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108-515: Fairchild Semiconductor International, Inc. was an American semiconductor company based in San Jose, California . It was founded in 1957 as a division of Fairchild Camera and Instrument by the " traitorous eight " who defected from Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory . It became a pioneer in the manufacturing of transistors and of integrated circuits . Schlumberger bought the firm in 1979 and sold it to National Semiconductor in 1987; Fairchild

216-440: A current requires the flow of electrons, and semiconductors have their valence bands filled, preventing the entire flow of new electrons. Several developed techniques allow semiconducting materials to behave like conducting materials, such as doping or gating . These modifications have two outcomes: n-type and p-type . These refer to the excess or shortage of electrons, respectively. A balanced number of electrons would cause

324-439: A cut-off frequency of one cycle per second, too low for any practical applications, but an effective application of the available theory. At Bell Labs , William Shockley and A. Holden started investigating solid-state amplifiers in 1938. The first p–n junction in silicon was observed by Russell Ohl about 1941 when a specimen was found to be light-sensitive, with a sharp boundary between p-type impurity at one end and n-type at

432-475: A mass-production basis, which limited them to a number of specialised applications. Jean Hoerni Jean Amédée Hoerni (September 26, 1924 – January 12, 1997) was a Swiss-born American engineer. He was a silicon transistor pioneer, and a member of the " traitorous eight ". He developed the planar process , an important technology for reliably fabricating and manufacturing semiconductor devices , such as transistors and integrated circuits . Hoerni

540-513: A common semi-insulator is gallium arsenide . Some materials, such as titanium dioxide , can even be used as insulating materials for some applications, while being treated as wide-gap semiconductors for other applications. The partial filling of the states at the bottom of the conduction band can be understood as adding electrons to that band. The electrons do not stay indefinitely (due to the natural thermal recombination ) but they can move around for some time. The actual concentration of electrons

648-423: A completely full valence band is inert, not conducting any current. If an electron is taken out of the valence band, then the trajectory that the electron would normally have taken is now missing its charge. For the purposes of electric current, this combination of the full valence band, minus the electron, can be converted into a picture of a completely empty band containing a positively charged particle that moves in

756-474: A current to flow throughout the material. Homojunctions occur when two differently doped semiconducting materials are joined. For example, a configuration could consist of p-doped and n-doped germanium . This results in an exchange of electrons and holes between the differently doped semiconducting materials. The n-doped germanium would have an excess of electrons, and the p-doped germanium would have an excess of holes. The transfer occurs until an equilibrium

864-410: A guide to the construction of more capable and reliable devices. Alexander Graham Bell used the light-sensitive property of selenium to transmit sound over a beam of light in 1880. A working solar cell, of low efficiency, was constructed by Charles Fritts in 1883, using a metal plate coated with selenium and a thin layer of gold; the device became commercially useful in photographic light meters in

972-407: A layer of metal to the top of Hoerni's basic structure to connect different components, such as transistors, capacitors , or resistors , located on the same piece of silicon. The planar process provided a powerful way of implementing an integrated circuit that was superior to earlier conceptions of the device. With Noyce, Jack Kilby from Texas Instruments is usually credited with the invention of

1080-445: A low-pressure chamber to create plasma . A common etch gas is chlorofluorocarbon , or more commonly known Freon . A high radio-frequency voltage between the cathode and anode is what creates the plasma in the chamber. The silicon wafer is located on the cathode, which causes it to be hit by the positively charged ions that are released from the plasma. The result is silicon that is etched anisotropically . The last process

1188-475: A lower cost and with greater performance and reliability, making other transistors obsolete. One such casualty was Philco 's transistor division, whose newly built $ 40 million plant to make their germanium PADT process transistors became nonviable. Within a few years, every other transistor company paralleled or licensed the Fairchild planar process. Hoerni's 2N1613 was a major success, with Fairchild licensing

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1296-483: A meeting where Atalla presented a paper about passivation based on the previous results at Bell Labs. The planar process was invented by Jean Hoerni, with his first patent filed in May 1959, while working at Fairchild Semiconductor . The planar process was critical in the invention of Silicon Integrated circuit by Robert Noyce . Noyce built on Hoerni's work with his conception of an integrated circuit, which added

1404-480: A new CEO other than Noyce. In response, Noyce discreetly planned a new company with Gordon Moore , the head of R&D. They left Fairchild to found Intel in 1968 and were soon joined by Andrew Grove and Leslie L. Vadász , who took with them the revolutionary MOS Silicon Gate Technology (SGT), recently created in the Fairchild R&;D Laboratory by Federico Faggin who also designed the Fairchild 3708,

1512-626: A non-equilibrium situation. This introduces electrons and holes to the system, which interact via a process called ambipolar diffusion . Whenever thermal equilibrium is disturbed in a semiconducting material, the number of holes and electrons changes. Such disruptions can occur as a result of a temperature difference or photons , which can enter the system and create electrons and holes. The processes that create or annihilate electrons and holes are called generation and recombination, respectively. In certain semiconductors, excited electrons can relax by emitting light instead of producing heat. Controlling

1620-519: A pair is completed. Such carrier traps are sometimes purposely added to reduce the time needed to reach the steady-state. The conductivity of semiconductors may easily be modified by introducing impurities into their crystal lattice . The process of adding controlled impurities to a semiconductor is known as doping . The amount of impurity, or dopant, added to an intrinsic (pure) semiconductor varies its level of conductivity. Doped semiconductors are referred to as extrinsic . By adding impurity to

