Fairchild Semicondutor Company occupies an important position in the development history of Silicon Valley, and has made great contributions to the semiconductor industry and even the world. If Stanford University is the cradle of talents in Silicon Valley, Fairchild Company, founded in 1957, is a hotbed for incubating enterprises in Silicon Valley. Hundreds of companies were later separated from Fairchild Company, including Intel,AMD and KPCB, the most prominent venture capital company in Silicon Valley, so that some people called it Fairchildren because there are too many descendants of Fairchild.
If there were no Fairchild, there would be no IT industry today, or at least it wouldn’t be like this. If we want to find the root cause for the current situation of the whole IT industry, then this root cause is undoubtedly "Fairchild". In the early 1980s, the famous bestseller "Silicon Valley fever" also wrote:
"Half of about 70 semiconductor companies in Silicon Valley are direct or indirect descendants of Fairchild. Working for Fairchild is the way to enter the semiconductor industry all over Silicon Valley. At a conference of semiconductor engineers held in Sunnyvale in 1969, only 24 of the 400 participants had never worked in Fairchild. "
This is the legend of Fairchild.
To understand the birth of "Fairy Boy", we have to talk about another story first: the story of "Eight Rebellions".
Known as "the father of the transistor, the greatest invention of the 20th century", Dr. William Shockley left Bell Laboratories in 1955 and founded a new company, Shockley Semiconductor Laboratories, in his hometown of Santa Clara and now the birthplace of Silicon Valley. Soon, a large number of young talents came here and joined his team.
Santa Clara Valley, also known as Silicon Valley.
Eight of them are the most famous: Robert Noyce, Gordon Moore, Julius Blank, Eugene Kleiner, Jean Hoerni, Jay Last and Sheldon Roberts.
Noyce, the oldest of the eight people, is only 29 years old. They are in their prime of life and are at the peak of their creativity. Among them, there are people who have obtained double doctorates, engineers from big companies, and researchers and professors from famous universities, which is a great collection of talents that has never been seen in the western United States. They joined shockley Semiconductor Company without considering the working environment, conditions and treatment at all, just to realize their ideals and ambitions.
Nuoyisi
In January, 1956, shockley, Badin and bratton were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for the invention of the transistor.
From left: Badin, shockley and bratton.
After learning of the award, Shockley was so excited that he took his young scientists to the luxurious Dinah Cabin restaurant in the city for a champagne breakfast. At this time, everyone was immersed in joy, thinking that shockley could lead them to create new glories and rewrite human history.
Champagne breakfast party
Unfortunately, Shockley is a talented scientist, but he has a bad temper, is difficult to communicate, and knows nothing about management. Worst of all, shockley doesn’t know his own shortcomings. Terman once commented: "Klee is a very attractive figure in the eyes of talented young people, but it is difficult for them to work with him." During the year, the laboratory did not develop any decent products. What makes these young engineers intolerable is that shockley has no respect for them. When recruiting people, shockley requires every applicant to pass his own IQ test and psychological test. Instead of giving full play to the initiative of engineers, he directly directed them to do specific work, resulting in useless waste products. When an engineer presents an experimental report, Shockley will ask him to stand aside and listen to his criticism of the experimental report when he calls the people in Bell Labs.
shockley,william bradford
A group of backbone young engineers began to plan to deprive shockley of the management right and only let him be a consultant. However, the investors of shockley Semiconductor Company did not know how bad the company was and why these young people did not want to work under a Nobel Prize winner. In the end, the plan failed.
Those young engineers, who didn’t want to waste their precious youth on shockley, began to plan their own defection. To be exact, of the eight people mentioned above, except Noyce, the remaining seven people are determined to leave.
At that time, they knew nothing but technology. Most importantly, there is no money.
So Claire, one of the seven people, wrote a letter to new york Hayden Stone & Co, which was in charge of his father’s corporate banking business, and attached a very simple investment plan.
Clare
In this plan, Claire wrote:
"We are an experienced and versatile team. We are proficient in physics, chemistry, metallurgy, machinery, electronics and other fields. We can start the semiconductor business within three months after the funds are in place. After the letter was sent, seven people waited in fear and trembling for a reply.
