History of Fairchild Semiconductor Company

I'm glad to solve your problem. Fairchild Semiconductor was founded in 1957. This historical fact must start from two clues. 1955, Dr. W. shockley, the "father of transistors" who achieved "the greatest invention of this century", left Bell Laboratories and returned to his hometown of Santa Clara to establish Shockley Semiconductor Laboratories. This good news is exactly what Professor Terman wants to attract global talents for Silicon Valley: With the "phoenix tree" in shockley, why not attract crowds of "phoenixes"? The computer industry is anxiously watching shockley's whereabouts. It is said that when Newton announced that he would build a factory in his hometown 300 years ago, the physics circles all over the world also had such a mentality. Soon, admiring the title of "Father of Transistors", the cover letter flew to shockley's desk like snowflakes. The following year, eight young scientists arrived in Silicon Valley from the eastern United States and joined the shockley Laboratory. They are: N. Noyce, R. Moore, J. Blank, E. kleiner, J. Henny, J. Raster, S. Baubotz and V. Grinich. They are all under 30 years old, in the prime of their lives, with achievements in their studies and at the peak of their creativity. Some of them have received double doctorates, some are engineers from big companies, and some are researchers and professors from famous universities. This is an unprecedented gathering of talents in the western United States. Noyce, 29, is a veteran of eight people and the most determined one who defected to shockley. When he flew to San Francisco, the first thing he did was to buy himself a house and decide to settle down permanently, regardless of the working environment, conditions and treatment. The other seven young people came to Silicon Valley and all had similar experiences with Noyce. Unfortunately, shockley is a talented scientist, but he lacks management ability; He is ambitious, but he knows nothing about management. Terman once commented: "In the eyes of talented young people, Shockley is a very attractive figure, but it is difficult for them to have anything to do with him." During this year, the laboratory didn't develop any decent products. After eight rebellions, eight youths began to plan to leave without telling shockley. Under the leadership of Noyce, they submitted their resignation to shockley. Shockley angrily called them "traitorous group of eight". The young people looked at each other, but left their Bole without hesitation. However, even Shockley himself changed his mind and called them "the rebellion of the Eight Geniuses". In many works in Silicon Valley, the photos of "Eight Rebellions" are as historic as HP's garage. "Eight Anti-"found a photographic equipment company in new york, USA to support their business. The name of this company is fairchild, which is transliterated as Fairchild, but it is usually translated as Fairchild. Fairchild photographic equipment company was formerly an aerial photography company founded by S. fairchild in 1920. Fairchild is not only an entrepreneur, but also an inventor. His inventions are mainly in the aviation field, including sealed cabin aircraft, folding wings and so on. Because the product was very popular, he split the company in two at 1936. Among them, Fairchild Photography Equipment Company produces cameras and electronic equipment. When eight rebels asked him for cooperation, Mr. fairchild, who was over 60 years old, provided only $3,600 in seed fund, asking them to develop and produce commercial semiconductor devices, and enjoyed the purchase privilege for two years. As a result, the enterprise founded by the "Eight Oppositions" was officially named Fairchild Semiconductor Company, and the first of the "Fairchild" was Noyce. 1957 10, Fairchild Semiconductor Company still rented a cabin on Charleston Road, Elvis Hill, Silicon Valley, which is almost far from shockley Lab and Hewlett-Packard Company's garage. "Fairchild" are talking about making a double diffusion transistor, with the purpose of replacing 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 $6,543,800+0.5 million. Noyce divided the work among his partners, Henny and Moore were responsible for studying new diffusion technology, while he himself specialized in plane photography with grating. 1958 65438+ 10, IBM placed their first order for 100 silicon transistors for the memory of the company computer. By the end of 1958, the "eight rebellious" small companies had 500,000 sales and 100 employees, relying on the advantages of technological innovation, becoming the fastest growing companies in Silicon Valley. Fairchild Semiconductor Co., Ltd. has developed rapidly under the careful planning of Noyce, and at the same time, a set of plane processing technology for manufacturing transistors has become increasingly mature. Genius scientist Heini is the best among the fairies. Like magic, he squeezed the oxide layer on the silicon surface to the maximum. Fairchild Semiconductor has different methods of manufacturing transistors. First, they diffuse impurities with semiconductor characteristics onto high-purity silicon wafers. The transistor structure is painted on the mask, reduced by photolithography, developed on the oxide layer on the surface of the silicon wafer, and then removed by photolithography. Diffusion, masking, photography, lithography ... The whole process is called plane processing technology, which marks a leap in the large-scale production of silicon transistors, and seems to open a wonderful door for "fairies" to see a bottomless abyss: if you can make a transistor in this way, why can't you make dozens, hundreds or even thousands? 