1728-827: A pioneer of low-voltage CMOS - Integrated Circuits . He was awarded the Edward Longstreth Medal from the Franklin Institute in 1969 and the McDowell Award in 1972. Hoerni died of myelofibrosis on January 12, 1997, in Seattle, Washington . He was 72. He was married to Anne Marie Hoerni and had three children: Annie Blackwell, Susan Killham, and Michael Hoerni. He had one brother, Marc Hoerni. His second marriage to Ruth Carmona also ended in divorce. Hoerni married Jennifer Wilson in 1993. An avid mountain climber, Hoerni often visited

1836-443: A range of different useful properties, such as passing current more easily in one direction than the other, showing variable resistance, and having sensitivity to light or heat. Because the electrical properties of a semiconductor material can be modified by doping and by the application of electrical fields or light, devices made from semiconductors can be used for amplification, switching, and energy conversion . The term semiconductor

1944-501: A silicon atom in the crystal, a vacant state (an electron "hole") is created, which can move around the lattice and function as a charge carrier. Group V elements have five valence electrons, which allows them to act as a donor; substitution of these atoms for silicon creates an extra free electron. Therefore, a silicon crystal doped with boron creates a p-type semiconductor whereas one doped with phosphorus results in an n-type material. During manufacture , dopants can be diffused into

2052-531: A silicon carbide power transistor company originally based in Sweden. On November 18, 2015, ON Semiconductor made an offer to acquire Fairchild Semiconductor for $ 2.4 billion (or $ 20 per share) after a few months of speculation that Fairchild was seeking a potential buyer. On April 10, 2016, Fairchild Semiconductor moved its headquarters from San Jose (3030 Orchard Pkwy.) to Sunnyvale (1272 Borregas Ave.). Semiconductor Semiconductor devices can display

2160-565: A superfund. Superfund site cleanup ended in 1998. In 1997, the reconstituted Fairchild Semiconductor was reborn as an independent company, based in South Portland, Maine , with Kirk Pond as CEO. On March 11, 1997, National Semiconductor Corporation announced the US$ 550 million sale of a reconstituted Fairchild to the management of Fairchild with the backing of Sterling LLC, a unit of Citicorp Venture Capital. Fairchild carried with it what

2268-483: A team of Fairchild managers in preparation to defect to Plessey , a British company. Lamond had recruited Sporck to be his own boss. When negotiations with Plessey broke down over stock options, Lamond and Sporck succumbed to Widlar's and Talbert's (who were already employed at National Semiconductor) suggestion that they look to National Semiconductor. Widlar and Talbert had earlier left Fairchild to join Molectro, which

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2376-783: A theory of solid-state physics , which developed greatly in the first half of the 20th century. In 1878 Edwin Herbert Hall demonstrated the deflection of flowing charge carriers by an applied magnetic field, the Hall effect . The discovery of the electron by J.J. Thomson in 1897 prompted theories of electron-based conduction in solids. Karl Baedeker , by observing a Hall effect with the reverse sign to that in metals, theorized that copper iodide had positive charge carriers. Johan Koenigsberger  [ de ] classified solid materials like metals, insulators, and "variable conductors" in 1914 although his student Josef Weiss already introduced

2484-451: A three-year term. On April 13, 2005, Fairchild announced appointment of Mark Thompson as CEO of the corporation. Thompson would also be President, Chief Executive Officer and a member of the board of directors of Fairchild Semiconductor International. He originally joined Fairchild as Executive Vice President, Manufacturing and Technology Group. On March 15, 2006, Fairchild Semiconductor announced that Kirk P. Pond would retire as Chairman at

2592-476: A vacuum, though with a different effective mass . Because the electrons behave like an ideal gas, one may also think about conduction in very simplistic terms such as the Drude model , and introduce concepts such as electron mobility . For partial filling at the top of the valence band, it is helpful to introduce the concept of an electron hole . Although the electrons in the valence band are always moving around,

2700-567: A variety of proportions. These compounds share with better-known semiconductors the properties of intermediate conductivity and a rapid variation of conductivity with temperature, as well as occasional negative resistance . Such disordered materials lack the rigid crystalline structure of conventional semiconductors such as silicon. They are generally used in thin film structures, which do not require material of higher electronic quality, being relatively insensitive to impurities and radiation damage. Almost all of today's electronic technology involves

2808-415: Is a combination of processes that are used to prepare semiconducting materials for ICs. One process is called thermal oxidation , which forms silicon dioxide on the surface of the silicon . This is used as a gate insulator and field oxide . Other processes are called photomasks and photolithography . This process is what creates the patterns on the circuit in the integrated circuit. Ultraviolet light

2916-472: Is a function of the temperature, as the probability of getting enough thermal energy to produce a pair increases with temperature, being approximately exp(− E G / kT ) , where k is the Boltzmann constant , T is the absolute temperature and E G is bandgap. The probability of meeting is increased by carrier traps – impurities or dislocations which can trap an electron or hole and hold it until