Claire’s letter was passed on to Arthur Rock, an employee of Hayden Si Tong Investment Bank. Arthur Locke is keenly aware of the opportunities in the letter. He attaches great importance to the talents of these young people and is optimistic about the long-term development of the semiconductor industry.
So he persuaded his boss, Bud Coyle, to fly to San Francisco to meet these young people.
Arthur Locke, a legendary figure in the history of American science and technology investment (known as the father of venture capital), is related to the birth of Intel and Apple.
Arthur Locke
In San Francisco, seven young people met with two investors from new york for the first time.
After the meeting, these seven people found that all of them are technical, and they don’t understand management or business at all, and they need a "leading brother" who can make decisions. And who is suitable to be the "big brother"? They all thought of Noyce who was absent.
In their eyes, Noyce is their most recognized and trusted "leader". Noyce has both IQ and EQ, and he is a leader who is convinced by them. However, as mentioned earlier, Noyce has always admired shockley and never wanted to "betray" him.
So, seven people sent Roberts as a representative, trying to persuade Noyce. Roberts worked hard and talked with Noyce until midnight. Finally, he succeeded in persuading Noyce.
In fact, Noyce has been suppressed by shockley many times before (and missed a chance to win the Nobel Prize), and he knows very well that there will be no future if he persists, and it is only a matter of time before he leaves.
The next morning, the impatient Roberts went door-to-door to seven other people’s homes, picked them up, stuffed them into his van and drove all the way to San Francisco.
After the tense and exciting talks, Locke and coyle were moved. Locke took out ten brand-new one-dollar bills and slapped them on the table: "Don’t say anything, just do it!" Coyle looked around them and said, "The agreement is not ready. If you want to join in, sign it!"
So, eight young people and two bankers signed their names around Washington’s head.
Signed dollar
One of the signed $1 bills is currently in the collection of Stanford University.
On September 18th, 1957 (which was later named as one of the most important ten days in American history by The New York Times), eight young people submitted their resignations to shockley. Shockley flew into a rage and denounced these ungrateful young people, calling them "traitorous eight" or "The Traitorous Eight". These eight rebels later played an extremely important role in the development of Silicon Valley, and shockley changed his mind and called them "the rebels of eight geniuses".
Since then, shockley Semiconductor Company has never come out of failure.
After the "Eight Rebels" resigned, they initially wanted to find a company that could hire eight of them at the same time, but failed to do so. Later, they decided to find a big company to invest and start their own business. Dozens of talks, but none of them were interested. The most typical answer they got was "Semiconductor has nothing to do with our company’s business". Finally, a photographic equipment company in new york is willing to invest to let them start a business. The name of this company is "Fairchild", transliteration is "fairchild". Sherman Fairchild, the owner of the company, is a famous inventor himself, and his achievements include sealed cabin aircraft, folding wings and so on. As a subsidiary of the Fairchild family, the name of the new company is "Fairchild semi conductor", namely Fairchild Semicondutor Company. Fairchild Semiconductor’s parent company is Fairchild Group in fairchild, and Richard Hodgson, vice president of Fairchild Group, is in charge. Originally, Hodgson intended to let Noyce be the general manager, but Noyce refused. He just wanted to be the technical director, so Hodgson hired Ed Baldwin from Hughes as the general manager of Fairchild Semiconductor.
Time magazine, fairchild
In terms of the company’s shares, it is decided that the company is divided into 1325 shares, 100 shares for each of the eight people, 225 shares for Hayden Si Tong, and the remaining 300 shares are reserved for the company’s future management.
The investment agreement states that if the company’s net profit exceeds $300,000 for three consecutive years, Fairchild Group has the right to recover its shares with $3 million, or with $5 million five years later.
This agreement marks the first real venture capital investment in Silicon Valley. Locke and coyle are the earliest venture capitalists in Silicon Valley. They helped to formulate the company’s business strategy, analyzed the financing needs, looked for funds and shared the profits.
The establishment of Fairchild Semiconductor Company is recognized as the symbol of the birth of Silicon Valley. Although Shockley brought silicon here, it is undoubtedly Fairchild Semiconductor that created Silicon Valley and its unique culture.
In this way, the "Eight Traitors" have a new name: "Eight Immortals".
