by T. R. Reid
There are far more books than any one person could read on the inner workings of integrated circuits, microprocessors, calculators, and computers. Professor Jacob Millman’s standard text, the one that got me started, has been updated by a colleague: Jacob Millman and Arvin Grabel, Microelectronics (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1987). It is excellent but can be heavy going for the non-engineer. At the other end of the scale is Larry Gonick, The Cartoon Guide to Computer Science (New York: Barnes & Noble, 1983), which manages to be hilarious and quite informative at the same time. The IEEE put out a good primer on logic circuits, John Gregg, Understanding Boolean Algebra, Digital Circuits and the Logic of Sets (Los Alamitos, Calif.: IEEE Press, 1998).
The DIM-I calculator in this book is based to some degree on the “Simple as Possible” computer designed by Albert Paul Malvino in Digital Computer Electronics: An Introduction to Microprocessors (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1983). Other books describing how a computer gets the answer include Gene McWhorter, Understanding Digital Electronics (Dallas: Texas Instruments Learning Center, 1978); Rodnay Zaks, From Chips to Systems: An Introduction to Microprocessors (Alameda, Calif.: Sybex, 1981); and the three-volume series by Adam Osborne, An Introduction to Microcomputers (Berkeley, Calif.: Osborne/McGraw-Hill, 1982).
The flood of books on Japanese management that has poured forth upon this country in recent years includes several that discuss Japanese competition in semiconductor electronics. An excellent case study of Japanese success is Paul duGay et al., The Story of the Sony Walkman (Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage, 1997). The key source on that intriguing figure W. Edwards Deming is Dr. Deming’s own text, Quality, Productivity, and Competitive Position (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1982).
For those who want to know where the digital revolution is heading, Richard Turton’s The Quantum Dot (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995) offers a fairly technical description of how much further the integrated circuit can be integrated, and what technology is available when semiconductor chips are finally saturated. The economics of the digital future are pondered in interesting fashion by George Gilder in Microcosm: The Quantum Revolution in Economics and Technology (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1989).
NOTES
(Fuller publishing information appears in A Note about Sources.)
Chapter 1: The Monolithic Idea
3 honored in the textbooks: Cf. Jacob Millman, Microelectronics, p. xxii.
3 willing to overlook: “The Nobel Prize in Physics, 2000,” Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, Oct. 10, 2000.
3 he only hoped . . . Jack had been delighted . . . some misgivings: Interview with Jack Kilby.
4 reduced titanate capacitor: U.S. Patent No. 2,841,508 (1958).
4 steatite-packaged transistor: Kilby, “Transistor Amplifier Packaged in Steatite,” Electronics, October 1956.
4 It was that infatuation: Interview with Kilby.
4 the technical journals called it: Cf. Robert Noyce, “Interconnections,” Proceedings of the IEEE, December 1964, p. 1648 ff.; Jack A. Morton, “The Microelectronics Dilemma,” International Science & Technology, July 1966, p. 38.
5 the “neuristor”: G.W.A. Dummer, “Progress with Extremely Small Elec. Circuits,” New Scientist, Feb. 7, 1963, pp. 283–84.
5 a Life magazine reporter: Life, Nov. 5, 1956.
5 was said to be working on: Interview with Kilby.
6 “He was enthused, but . . .”: Kilby, “Invention of the Integrated Circuit,” IEEE Transactions on Electron Devices, July 1976, p. 650.
6 “I was very . . .”: Interview with Willis Adcock.
8 “If we built . . .”: Interview with Robert Noyce.
9 “. . . it would be desirable . . .”: Noyce’s lab notebook for January 1959 (copy in author’s file); also “The Genesis of the Integrated Circuit,” IEEE Spectrum, August 1976, p. 47.
9 “There was a tremendous . . .”: Interview with Noyce.
10 about 10,000 times in a second: Cf. Scientific American, January 1982, p. 124.
10 known in England: Ernest Braun and Stuart MacDonald, Revolution in Miniature, p. 16.
11 debugging: Joseph C. Giarratano, Foundations of Computer Technology.
12 The first transistor radio: Cf. Circuit News, Apr. 15, 1979.
12 “Interpretation of . . .”: Engineering Index, 1953.
12 “Le Transistron . . .”: Ibid., 1955.
12 “Circuito . . .”: Ibid.
12 “Tensoranalysis . . .”: Ibid.
12 “Perekhodnaya . . .”: Ibid., 1958.
13 “Success Story . . .”: Ibid., 1957.
13 “Transistors Key . . .”: Ibid., 1953.
13 “Méthodes . . .”: Ibid., 1962.
