A noted visionary and natural leader, Robert Noyce helped to create a new industry when he developed the technology that would eventually become the microchip.

Starting up

Robert Noyce, the son of an Iowa minister, showed an early love of tinkering and a fascination for discovering how things work, which he had ample opportunity to indulge as he tore down and rebuilt old Model Ts [20] and discarded gasoline-powered washing machines that he found in the small Iowa towns in which he grew up. The hours Noyce spent unlocking the secrets of these machines, coupled with his innate good nature and easy manner, gave him a patient, down-to-earth leadership style[21] that would become a hallmark of his career.

Noyce’s passion for mechanics deepened when he enrolled at Grinnell College in 1946. His goal was a degree in physics, but he spent equal time in engineering classes, where he was introduced to the solid-state transistor, invented in 1947 by a team of scientists headed up by Walter Brattain and William Shockley at Bell Telephone Laboratories in New York. His fascination with the new technology and its potential fueled a lifelong interest in semiconductor theory.

Following graduation from Grinnell, Noyce moved to Boston to pursue a Ph.D. in physical electronics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. After receiving his degree in 1953, he went to work for Philadelphia-based Philco, a radio manufacturer that was assembling a team of scientists to work in its transistor division.

At Bell Labs

Noyce left Philco in 1955 to join a team of scientists that William Shockley had gathered to work at his new venture in his former home state of California. Shockley, who would later win the Nobel Prize for his role in the discovery of the transistor, had left Bell Labs in 1954 to pursue his own theories about the transistor, establishing Shockley Semiconductor Laboratories in Palo Alto.

Shockley’s reputation enabled him to hire a corps of talented scientists; however, his rigid adherence to germanium-based technology when the rest of the industry was shifting to silicon frustrated his recruits, who also began to realize that while Shockley’s reputation would most likely continue to build, they were not necessarily guaranteed the same recognition or success. After several years a group of the more ambitious scientists, frustrated over their deteriorating relationship with Shockley, left the company to pursue semiconductor research using their own theories. Although Noyce was tempted to join the "traitors," as Shockley referred to them, he elected to stay behind for the time being3.

The seven former Shockley employees drew up a business plan for their new company and approached East Coast investors, finding a sympathetic ear in the investment firm of Hayden Stone, which was involved with a company called Fairchild Camera and Instrument. Quite by chance, Fairchild’s president, eager to enter the new solid-state transistor world, had asked for assistance from the investment company at the same time the Shockley defectors arrived with their business plan. Fairchild quickly showed interest, but withheld a final commitment until the group could find a leader with strong management skills to oversee their work and act as a spokesman for the fledgling company.

Noyce, with his easy leadership style and effortless way of taking charge, coupled with his experience in transistor and semiconductor research, was the obvious choice. By this time, he had reached the same conclusion as his former co-workers, and was more than eager to join them. With financing now secured, Fairchild Semiconductor was born in Mountain View, just a few miles away from Palo Alto in Santa Clara County. What happened next would transform the sleepy orchards and misty valleys of the area into today’s Silicon Valley.

Date: 2015-12-24; view: 631