3024-428: Is also used to describe materials used in high capacity, medium- to high-voltage cables as part of their insulation, and these materials are often plastic XLPE ( Cross-linked polyethylene ) with carbon black. The conductivity of silicon is increased by adding a small amount (of the order of 1 in 10 ) of pentavalent ( antimony , phosphorus , or arsenic ) or trivalent ( boron , gallium , indium ) atoms. This process

3132-404: Is called diffusion . This is the process that gives the semiconducting material its desired semiconducting properties. It is also known as doping . The process introduces an impure atom to the system, which creates the p–n junction . To get the impure atoms embedded in the silicon wafer, the wafer is first put in a 1,100 degree Celsius chamber. The atoms are injected in and eventually diffuse with

3240-780: Is inert, blocking the passage of other electrons via that state. The energies of these quantum states are critical since a state is partially filled only if its energy is near the Fermi level (see Fermi–Dirac statistics ). High conductivity in material comes from it having many partially filled states and much state delocalization. Metals are good electrical conductors and have many partially filled states with energies near their Fermi level. Insulators , by contrast, have few partially filled states, their Fermi levels sit within band gaps with few energy states to occupy. Importantly, an insulator can be made to conduct by increasing its temperature: heating provides energy to promote some electrons across

3348-418: Is known as doping, and the resulting semiconductors are known as doped or extrinsic semiconductors . Apart from doping, the conductivity of a semiconductor can be improved by increasing its temperature. This is contrary to the behavior of a metal, in which conductivity decreases with an increase in temperature. The modern understanding of the properties of a semiconductor relies on quantum physics to explain

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3456-845: Is neither a very good insulator nor a very good conductor. However, one important feature of semiconductors (and some insulators, known as semi-insulators ) is that their conductivity can be increased and controlled by doping with impurities and gating with electric fields. Doping and gating move either the conduction or valence band much closer to the Fermi level and greatly increase the number of partially filled states. Some wider-bandgap semiconductor materials are sometimes referred to as semi-insulators . When undoped, these have electrical conductivity nearer to that of electrical insulators, however they can be doped (making them as useful as semiconductors). Semi-insulators find niche applications in micro-electronics, such as substrates for HEMT . An example of

3564-404: Is reached by a process called recombination , which causes the migrating electrons from the n-type to come in contact with the migrating holes from the p-type. The result of this process is a narrow strip of immobile ions , which causes an electric field across the junction. A difference in electric potential on a semiconducting material would cause it to leave thermal equilibrium and create

3672-504: Is typically very dilute, and so (unlike in metals) it is possible to think of the electrons in the conduction band of a semiconductor as a sort of classical ideal gas , where the electrons fly around freely without being subject to the Pauli exclusion principle . In most semiconductors, the conduction bands have a parabolic dispersion relation , and so these electrons respond to forces (electric field, magnetic field, etc.) much as they would in

3780-402: Is used along with a photoresist layer to create a chemical change that generates the patterns for the circuit. The etching is the next process that is required. The part of the silicon that was not covered by the photoresist layer from the previous step can now be etched. The main process typically used today is called plasma etching . Plasma etching usually involves an etch gas pumped in

3888-532: The Annalen der Physik und Chemie in 1835; Rosenschöld's findings were ignored. Simon Sze stated that Braun's research was the earliest systematic study of semiconductor devices. Also in 1874, Arthur Schuster found that a copper oxide layer on wires had rectification properties that ceased when the wires are cleaned. William Grylls Adams and Richard Evans Day observed the photovoltaic effect in selenium in 1876. A unified explanation of these phenomena required

3996-451: The Atari 2600 Video Computer System (or VCS) was released. By the end of the 1970s they had few new products in the pipeline, and increasingly turned to niche markets with their existing product line, notably "hardened" integrated circuits for military and space applications and isoplanar ECL products used in exotic applications like Cray Computers. Fairchild was being operated at a loss, and

4104-676: The Fairchild F8 8-bit microprocessor, which was according to the CPU Museum "in 1977 the F8 was the world's leading microprocessor in terms of CPU sales." In 1976, the company released the first video game system to use ROM cartridges, the Fairchild Video Entertainment System (or VES) later renamed Channel F , using the F8 microprocessor. The system was successful initially, but quickly lost popularity when

4212-629: The Fairchild Semiconductor corporation. In 1955 Carl Frosch and Lincoln Derrick discovered and patented surface passivation by silicon dioxide. Frosch and Derrick were able to manufacture the first silicon dioxide field effect transistors, the first transistors in which drain and source were adjacent at the surface. At Shockley Semiconductor , Shockley had circulated the preprint of their article in December 1956 to all his senior staff, including Jean Hoerni. Later, Hoerni attended

4320-659: The Karakoram Mountains in Pakistan and was moved by the poverty of the Balti mountain people who lived there. He contributed the lion's share, $ 30,000, to Greg Mortenson 's project to build a school in the remote village of Korphe, and later founded the Central Asia Institute with an endowment of $ 1 million to continue providing services for them after his death. Hoerni named Greg Mortenson as

4428-429: The Pauli exclusion principle ). These states are associated with the electronic band structure of the material. Electrical conductivity arises due to the presence of electrons in states that are delocalized (extending through the material), however in order to transport electrons a state must be partially filled , containing an electron only part of the time. If the state is always occupied with an electron, then it