1959 65438+1On October 23rd, Noyce recorded this thought in detail in his diary. 1959 In February, Noyce was shocked by the news that J.kilby, an engineer of Texas Instruments Company (TI), applied for the first patent for the invention of integrated circuits. He immediately called the "Eight Rebels" to discuss countermeasures. TI Kilby's difficult problems, such as twice diffusion on silicon wafer and interconnection of wires, are Fairchild's specialty. Noyce suggested that hot wire can be replaced by evaporation deposition of metal, which is the best way to solve the interconnection of components. Fairchild Semiconductor began to catch up. On July 30th, 1959, they also applied for a patent in the US Patent Office. In order to compete for the invention right of integrated circuits, the two companies began a protracted dispute. 1966, kilby and Noyce were awarded the ballantine Medal by Franklin Institution at the same time. Kilby is known as "the first inventor of integrated circuits", and Noyce is known as "the person who put forward the theory of integrated circuits suitable for industrial production". 1969, the final judgment of the court was issued, and the integrated circuit was actually recognized as a simultaneous invention in law. 1960, Fairchild semiconductor company achieved further development and success. Because the invention of the integrated circuit made it famous, the parent company Fairchild Photography Equipment Company decided to buy its shares at a price of 3 million US dollars, and each of the eight rebels had shares worth 250,000 US dollars. 1964, Dr. Moore, one of the founders of Fairchild Semiconductor, published a strange law, which was only three pages long. Moore's Genius predicts that the number of transistors that can be integrated on an integrated circuit will increase steadily every 18 months, and this trend will be maintained in the next few decades. This prediction of Moore was proved by the later development of integrated circuits, and kept its validity for a long time. Known as "Moore's Law", it has become the "first law" of the emerging electronic computer industry. Fairchild Semiconductor entered its golden age in 1960s. By 1967, the company's turnover was close to 200 million dollars, which was astronomical at that time. According to Dr. Yu Youcheng (now vice president of Intel Corporation in China), "Entering Fairchild Company means stepping into the gate of Silicon Valley semiconductor industry." However, it was also during this period that Fairchild began to breed crisis. The general manager of the parent company keeps shifting profits to the East Coast to support the profitability of Fairchild Photographic Equipment Company. Seeing the unfairness of the parent company, Henny, Roberts and Claire in Eight Rebellions first left angrily and set up Nelko Company. It is said that Henny later founded as many as 12 new companies. Subsequently, Glass, another member of the "Eight Oppositions", left Fairchild with several people and set up Signay Tix Semiconductor Company. Since then, a large number of talent elites have poured into Fairchild and left their jobs to start businesses. As Steve Jobs of Apple said, "Fairchild Semiconductor Company is like a mature dandelion. As soon as you blow, the seeds of this entrepreneurial spirit will fly everywhere with the wind. " Among the founders of Fairchild Semiconductor, Spock and Jerry Sanders are famous. Spock was the general manager of Fairchild Semiconductor. 1967 after leaving his post, he became CEO of National Semiconductor Corporation (NSC). He carried out drastic reforms and moved NSC from Connecticut to Silicon Valley, making it rapidly grow from a loss-making enterprise to the sixth largest semiconductor manufacturer in the world. Saunders is the sales director of Fairchild Semiconductor. 1969, he founded Advanced Micro Instruments (AMD) with seven Fairchild employees. This company is now the microprocessor manufacturer second only to Intel, and its microprocessor products such as K6 and K6-2 sell well all over the world. 1968, Noyce and Moore, the last two "Eight Inversions", also left Fairchild Company together with A. Grove and started their own business. The company they founded is the famous Intel. Although I bid farewell to Fairchild, Eight Inverse still agreed to be together. The last time was 1997, and only 6 out of 8 people were still alive. It seems that we should carry forward the spirit of "defection" against the "eight evils", and groups of "fairies" have emerged in succession, setting off a huge entrepreneurial upsurge. In this regard, the famous best-selling book "Silicon Valley fever" published in the early 1980s wrote: "Half of the 70 semiconductor companies in Silicon Valley are direct or indirect descendants of Fairchild Semiconductor. Working for Fairchild Semiconductor is the way to enter the whole Silicon Valley semiconductor industry. 