13 “Fabulous . . .”: Ibid., 1953.
13 “Switching . . .”: Ibid., 1962.
13 “Electronic . . .”: Ibid., 1961.
13 “Comment . . .”: Ibid., 1959.
13 “Design . . .”: Ibid., 1960.
15 had 350,000 electronic: Horace D. Gilbert, ed., Miniaturization (New York: Reinhold, 1961), p. 3.
15 the Control Data CD 1604: Interview with Kilby; Electronics, April 1980, p. 81.
16 “For some time now . . .”: Jack A. Morton, in Proceedings of the IRE, June 1958, p. 955 ff.
16 “Each element must . . .”: Morton, in International Science & Technology, July 1966, p. 38.
17 Royal Radar Establishment: Braun and MacDonald, p. 108.
17 “tend to exacerbate . . .”: Patrick Haggerty, in Proceedings of the IEEE, December 1964, p. 1648.
17 under the general title: Electronics News, Jan. 25, 1982, p. 16.
17 Operation Tinkertoy: Kilby, in Transactions on Electron Devices, July 1976, p. 648.
17 “In civilian equipment . . .”: Electronics, Oct. 1, 1957, p. 178.
18 designers tried redundancy: Cf. Kilby, in Electronics, Aug. 7, 1959, p. 111.
19 “After you become . . .”: Interview with Robert Noyce.
21 “It was a situation . . .”: Ibid.
21 “The things that . . .”: Interview with Kilby.
21 “A large segment . . .”: Noyce, in Scientific American, September 1977, p. 64.
21 “There was just . . .”: Interview with Kilby.
21 “It was clear . . .”: Scientific American, September 1977, p. 64.
22 Richard Feynman put it: Feynman, The Pleasure of Finding Things Out, (Cambridge, Mass.: Perseus, 1999), chap. 1.
23 “Second Industrial Revolution”: National Academy of Sciences, Microstructure Science, Engineering & Technology, 1979, p. 1.
23 “the most remarkable . . .”: In Tom Forester, ed., The Microelectronics Revolution, (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1981), p. 1.
23 “Integrated circuits are . . .”: Interview with Noyce.
Chapter 2: The Will to Think
24 observed for the first time in March 1883: Robert Conot, A Streak of Luck, p. 337; Isaac Asimov, Understanding Physics, vol. 3 (New York: Walker, 1966), p. 42.
25 he saw no future in it: Conot, p. 337 ff.; Asimov, vol. 3, p. 42.
25 “the zero hour . . .”: Sir George P. Thomson, J. J. Thomson, p. 20.
26 “Well, I’m not a scientist . . .”: Matthew Josephson, Edison, p. 283.
26 Dot and Dash: Conot, p. 122.
26 New York Daily Graphic: Ibid., p. 113.
26 When Edison died: Josephson, pp. 484–85.
27 “The hair, beginning . . .”: Ibid., p. 132.
27 Perseverantia omnia vincit . . . “. . . 99 percent perspiration”: Conot.
27 “at least we know 8,000 . . .”: Ibid.
27 “filled up with Latin . . .”; “ignorameter”: Josephson, pp. 440, 442.
27 named him “Culture”: Conot, p. 133.
29 quickly dubbed the Edison Effect: Josephson, p. 278. Cf. Asimov, vol. 3, p. 42.
29 “I have never . . . the Savanic world”: Josephson, p. 278; Conot, p. 337.
31 we still talk today of “current”: S. Handel, The Electronic Revolution, pp. 20–21.
> 31 “that in a few years all the great . . .”: J. G. Crowther, The Cavendish Laboratory, p. 38.
32 Trinity Prize; 1881 paper; succeeded in 1884: Crowther; G. Thomson, pp. 20–24; J. J. Thomson, Recollections & Reflections.
32 “Things have come to a pretty pass . . .”: Crowther, p. 109.
32 “J.J. spent a good part of most days . . .”: G. Thomson, p. 114.
32 In his memoirs: J. J. Thomson, p. 435.
33 “In the dusty lab’ratory, / ’Mid the coils and wax and twine . . .”: G. Thomson, p. 98.
35 “I have lately made . . .”; “corpuscles”: Bragg and Porter, eds., Royal Institute Library of Science, pp. 43, 48.
37 Fleming was determined . . . “There was a young fellow . . .” . . . “scientific hooliganism”: J. T. McGregor-Morris, The Inventor of the Valve, pp. 62, 66.
39 came to be known as crystal sets: Cf. Asimov, vol. 3, p. 95.
39 I was pondering . . .: John A. Fleming, Popular Radio, Mar. 19, p. 175.
40 “So nimble are . . .”: Fleming, Fifty Years of Electricity, p. 335.
