Report to the Computer History Museum on the Information Technology Corporate Histories Project Semiconductor Sector Fairchild Semiconductor Company Details Name: Fairchild Semiconductor Sector: Semiconductor Sector Description . THIS SITE WAS ESTABLISHED TO COLLECT AND PRESENT INFORMATION AND STORIES RELATED TO FAIRCHILD SEMICONDUCTOR AS PART OF THE OCTOBER 2007 CELEBRATION OF THE FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF THE FOUNDING OF THE COMPANY. IF YOU HAVE ANY CORRECTIONS OR ADDITIONAL INFORMATION TO CONTRIBUTE PLEASE CONTACT THE FACILITATORS LISTED BELOW. Overview Founded in 1957 in a building now designated as California Historical Landmark # 1000 in Palo Alto, California by eight young engineers and scientists from Shockley Semiconductor Laboratories, Fairchild Semiconductor Corporation pioneered new products and technologies together with an entrepreneurial style and manufacturing and marketing techniques that reshaped Silicon Valley and the world-wide industry. The Planar process invented in 1959 revolutionized the production of semiconductor devices and enables the manufacture of today's billion transistor microprocessor and memory chips. Funded by and later acquired as a division of Fairchild Camera and Instrument Corporation of Syosset, New York, Fairchild was the first manufacturer to introduce high-frequency silicon transistors and practical monolithic integrated circuits to the market. At the peak of its influence in the mid-1960s, the division was one of the world’s largest producers of silicon transistors and controlled over 30 percent of the market for ICs. Director of Research and Development, Gordon Moore observed in 1965 that device complexity was increasing at a consistent rate and predicted that this would continue into the future. “Moore’s Law,” as it became known, created a yardstick against which companies have measured their technology progress for over 40 years. Starved by the parent company for funds for investment in new production facilities and for equity to retain key employees, by the late 1960s the Semiconductor Division encountered serious problems with introducing new products and satisfying fast growing customer demand. As all of the founders and many senior employees had left the company, a new team composed of former Motorola executives, led by C. Lester Hogan, was appointed to head Fairchild Camera and Instrument Corporation in 1968. Hogan moved the corporate headquarters to Mountain View and the company continued to innovate in new technologies and products, including the industry’s first volume production of high-performance semiconductor memory devices. Ventures into consumer products, including digital watches and video games were less successful. Revenues grew substantially but the company was never able to regain its former profitability and prominence. Report to the Computer History Museum on the Information Technology Corporate Histories Project Semiconductor Sector Having been overtaken in sales and significance by companies started or managed by former employees (Fairchildren), including Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), Intel, and National Semiconductor and buffeted by aggressive US and international competitors, French oilfield services conglomerate Schlumberger purchased the company in 1979. Unable to restore its fortunes, Schlumberger sold the assets to National Semiconductor, another company managed by Fairchildren, in 1987. In 1997 National divested a number of mature former Fairchild product lines in a leveraged buy-out to a group of executives based in the South Portland, Maine facility. Through internal development and strategic acquisition of compatible products for power, interface, analog, mixed signal, logic, and optoelectronic applications, the reborn Fairchild Semiconductor is once again a public company (NYSE: FCS) with annual revenue of more than one billion dollars. Facilitators David Laws - Email Statistics Contributors (9), Events (187), Stories (50), Documents (180), References (75), Discussions (0 threads, 0 posts) Entered By: Luanne Johnson June 29, 2006 Contributors Contributor Henry Blume Date Joined October 1960 Job Description see attached Accomplishments see attached Date Left 1969 Statistics Stories (1) Date Entered August 17, 2007 Contributor scott boutwell Date Joined January 6, 1978 Job Description Hired by Gil Ameleio in 1978. He did not want to pay me my requirements to move from Austin even though I worked for Motorola, inventor of the 6800 family. It worked out great in that I became head Product Engineer, and the Division Manager over microprocessors. Report to the Computer History Museum on the Information Technology Corporate Histories Project Semiconductor Sector Accomplishments A succesful relationship with