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4536-454: The Siege of Leningrad after successful completion. In 1926, Julius Edgar Lilienfeld patented a device resembling a field-effect transistor , but it was not practical. R. Hilsch  [ de ] and R. W. Pohl  [ de ] in 1938 demonstrated a solid-state amplifier using a structure resembling the control grid of a vacuum tube; although the device displayed power gain, it had

4644-445: The band gap , be accompanied by the emission of thermal energy (in the form of phonons ) or radiation (in the form of photons ). In some states, the generation and recombination of electron–hole pairs are in equipoise. The number of electron-hole pairs in the steady state at a given temperature is determined by quantum statistical mechanics . The precise quantum mechanical mechanisms of generation and recombination are governed by

4752-470: The conservation of energy and conservation of momentum . As the probability that electrons and holes meet together is proportional to the product of their numbers, the product is in the steady-state nearly constant at a given temperature, providing that there is no significant electric field (which might "flush" carriers of both types, or move them from neighbor regions containing more of them to meet together) or externally driven pair generation. The product

4860-625: The 'reproductive' labor of expressing Navajo culture, rather than merely for wages." This claim was based on the opinion that circuits of the electronic chips had a mere resemblance with the complex geometric patterns on the Navajo rugs. Paul Driscoll, the Shiprock plant manager, spoke of the "untapped wealth of natural characteristics of the Navajo...the inherent flexibility and dexterity of the Indians." Although highly successful during its operation,

4968-461: The 1930s. Point-contact microwave detector rectifiers made of lead sulfide were used by Jagadish Chandra Bose in 1904; the cat's-whisker detector using natural galena or other materials became a common device in the development of radio . However, it was somewhat unpredictable in operation and required manual adjustment for best performance. In 1906, H.J. Round observed light emission when electric current passed through silicon carbide crystals,

5076-465: The California sites once a year, even though the semiconductor division earned most of the profits of the company. Fairchild's president at that time, John Carter, had used all the profits to fund acquisitions of unprofitable ventures. Noyce's position on Fairchild's executive staff was consistently compromised by Sherman Fairchild's faction. Charles E. Sporck was Noyce's operations manager. Sporck

5184-499: The Fairchild Semiconductor division was started with plans to make silicon transistors at a time when germanium was still the most common material for semiconductor use. According to Sherman Fairchild, Noyce's impassioned presentation of his vision was the reason Sherman Fairchild had agreed to create the semiconductor division for the traitorous eight. Noyce advocated the use of silicon as substrate – since

5292-520: The SGT for its memory development. Federico Faggin, frustrated, left Fairchild to join Intel in 1970 and design the first microprocessors using SGT. Among the investors of Intel were Hodgson and five of the founding members of Fairchild. Sherman Fairchild hired Lester Hogan , who was the head of Motorola semiconductor division. Hogan proceeded to hire another hundred managers from Motorola to entirely displace

5400-717: The United States. Fairchild dominated the market in DTL, op-amps and mainframe computer custom circuits. In 1965, Fairchild opened a semiconductor assembly plant on the Navajo Nation in Shiprock, New Mexico. At its peak, the plant employed over a thousand Navajos, the majority of whom were women. In The Shiprock Dedication Commemorative Brochure released by the Fairchild company, the Diné (Navajo) women circuit makers were celebrated as "culture workers who produced circuits as part of

5508-593: The acquisition of Impala Linear Corporation, based in San Jose, California, for approximately $ 6 million in stock and cash. Impala brought with it expertise in designing analog power management semiconductors for hand-held devices like laptops, MP3 players, cell phones, portable test equipment and PDAs. On January 9, 2004, Fairchild Semiconductor CEO Kirk Pond was appointed as a Director of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, elected by member banks to serve

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5616-447: The analog integrated circuit market, having introduced the first IC operational amplifiers , or "op-amps", Bob Widlar 's μA702 (in 1964) and μA709. In 1968, Fairchild introduced David Fullagar's μA741, which became the most popular IC op amp of all time. By 1965, Fairchild's process improvements had brought low-cost manufacturing to the semiconductor industry – making Fairchild nearly the only profitable semiconductor manufacturer in

5724-416: The band gap, inducing partially filled states in both the band of states beneath the band gap ( valence band ) and the band of states above the band gap ( conduction band ). An (intrinsic) semiconductor has a band gap that is smaller than that of an insulator and at room temperature, significant numbers of electrons can be excited to cross the band gap. A pure semiconductor, however, is not very useful, as it

5832-446: The basis of CMOS technology today. In 1963, Chih-Tang Sah and Frank Wanlass built CMOS MOSFET logic. In 1963, Fairchild hired Robert Widlar to design analog operational amplifiers using Fairchild's process. Since Fairchild's processes were optimized for digital circuits, Widlar collaborated with process engineer Dave Talbert. The collaboration resulted in two revolutionary products – μA702 and μA709. Hence, Fairchild dominated

5940-487: The bottomline subsisted mostly from licensing of its patents. In 1979, Fairchild Camera and Instrument was purchased by Schlumberger Limited , an oil field services company, for $ 425 million. At this time, Fairchild's intellectual properties, on which Fairchild had been subsisting, were expiring. In 1980, under Schlumberger management, the Fairchild Laboratory for Artificial Intelligence Research (FLAIR)