41 “absurd and deliberately . . .”: Gerald F. J. Tyne, Saga of the Vacuum Tube (Indianapolis: Sams, 1977).
41 “a more revolutionary step . . .”: Georgette Carneal, A Conqueror of Space, p. 187.
41 “few inventions have had so many fathers”: Isaac Asimov, Asimov’s Biographical Encyclopedia of Science and Technology.
41 “Commonly known as . . .”: Electronics News, Jan. 25, 1982, sec. 2, p. 10.
42 “grid”; “Device for Amplifying . . .”: Asimov, Understanding Physics, vol. 3, p. 42; Carneal; Tyne.
42 iconoscope: Cf. Asimov, Understanding Physics, vol. 3, p. 50.
43 “radar” . . . Crystal rectifiers: Cf. Handel, pp. 80–81.
45 “the incarnation . . .”; “He was not, as Einstein was . . .”: C. P. Snow, The Physicists, p. 51 ff.
46 Contraria sunt complementa: John Daintith, Sarah Mitchell, and Elizabeth Tootill, eds., A Biographical Encyclopedia of Scientists, (New York: Facts on File, 1981), p. 87.
47 “In this picture we see a striking . . .”: Nobel Lectures—Physics, 1922–41, p. 8.
49 “the vacant parking place . . .”: William Shockley, Electrons and Holes in Semiconductors, p. 8.
50 N-type; P-type: Cf. Jacob Millman, Microelectronics, pp. 12–13.
51 “It has today occurred to me . . .”: Shockley, “The Path to the Conception of the Junction Transistor,” IEEE Transactions on Electron Devices, July 1976, p. 603.
51 “Try simplest cases”; “the will to think”; “In these four words . . .”: Ibid.; pp. 600, 599–600.
51 “the wave function A (φ) for the hole-wave packet . . .”: Shockley, Electrons and Holes in Semiconductors, p. 444.
52 taught a freshman seminar: “Brave New William Shockley,” Esquire, January 1973, p. 130 ff.
52 “THINKING about THINKING . . .”: IEEE Student Journal, September 1968, pp. 11–16.
52 “dysgenics”; “retrogressive evolution . . .”: Esquire, January 1973. Cf. The New York Times, May 3, 1970, p. 58, and Jan. 17, 1970, p. 30 (letter to editor from Shockley).
53 “decline of our nation’s human quality”: The New York Times, Jan. 17, 1970, p. 30.
53 “My research leads me inescapably . . .”: Ibid., Dec. 5, 1973, p. 38.
53 a social policy to deal with: Ibid., Dec. 13, 1973, p. 95.
53 “Off Pig Shockley”; photograph; microphone went on the blink: Esquire, January 1973, p. 130 ff.
54 pursued the Republican nomination: The New York Times, Feb. 12, 1982, p. 16.
54 “charming”: Interview with Robert Noyce.
54 “the vacuum tube and thermionics . . .”; “Don’t worry, Walter . . .”: “Walter Houser Brattain,” Bell Laboratories Record, December 1972, p. 339 ff.
55 “one indeed needs to be . . .”: Nobel Lectures—Physics, 1942–62, (New York: Elsevier, 1964), p. 377 (Brattain).
55 “I feel strongly, however . . .”; “The thing I deplore . . .”: Bell Laboratories Record, December 1972, p. 339.
55 “if I wiggled it just right”: George L. Trigg, Landmark Experiments in 20th-Century Physics, p. 149.
57 By 1946 . . . the operation of the semiconductor diode: A History of Technology in the 20th Century, pt. 2, p. 1117.
58 “Hearing speech amplified . . .”: Shockley, in IEEE Transactions, July 1976, p. 611.
59 “My elation with the group’s success . . .”: Ibid., p. 612.
Chapter 3: A Nonobvious Solution
63 “. . . a couple of slides”: Interview with Dr. Tord Claesson, Swedish Academy.
64 Quotations from Kilby: Interviews with Jack Kilby.
65 “The definition of the problem . . .”; “Although invention is . . .”: Kilby, “The Inventor’s View,” Chemtech, March 1979, p. 66.
66 Quotations from Kilby: Interviews with Kilby; ibid.
73 Geophysical Research Corporation: “The Men Who Made T.I.,” Fortune, November 1961.
74 “Our company now has two . . .”: Interview with Willis Adcock. Cf. Fortune, November 1961.
76 “I felt it likely . . .”: Kilby, “Invention of the Integrated Circuit,” IEEE Transactions on Electron Devices, July 1976, p. 650.