1969 At a conference of semiconductor engineers held in Sunnyvale, less than 24 of the 400 participants had never worked at Fairchild. " In this sense, it is no exaggeration to say that Fairchild Semiconductor is the "cradle of talents in Silicon Valley". The brain drain is the "gospel" for the development of Silicon Valley, but it is a disaster for Fairchild Semiconductor. From 1965 to 1968, the company's sales continued to decline, reaching less than1200,000 US dollars, and there was no profit for two consecutive years. People clearly realize that it is no longer a "miracle created by naughty children". In order to find someone to take Noyce's job, Sherman fairchild invited Dr. Lester Hogan from Motorola with the highest salary ever in Silicon Valley-$6,543,800+for three years, plus $600,000 in stock, to show his "talent-hungry" attitude. Hogan is not an incompetent general manager. He once brought a great turn for Motorola. During his six years in power, fairchild tried his best to triple the company's sales. However, the soul of Fairchild Semiconductor has already left, and it is only a matter of time before it collapses. 1974, Hogan, unable to return to heaven, handed over power to 36-year-old corrigan, but his successor quickly dropped the company from the second place to the sixth place in the semiconductor industry within two or three years. In the late 1970s, corrigan finally found that the best way to save Fairchild Semiconductor Company was to sell it. After many twists and turns, he finally chose a Schlumberger company with assets of $2 1 billion, although it is a French company, operating in the oil service industry. 1In the summer of 979, Fairchild Semiconductor, once the best enterprise in the United States, was acquired by French foreign investors at a price of 350 million US dollars, which caused a great sensation inside and outside Silicon Valley. Foreign capital seems unable to inject vitality into the declining Fairchild Semiconductor. Although Shi Lamu Berg Company recruited a group of talents who studied artificial intelligence, which could have enabled Fairchild Company to quickly enter the field of robot production, they did not do so. In fact, after sustained losses, Fairchild resold it to another American company at a third of the original price. The buyer is National Semiconductor Corporation (NSC) managed by Spock, the former general manager of Fairchild Semiconductor, whose semiconductor brand once died. 1996, national semiconductor company moved the original Fairchild headquarters to Maine, and restored Fairchild's old name. However, the "cradle of talents in Silicon Valley" with 6,500 employees had to withdraw from Silicon Valley. As early as 1962, Fairchild Semiconductor established a production line for developing and manufacturing transistors in Maine, with branches in California, Utah and even South Korea and Malaysia. It still has strong strength in the field of semiconductor devices, mainly developing and producing semiconductor memory devices. After the headquarters moved to South Portland, Maine, the company leaders tried to regain their glory. However, the ill-fated "fairy couple", 1997, was sold again by the national semiconductor company for 550 million yuan in March. The reason is self-evident-American National Semiconductor Company acquired Cyrix, the third largest microprocessor manufacturer in the world, at the same price, trying to compete with Intel and AMD for the PC semiconductor market. It must be unpleasant to be bought and sold. K.Pond, the current CEO and president of Fairchild Semiconductor, hopes to restructure the company strategically. Pound studied in the Department of Electronic Engineering of the University of Arkansas and obtained an MBA from the University of Pennsylvania. Since 1968 joined Fairchild Semiconductor Company, he has held important positions in many departments, and has been the main leader of Fairchild Semiconductor since 1994. Fortunately, it was a venture capital company that invested in this acquisition, and Fairchild Semiconductor finally had a neutral position. Pound said excitedly that this transformation will help to develop the intrinsic value of Fairchild and enable us to develop independently and become a semiconductor enterprise with a variety of products. Sure enough, Pound's Fairchild Semiconductor made a series of amazing moves, and it also started corporate acquisitions: in June of that year, Fairchild Semiconductor spent1/kloc-0.2 billion yuan to buy the semiconductor department of Raytheon, with an annual income of 70 million; 199865438+In February, Fairchild once again spent 455 million yuan on cross-border acquisition of a semiconductor factory owned by South Korea's Samsung Company to manufacture special chips. The acquisition will make Fairchild semiconductor products more suitable for TV, video recorder and audio equipment, and make great strides towards consumer electronics manufacturing. As a "myth" supporting the rise of Silicon Valley, Fairchild Semiconductor Company has gone through a glorious and tortuous course, and its success or failure is due to talents. As the saying goes, "success is Xiao He, and failure is me". I hope my answer is helpful to you. Thank you.