6048-468: The company's annual stockholders' meeting on May 3, 2006. Pond would continue as a member of the company’s board of directors. Mark Thompson (then CEO) became Chairman. On September 1, 2007, New Jersey–based RF semiconductor supplier Anadigics acquired Fairchild Semiconductor's RF design team, located in Tyngsboro, Massachusetts, for $ 2.4 million. In April 2011, Fairchild Semiconductor acquired TranSiC,

6156-406: The concentration and regions of p- and n-type dopants. A single semiconductor device crystal can have many p- and n-type regions; the p–n junctions between these regions are responsible for the useful electronic behavior. Using a hot-point probe , one can determine quickly whether a semiconductor sample is p- or n-type. A few of the properties of semiconductor materials were observed throughout

6264-489: The concept of band gaps had been developed. Walter H. Schottky and Nevill Francis Mott developed models of the potential barrier and of the characteristics of a metal–semiconductor junction . By 1938, Boris Davydov had developed a theory of the copper-oxide rectifier, identifying the effect of the p–n junction and the importance of minority carriers and surface states. Agreement between theoretical predictions (based on developing quantum mechanics) and experimental results

6372-520: The design across the industry. In 1960, Fairchild built a circuit with four transistors on a single wafer of silicon, thereby creating the first silicon integrated circuit ( Texas Instruments ' Jack Kilby had developed an integrated circuit made of germanium on September 12, 1958, and was awarded a U.S. patent , however Kilby's method was not scalable and the semiconductor industry adopted Fairchild's process to manufacture integrated circuits). The company grew from twelve to twelve thousand employees, and

6480-502: The digital integrated circuit market. Their first line of ICs was the "micrologic" resistor–transistor logic (RTL) line which was used in the Apollo Guidance Computer . It had the advantage of being extremely simple – each inverter consisted of just one transistor and two resistors. The logic family had many drawbacks that had made it marginal for commercial purposes, and not well suited for military applications:

6588-453: The electrical properties of materials. The properties of the time-temperature coefficient of resistance, rectification, and light-sensitivity were observed starting in the early 19th century. Thomas Johann Seebeck was the first to notice that semiconductors exhibit special feature such that experiment concerning an Seebeck effect emerged with much stronger result when applying semiconductors, in 1821. In 1833, Michael Faraday reported that

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6696-530: The electrons in the conduction band). When ionizing radiation strikes a semiconductor, it may excite an electron out of its energy level and consequently leave a hole. This process is known as electron-hole pair generation . Electron-hole pairs are constantly generated from thermal energy as well, in the absence of any external energy source. Electron-hole pairs are also apt to recombine. Conservation of energy demands that these recombination events, in which an electron loses an amount of energy larger than

6804-514: The fast response of crystal detectors. Considerable research and development of silicon materials occurred during the war to develop detectors of consistent quality. Detector and power rectifiers could not amplify a signal. Many efforts were made to develop a solid-state amplifier and were successful in developing a device called the point contact transistor which could amplify 20 dB or more. In 1922, Oleg Losev developed two-terminal, negative resistance amplifiers for radio, but he died in

6912-424: The first company to produce a commercial charge-coupled device (CCD) following its invention at Bell Labs . Digital image sensors are still produced today at their descendant company, Fairchild Imaging. The CCD had a difficult birth, with the devastating effects on Fairchild of the 1973–75 recession that followed on the 1973 oil crisis . After Intel introduced the 8008 8-bit microprocessor, Fairchild developed

7020-424: The form of BTL memos before being published in 1957. At Shockley Semiconductor , Shockley had circulated the preprint of their article in December 1956 to all his senior staff, including Jean Hoerni , who would later invent the planar process in 1959 while at Fairchild Semiconductor. In 1948, Bardeen and Brattain patented at Bell Labs an insulated-gate transistor (IGFET) with an inversion layer, this concept forms

7128-422: The individual circuits. Noyce's invention was enabled by the planar process developed by Jean Hoerni. In turn, Hoerni's planar process was inspired by the surface passivation method developed at Bell Labs by Carl Frosch and Lincoln Derick in 1955 and 1957. At Bell Labs, the importance of Frosch and Derick technique and transistors was immediately realized. Results of their work circulated around Bell Labs in

7236-416: The integrated circuit, but Kilby's IC was based on germanium . As it turns out, Silicon ICs have numerous advantages over germanium. The name "Silicon Valley" refers to this silicon. Along with the "traitorous eight" alumni Jay Last and Sheldon Roberts, Hoerni founded Amelco (known now as Teledyne ) in 1961. In 1964, he founded Union Carbide Electronics, and in 1967, he founded Intersil , where he became

7344-471: The last of the original founders to leave, at which point the brain-drain of talents that had fueled the growth of the company was complete. A Fairchild advertisement of the time showed a collage of the logos of Silicon Valley with the annotation "We started it all". It was later, in 1971, Don Hoefler popularizated the name "Silicon Valley USA" in Electronic News . He notes he did not invent

7452-498: The logic could only tolerate about 100 millivolts of noise  – far too low for comfort. It was awhile before Fairchild relied on more robust designs, such as diode–transistor logic (DTL) which had much better noise margins. Sales due to Fairchild semiconductor division had doubled each year and by the mid-1960s comprised two-thirds of total sales of the parent company. In 1966, Fairchild's sales were second to those of Texas Instruments , followed in third place by Motorola . Noyce

