEPROM, which had bol of good fortune.
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