Soon, Fairchild Company ushered in the peak of its career and promoted the vigorous development of Silicon Valley. Together with Hewlett-Packard Company, Fairchild Company was called the "Yin" and "Yang" of Silicon Valley. As the creator of this miracle, in many books and periodicals in Silicon Valley, the photo of "Eight Immortals" has far-reaching historical value as well as the photo of the garage that marks the origin of HP.
Eight immortals
Gordon Moore, one of the eight people, once said, "Fairchild is a completely accidental enterprise". Fairchild has regarded "hierarchy" as its enemy since its establishment. The company has no parking spaces, no special small restaurants, no private offices and no middle managers with various levels.
In October 1957, Fairchild Semiconductor Company began to operate. Fairchild Semiconductor Company rented a cabin on Charleston Road, Maowang Mountain, Silicon Valley, which was almost far from shockley Laboratory and Hewlett-Packard Company’s garage. The "Fairchild" discussed to make a double diffusion transistor, in order to replace the traditional germanium material with silicon, which is a project that they haven’t finished in shockley laboratory but don’t pay attention to in shockley. Fairchild photographic equipment company promised to provide financial resources, totaling 1.5 million US dollars. Noyce divided the work for his partners, and Herney and Moore were responsible for studying the new diffusion technology, while he himself specialized in plane photography with Raster.
From left: fairchild, Moore, Noyes.
In January 1958, Fairchild got the first order from IBM, ordering 100 silicon transistors for the memory of the company’s computer. Moreover, Fairchild Semiconductor Company won an order from the U.S. Department of Defense to produce transistors for militia nuclear missiles and gained a stable market. By the end of 1958, the company had sales of US$ 500,000 and 100 employees. Relying on the advantages of technological innovation, it became the fastest growing company in Silicon Valley.
Far more important than these, in research and development, the company invented two new technologies, which later became the basic methods of electronic devices in the world, and are still the mainstream technologies until today.
These two technologies are: plane processing technology and integrated circuit.
Plane processing technology was invented by John Horny in "The Eight Immortals", which is a process method for manufacturing semiconductor circuits. Specifically, when manufacturing transistors, an oxide insulating layer is first grown on a pure silicon wafer, coated with a special photosensitive material, and then etched on it according to the required geometric pattern. Then the surface of the silicon wafer is etched, and the oxide insulating layer will be etched away according to the required geometric mode, exposing the underlying silicon layer. At this time. Impurity material permeates the silicon wafer, and the impurity material permeates the exposed silicon layer to form the emitter, collector and base according to the required geometric pattern. This planar process can be used repeatedly to construct very complex semiconductor devices. In short, diffusion, mask, photography, lithography and the whole process are called planar processing technology, which marks a great leap in the mass production of silicon transistors.
The invention of integrated circuits is even more dramatic.
In September 1958, jack J.kilby of German Instruments (TI) successfully developed the world’s first integrated circuit, and in 2000, he won the Nobel Prize in Physics for inventing the integrated circuit. And just four months after kilby invented the integrated circuit. Robert Noyce in the Eight Immortals independently invented a similar technology without knowing kilby’s work. When the news came that kilby applied for the first patent for integrated circuit invention, Noyce was shocked. He immediately called the "Eight Rebellions" to discuss countermeasures. Kilby’s difficult problems in TI company, such as twice diffusion on silicon wafer and interconnection of wires, are the specialty of Fairchild Semiconductor Company. Noyce suggested that the method of depositing metal by evaporation can be used instead of hot welding wires, which is the best way to solve the interconnection of components. Fairchild semiconductor company began to catch up.
Kilby and his integrated circuit.
The origin of this technology lies in. Because of the plane technology, transistors can be made very small. However, it is a very test technology to connect transistors, resistors, capacitors and other devices with wires to make a circuit. Virtual welding, missing welding and short circuit often occur, and the production efficiency is very low. Noyce’s innovation is that transistors, resistors, capacitors and other devices and wires are all made on a silicon wafer by plane technology, so that it is as easy to produce a circuit as it is to produce a transistor.