7560-414: The management of Fairchild. The loss of these iconic executives, coupled with Hogan's displacement of Fairchild managers demoralized Fairchild and prompted the entire exodus of employees to found new companies. Many of the original founders, otherwise known as the "fairchildren", had left Fairchild in the 1960s to form companies that grew to prominence in the 1970s. Robert Noyce and Gordon Moore were among

7668-497: The material costs would consist of sand and a few fine wires, the major cost would be in the manufacturing process. Noyce also expressed his belief that silicon semiconductors would herald the start of disposable appliances that, due to cheap electronic components, would not be repaired but merely discarded when worn out. Their first transistors were of the silicon mesa variety, innovative for their time, but exhibiting relatively poor reliability. Fairchild's first marketed transistor

7776-543: The material's majority carrier . The opposite carrier is called the minority carrier , which exists due to thermal excitation at a much lower concentration compared to the majority carrier. For example, the pure semiconductor silicon has four valence electrons that bond each silicon atom to its neighbors. In silicon, the most common dopants are group III and group V elements. Group III elements all contain three valence electrons, causing them to function as acceptors when used to dope silicon. When an acceptor atom replaces

7884-435: The mid-19th and first decades of the 20th century. The first practical application of semiconductors in electronics was the 1904 development of the cat's-whisker detector , a primitive semiconductor diode used in early radio receivers. Developments in quantum physics led in turn to the invention of the transistor in 1947 and the integrated circuit in 1958. Semiconductors in their natural state are poor conductors because

7992-505: The movement of charge carriers in a crystal lattice . Doping greatly increases the number of charge carriers within the crystal. When a semiconductor is doped by Group V elements, they will behave like donors creating free electrons , known as " n-type " doping. When a semiconductor is doped by Group III elements, they will behave like acceptors creating free holes, known as " p-type " doping. The semiconductor materials used in electronic devices are doped under precise conditions to control

8100-472: The name. See also Gregory Gromov and TechCrunch 2014 update of Hoefler's article. Hogan's action to hire from Motorola had Motorola file a lawsuit against Fairchild, which the court then decided in Fairchild's favor in 1973. Judge William Copple ruled that Fairchild's results were so unimpressive that it was impossible to assess damages "under any theory". Hogan was dismissed as president the next year, but remained as vice chairman. In 1973, Fairchild became

8208-436: The order by resigning abruptly. Furthermore, Fairchild's DTL technology was being overtaken by Texas Instruments's faster TTL (transistor–transistor logic). While Noyce was considered the natural successor to Carter, the board decided not to promote him. Sherman Fairchild led the board to choose Richard Hodgson. Within a few months Hodgson was replaced by a management committee led by Noyce, while Sherman Fairchild looked for

8316-449: The other. A slice cut from the specimen at the p–n boundary developed a voltage when exposed to light. The first working transistor was a point-contact transistor invented by John Bardeen , Walter Houser Brattain , and William Shockley at Bell Labs in 1947. Shockley had earlier theorized a field-effect amplifier made from germanium and silicon, but he failed to build such a working device, before eventually using germanium to invent

8424-399: The plant was closed in 1975. While the Fairchild corporation claims the Diné women were chosen to work in the Shiprock plant due to their "'nimble fingers'" as previously noted, the women of the Shiprock reservation were actually chosen as the workforce due to a lack of labor rights asserted by the women in addition to "cheap, plentiful workers and tax benefits". Fairchild had not done well in

8532-508: The point-contact transistor. In France, during the war, Herbert Mataré had observed amplification between adjacent point contacts on a germanium base. After the war, Mataré's group announced their " Transistron " amplifier only shortly after Bell Labs announced the " transistor ". In 1954, physical chemist Morris Tanenbaum fabricated the first silicon junction transistor at Bell Labs . However, early junction transistors were relatively bulky devices that were difficult to manufacture on

8640-524: The principle behind the light-emitting diode . Oleg Losev observed similar light emission in 1922, but at the time the effect had no practical use. Power rectifiers, using copper oxide and selenium, were developed in the 1920s and became commercially important as an alternative to vacuum tube rectifiers. The first semiconductor devices used galena , including German physicist Ferdinand Braun's crystal detector in 1874 and Indian physicist Jagadish Chandra Bose's radio crystal detector in 1901. In

8748-574: The pure semiconductors, the electrical conductivity may be varied by factors of thousands or millions. A 1 cm specimen of a metal or semiconductor has the order of 10 atoms. In a metal, every atom donates at least one free electron for conduction, thus 1 cm of metal contains on the order of 10 free electrons, whereas a 1 cm sample of pure germanium at 20   °C contains about 4.2 × 10 atoms, but only 2.5 × 10 free electrons and 2.5 × 10 holes. The addition of 0.001% of arsenic (an impurity) donates an extra 10 free electrons in

8856-629: The resistance of specimens of silver sulfide decreases when they are heated. This is contrary to the behavior of metallic substances such as copper. In 1839, Alexandre Edmond Becquerel reported observation of a voltage between a solid and a liquid electrolyte, when struck by light, the photovoltaic effect . In 1873, Willoughby Smith observed that selenium resistors exhibit decreasing resistance when light falls on them. In 1874, Karl Ferdinand Braun observed conduction and rectification in metallic sulfides , although this effect had been discovered earlier by Peter Munck af Rosenschöld ( sv ) writing for