76 “If Texas Instruments . . .”: Interview with Kilby.
77 “The following circuit elements . . .”: Kilby’s lab notebook, July 24, 1958 (copy in author’s file).
78 “Nobody would have made . . .”: Interview with Kilby.
78 Quotations from Kilby: Ibid.
78 “it was pretty damn cumbersome”: Interview with Adcock.
Chapter 4: Leap of Insight
81 Quotations from Noyce: Interview with Robert Noyce.
83 “They’re high achievers . . .”: Harvard Business Review, May/June 1980, p. 122.
83 Quotations from Noyce: Interview with Noyce.
87 low-energy gas discharges: Journal of Applied Physics, vol. 27, August 1956, p. 843.
87 “dc transistor current amplification factor”: Proceedings of the IRE, September 1957, pp. 1228–43.
87 “base widening punch-through”: Interview with Noyce.
88 Semiconductor diffusion . . . 1000 degrees centigrade or so: Jacob Millman, Microelectronics, p. 100.
89 described Noyce as an introvert: The Economist, Dec. 27, 1980, p. 63.
90 “There was a group . . .”: Interview with Noyce.
90 “the traitorous eight”: Dirk Hanson, The New Alchemists (Boston: Little, Brown, 1982), p. 92; also, interview with Gordon Moore.
90 “the realization . . .”: Interview with Noyce.
91 the return on his initial $500: Gene Bylinsky, The Innovation Millionaires (New York: Scribner, 1976), p. 61 ff.
91 “Wall Street has spoken . . .”: Financial World, Mar. 15, 1981, p. 30 ff.
91 “Here we were . . .”: Interview with Noyce.
92 Quotations from Noyce, Ralls: Ibid.
94 “all the bits and pieces . . .”: “The Genesis of the Integrated Circuit,” IEEE Spectrum, August 1976, p. 50.
94 “In many applications . . .”: Noyce’s lab notebook for January 23, 1959 (copy in author’s file).
95 “a unitary circuit structure . . .”: U.S. Patent No. 2,981,877, p. 1.
Chapter 5: Kilby v. Noyce
(Note: “Docket” refers to the file of documents submitted for Interference Proceeding No. 92,841, Kilby v. Noyce, at the U.S. Patent Office, Arlington, Virginia.)
96 The terrifying rumor: Testimony of Martin Fleit, July 1964—transcript in docket. Also, interview with Melvin Sharp, patent counsel, TI.
97 Mosher promised: Interview with Sharp.
97 “the right to exclude . . .”: U.S. Code—cited in General Information Concerning Patents (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Commerce, 1982), p. 2.
97 “a written description . . .”: 35 U.S.C. 112.
98 Coca-Cola history: The Coca-Cola Co.—An Illustrated Profile (Atlanta: Coca-Cola Co., 1974); Cha
rles Howard Candler, Asa Griggs Candler (Atlanta: Emory University Press, 1950), p. 119.
98 trade secret protection of Coca-Cola formula: Peter D. Rosenberg, Patent Law Fundamentals, pp. 15–16.
99 shredded wheat case: Kellogg Co. v. National Biscuit Co., 305 U.S.C. 111 (1938).
100 “The sheets may be provided . . .”: General Information Concerning Patents, p. 17.
100 “new”; “useful”: 35 U.S.C. 101; no patent on nuclear weapons: 42 U.S.C. 2181.
102 That first telephone patent: Rosenberg, p. 12.
102 “Radically departing . . .” and other quotations from patent application: U.S. Patent No. 3,138,743.
103 “. . . shall set forth the best mode . . .”: 35 U.S.C. 112.
104 integration and interconnection: Interview with Jack Kilby; Kilby, “Invention of the Integrated Circuit,” IEEE Transactions on Electron Devices, July 1976.
105 “flying wire picture”: Interview with Roger Borovoy.
106 “Instead of using . . .”: U.S. Patent No. 3,138,743.
108 “We were still a brand-new . . .”: Interview with Robert Noyce.
109 Quotations from patent application: U.S. Patent No. 2,981,877.
110 interference proceeding; Board of Patent Interferences: 35 U.S.C. 13(a).
110 received a copy of . . . Form POL-102: In docket.
111 “Motion to Dissolve . . .” and other documents: Ibid.
112 “Here I was . . .”: Interview with Borovoy.
113 “conducting material . . .”: U.S. Patent No. 3,138,743.
113 experts’ testimony: Testimony of Professor G. Pearson (Stanford), Oct. 9, 1964; testimony of Professor R. Maurer (Illinois), Nov. 24, 1964 (transcripts in docket).