In order to achieve this goal, Noyce also solved some difficult problems, such as "how to make resistors and capacitors on the silicon chip" and "what material and thickness wires to choose and where to place them on the silicon chip". Compared with kilby’s invention, Noyce’s integrated circuit has two advantages: first, kilby uses germanium semiconductor, Noyce uses silicon, and silicon is extremely rich in nature; Second, kilby’s integrated circuit only integrates the devices themselves on a piece of semiconductor material, and the devices are manually connected by wires made of gold, while Noyce’s integrated circuit integrates all the devices and wires on a chip.
Noyce and his team
On July 30, 1959, Fairchild also applied for a patent from the United States Patent Office. In order to compete for the invention right of integrated circuits, the two companies began a protracted dispute. In 1966, kilby and Noyce were awarded the "Balandin" medal by Franklin Institute, kilby was praised as "the inventor of the first integrated circuit", and Noyce was praised as "the person who put forward the integrated circuit theory suitable for industrial production". In 1969, the final judgment of the court was issued, and the integrated circuit was actually recognized as a simultaneous invention in law. Because of the creative work of fairies, the human world has since entered an era of great development of integrated circuits. Because of the superiority of Noyce’s invention, his design has been used until today. It was not until the end of 1990s that IBM invented the copper conductor technology with better performance that the semiconductor industry began to replace Noyce’s aluminum conductor with copper conductor.
In 1964, another prodigy, Gordon Moore, published a strange law, and he predicted that the bibliography of transistors that can be integrated in integrated circuits would increase steadily every 18 months, and keep this momentum for decades. Maulde’s prediction was proved in the later development of integrated circuits, and kept its validity for a long time. IT was hailed as "Moore’s Law" and became the "first law" of IT industry.
Moore’s Law
Fairchild Semiconductor entered its golden age in the 1960s. By 1967, the company’s turnover was close to 200 million dollars, which was simply astronomical at that time. However, at this time, the crisis began to breed slowly. Fairchild’s parent company did not give Fairchild Semiconductor a fair treatment, but constantly transferred the company’s profits to another subsidiary: fairchild Photographic Equipment Company,
Thus, Kim Henny, Sheldon B Roberts and Eugene Claire, among the Eight Immortals, took the lead to leave and set up Nelke Company.
Later, Jay Laster also left Fairchild and founded Signay Tix Semiconductor Company.
In 1967, Spock, who was the general manager of the company, also left the company to become CEO of National Semiconductor Company (NSC), moved the company to Silicon Valley, and quickly grew into the sixth largest semiconductor manufacturer in the world. Sanders, once the director of the company’s sales department, left the company in 1969 and founded AMD, which can now compete with Intel.
AMD&Intel;
Interestingly, the famous Intel company also originated from Fairchild. In 1968, the last two of the Eight Fairy Boys, Robert Noyce and Gordon Moore, left Fairchild Company with Grove and founded the now well-known Intel Company.
Intel founders: Grove, Noyce, Moore
A large number of talented people who have flocked to Fairchild have left and started their own businesses. This is the gospel of the development of Silicon Valley, but it is the disaster of Fairchild Semiconductor Company. It is no longer a "miracle created by naughty children".
Since then, Fairchild Semiconductor Company has been resold one after another, but it has been abandoned by the new owner several times because it has never been able to turn losses into profits, and has undergone a great change in its name. One of the buyers was actually NSC company managed by Spock, the former general manager of Fairchild.
In 1996, NSC moved the original headquarters of Fairchild Company to Maine, and restored the old name of Fairchild Semiconductor. At this point, the former "cradle of talents in Silicon Valley" suddenly withdrew from Silicon Valley. Since then, Fairchild Semiconductor Fair IV has gradually transformed into consumer electronics manufacturing after being sold and reorganized again.
Fairchild semiconductor company from birth to the peak of glory, almost ten years, and then quickly declined. As a high-tech company, IT may not be successful, but countless former fairies have created the miracle of Silicon Valley in the United States, making the United States a leader in the development of high-tech industries in the world, so that for decades, fairies have emerged behind almost all scientific and technological progress in the IT industry of the whole world.
Fairy boy genealogy
Enterprises whose history is related to fairchild.
Without the fall of Fairchild, there would be no Silicon Valley today, and there would be no remarkable achievements in the development of the semiconductor industry. Our life now will also be another scene.
As the saying goes, a fairy boy fell and a million fairies in Qian Qian stood up.