8964-534: The same volume and the electrical conductivity is increased by a factor of 10,000. The materials chosen as suitable dopants depend on the atomic properties of both the dopant and the material to be doped. In general, dopants that produce the desired controlled changes are classified as either electron acceptors or donors . Semiconductors doped with donor impurities are called n-type , while those doped with acceptor impurities are known as p-type . The n and p type designations indicate which charge carrier acts as

9072-472: The same way as the electron. Combined with the negative effective mass of the electrons at the top of the valence band, we arrive at a picture of a positively charged particle that responds to electric and magnetic fields just as a normal positively charged particle would do in a vacuum, again with some positive effective mass. This particle is called a hole, and the collection of holes in the valence band can again be understood in simple classical terms (as with

9180-591: The scale at which the materials are used. A high degree of crystalline perfection is also required, since faults in the crystal structure (such as dislocations , twins , and stacking faults ) interfere with the semiconducting properties of the material. Crystalline faults are a major cause of defective semiconductor devices. The larger the crystal, the more difficult it is to achieve the necessary perfection. Current mass production processes use crystal ingots between 100 and 300 mm (3.9 and 11.8 in) in diameter, grown as cylinders and sliced into wafers . There

9288-425: The semiconductor body by contact with gaseous compounds of the desired element, or ion implantation can be used to accurately position the doped regions. Some materials, when rapidly cooled to a glassy amorphous state, have semiconducting properties. These include B, Si , Ge, Se, and Te, and there are multiple theories to explain them. The history of the understanding of semiconductors begins with experiments on

9396-1007: The semiconductor composition and electrical current allows for the manipulation of the emitted light's properties. These semiconductors are used in the construction of light-emitting diodes and fluorescent quantum dots . Semiconductors with high thermal conductivity can be used for heat dissipation and improving thermal management of electronics. They play a crucial role in electric vehicles , high-brightness LEDs and power modules , among other applications. Semiconductors have large thermoelectric power factors making them useful in thermoelectric generators , as well as high thermoelectric figures of merit making them useful in thermoelectric coolers . A large number of elements and compounds have semiconducting properties, including: The most common semiconducting materials are crystalline solids, but amorphous and liquid semiconductors are also known. These include hydrogenated amorphous silicon and mixtures of arsenic , selenium , and tellurium in

9504-413: The semiconductor manufacturing industry, nor did it include Schlumberger Palo Alto Research. In the early 1980s, Fairchild was one of several silicon valley tech companies involved in a lawsuit brought on by residents of San Jose, California. The case pertained to industrial solvent contamination of ground water and soil in San Jose's Los Paseos neighborhood. A settlement was reached and the area designated

9612-458: The silicon. After the process is completed and the silicon has reached room temperature, the doping process is done and the semiconducting wafer is almost prepared. Semiconductors are defined by their unique electric conductive behavior, somewhere between that of a conductor and an insulator. The differences between these materials can be understood in terms of the quantum states for electrons, each of which may contain zero or one electron (by

9720-407: The term Halbleiter (a semiconductor in modern meaning) in his Ph.D. thesis in 1910. Felix Bloch published a theory of the movement of electrons through atomic lattices in 1928. In 1930, B. Gudden  [ de ] stated that conductivity in semiconductors was due to minor concentrations of impurities. By 1931, the band theory of conduction had been established by Alan Herries Wilson and

9828-406: The use of semiconductors, with the most important aspect being the integrated circuit (IC), which are found in desktops , laptops , scanners, cell-phones , and other electronic devices. Semiconductors for ICs are mass-produced. To create an ideal semiconducting material, chemical purity is paramount. Any small imperfection can have a drastic effect on how the semiconducting material behaves due to

9936-476: The world, both operating since 1960. On March 19, 2001, Fairchild Semiconductor announced that it had completed the acquisition of Intersil Corporation 's discrete power business for approximately $ 338 million in cash. The acquisition moved Fairchild into position as the second-largest power MOSFET supplier in the world, representing a 20 percent share of this $ 3 billion market that grew 40 percent last year. On September 6, 2001, Fairchild Semiconductor announced

10044-434: The world’s first commercial MOS integrated circuit using SGT. Fairchild MOS Division was slow in understanding the potential of the SGT which promised not only faster, more reliable, and denser circuits, but also new device types that could enlarge the field of solid state electronics – for example, CCDs for image sensors, dynamic RAMs, and non-volatile memory devices such as EPROM and flash memories. Intel took advantage of

10152-467: The years preceding World War II, infrared detection and communications devices prompted research into lead-sulfide and lead-selenide materials. These devices were used for detecting ships and aircraft, for infrared rangefinders, and for voice communication systems. The point-contact crystal detector became vital for microwave radio systems since available vacuum tube devices could not serve as detectors above about 4000 MHz; advanced radar systems relied on

10260-832: Was spun off as an independent company again in 1997. In September 2016, Fairchild was acquired by ON Semiconductor . The company had locations in the United States at San Jose, California ; San Rafael, California ; South Portland, Maine ; West Jordan, Utah ; and Mountain Top, Pennsylvania . Outside the US, it operated locations in Australia ; Singapore ; Bucheon, South Korea ; Penang, Malaysia ; Suzhou, China ; and Cebu, Philippines , among others. In 1955, William Shockley founded Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory , funded by Beckman Instruments in Mountain View, California ; his plan