Ford&Delco GM to make the original car computers valid. They needed a secondary relialble source and we provided. I was the Product Engineer for the 6802(Moto)or the (3902) Fairchild. We sold millions as the first car computers. This is missing from the history. We had the first products that equalled or exceeded 'mil-spec' because of the extreme conditions required. That was the cash-cow for Fairchild not mentioned. Date Left March 9, 2011 Date Entered March 8, 2011 Contributor Michael Bromham Date Joined February 7, 1961 Job Description Shipping clerk Date Left January 6, 1988 Statistics Documents (2) Date Entered March 9, 2008 Contributor Martin DeLateur Date Joined December 21, 1977 Job Description Hired from collage at UC Berkeley, I was in Product Engineering for the Transistor, Discrete and Analog Divisions as well as the Operation Manager in Cebu from 1977 to 1987. Date Left June 21, 1987 Statistics Stories (1) Date Entered October 3, 2007 Contributor Floyd Harris Date Joined June 10, 1964 Job Description Product Marketing and inside sales at diode plant in San Rafael, Calif. Accomplishments Was responsible for coordinating sales activities,quoting prices to field sales, creating internal specifications, monitoring progress and tracking orders placed by major customers such as Hughes Aircraft, Litton Guidance and Control, Litton Data Systems, Autonetics, Space Technology Labs. and other Western Region military and aerospace customers. Report to the Computer History Museum on the Information Technology Corporate Histories Project Semiconductor Sector Date Left June 1, 1966 Statistics Stories (1) , Documents (2) Date Entered September 4, 2007 Contributor Mike Humphries Date Joined June 3, 1970 Job Description I was a product marketing engineer in Advanced Digital MSI Devices. Mike Markula ran the whole marketing group. Our products were the 9300 family of digital components. I had product responsibility for the northeast US. I also spent a stint in Market Research and Planning, when they needed someone familiar with the Fairchild product line who could also figure out how to automate a key market share reporting process, which was on hold because they had laid off the guy who was 50% of the way through the task! Accomplishments The only important thing I did was build a pretty complete system for automating the monthly task of reporting Fairchild device sales (units and dollars)by device type to the industry association, and take the resulting aggregated information returned back to us by them and produce various share of market reports (compared our share in units and dollars to the industry total as well as our prices compared to the industry average)that our company executive committee used for changing pricing and other strategies. By automating the process, the Fairchild cycle time starting from reporting our info to getting key market reports went from 30 days (manual) to a few days, and the result was much quicker decision making for mid-course corrections. Also luckily for me, the technology that I used from Tymshare to make it all work was so interesting that I left Fairchild soon after returning to product marketing to join Tymshare for a career in sales! Date Left January 9, 1972 Statistics Stories (2) , References (1) Date Entered July 28, 2006 Contributor David Laws Date Joined January 1966 Job Description I worked at SGS-Fairchild in marketing and field sales positions in the UK until 1968 when I joined Fairchild Semiconductor in Mountain View, CA. There I worked in a variety of sales and marketing roles, including Burroughs Program Manager, Digital Product Planning Manager, and Product Marketing Manager for Bipolar Memory. Accomplishments My most satisfying accomplishments at Fairchild included helping to plan and Report to the Computer History Museum on the Information Technology Corporate Histories Project Semiconductor Sector introduce the first Isoplanar memories (93410, 93415, etc), working with Rex Rice's group at R & D to help them win the Illiac IV memory contract (the first semiconductor main memory system), and, most challenging of all, devising and implementing a customer-friendly version of Fairchild's arcane product numbering system. Life after Fairchild included 11 years at Advanced Micro Devices in Sunnyvale where I ran the PAL business for several years. My last position was Vice President, Business Development. Moving on to Altera Corporation I was the first Marketing Vice President and after that the first CEO at QuickLogic. Date Left June 1972 Statistics Stories (44) , Documents (176) , References (74) Date Entered June 30, 2006 Contributor Ted Malcolm Date Joined August 16, 1965 Job Description Equipment engineering department. Managed design office and fab shops to provide the production departments