10368-729: Was born on September 26, 1924, in Geneva , Switzerland. He received his B.S. in Mathematics from the University of Geneva and two Ph.D.s in physics ; one from the University of Geneva and the other from the University of Cambridge . In 1952, he moved to the United States to work at the California Institute of Technology , where he became acquainted with William Shockley , a physicist at Bell Labs who

10476-528: Was effective as a recruiter, he was less effective as a manager. A core group of Shockley employees, later known as the traitorous eight , became unhappy with his management of the company. The eight men were Julius Blank , Victor Grinich , Jean Hoerni , Eugene Kleiner , Jay Last , Gordon Moore , Robert Noyce , and Sheldon Roberts . Looking for funding on their own project, they turned to Sherman Fairchild 's Fairchild Camera and Instrument , an Eastern U.S. company with considerable military contracts. In 1957

10584-537: Was finalized in April 1999 for $ 450 million. To this day, Fairchild remains an important supplier for Samsung. In August 1999, Fairchild Semiconductor again became a publicly traded company on the New York Stock Exchange with the ticker symbol FCS. Fairchild's South Portland, Maine, and Mountaintop, Pennsylvania, locations are the longest continuously operating semiconductor manufacturing facilities in

10692-486: Was intimately involved with the creation of the transistor . A few years later, Shockley recruited Hoerni to work with him at the newly founded Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory division of Beckman Instruments in Mountain View, California . But Shockley's strange behavior compelled the so-called "traitorous eight" (Hoerni, Julius Blank , Victor Grinich , Eugene Kleiner , Jay Last , Gordon Moore , Robert Noyce and Sheldon Roberts ) to leave his laboratory and create

10800-477: Was later acquired by National Semiconductor. In the fall of 1967, Fairchild suffered a loss for the first time since 1958 and announced write-offs of $ 4 million due to excess capacity, which contributed to a total loss of $ 7.6 million. Profits had sunk to $ 0.50 a share, compared to $ 3 a share the previous year, while the value of the stock dropped in half. In October 1967, the board ordered Carter to sell off all of Fairchild's unprofitable ventures. Carter responded to

10908-588: Was mostly the Standard Products group previously segregated by Gil Amelio . The Fairchild Semiconductor Corporation announced November 27, 1997, that it would acquire the semiconductor division of the Raytheon Corporation for about $ 120 million in cash. The acquisition was completed on December 31, 1997. In December 1998, Fairchild announced the acquisition of Samsung 's power division, which made power MOSFETs , IGBTs , etc. The deal

11016-525: Was reputed to run the tightest operation in the world. Sporck, Pierre Lamond and most managers had grown upset and disillusioned with corporate focus on unprofitable ventures at the expense of the semiconductor division. Executives at the semiconductor division were allotted substantially fewer stock options compared to other divisions. In March 1967, Sporck was hired away by Peter J. Sprague to National Semiconductor . Sporck brought with him four other Fairchild personnel. Actually, Lamond had previously assembled

11124-489: Was rewarded with the position of corporate vice-president and hence became the de facto head of the semiconductor division. However, internal trouble at Fairchild began to surface with a drop in earnings in 1967. There was increasing competition from newer start-ups. The semiconductor division, situated in Mountain View and Palo Alto, California, was actually managed by executives from Syosset, New York , who visited

11232-637: Was sometimes poor. This was later explained by John Bardeen as due to the extreme "structure sensitive" behavior of semiconductors, whose properties change dramatically based on tiny amounts of impurities. Commercially pure materials of the 1920s containing varying proportions of trace contaminants produced differing experimental results. This spurred the development of improved material refining techniques, culminating in modern semiconductor refineries producing materials with parts-per-trillion purity. Devices using semiconductors were at first constructed based on empirical knowledge before semiconductor theory provided

11340-445: Was soon making $ 130 million a year. Fairchild's Noyce and Texas Instrument's Kilby had independently invented the integrated circuit (IC) based on bipolar technology. In 1960, Noyce invented the planar integrated circuit. The industry preferred Fairchild's invention over Texas Instruments' because the transistors in planar ICs were interconnected by a thin film deposit, whereas Texas Instruments' invention required fine wires to connect

11448-726: Was started within Fairchild Research. In 1985 the lab was separated to form Schlumberger Palo Alto Research (SPAR). Fairchild research developed the Clipper architecture , a 32-bit RISC -like computer architecture, in the 1980s, resulting in the shipping of the C100 chip in 1986. The technology was later sold to Intergraph , its main customer. Schlumberger sold Fairchild to National Semiconductor in 1987 for $ 200 million. The sale did not include Fairchild's Test Division, which designed and produced automated test equipment (ATE) for

11556-544: Was the 1958 2N697 , a mesa transistor developed by Moore, and it was a success. The first batch of 100 was sold to IBM for $ 150 apiece in order to build the computer for the B-70 bomber. More were sold to Autonetics to build the guidance system for the Minuteman ballistic missile. At the same time Jean Hoerni developed the planar process , which was a major improvement: planar transistors could be made more easily, at

11664-514: Was to develop a new type of "4-layer diode" that would work faster and have more uses than then-current transistors . At first he attempted to hire some of his former colleagues from Bell Labs , but none were willing to move to the West Coast or work with Shockley again at that time. Shockley then founded the core of the new company with what he considered the best and brightest graduates coming out of American engineering schools. While Shockley

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