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Rheem Semiconductor
Bernie Marren discusses Rheem, an early semiconductor company acquired by Raytheon. Read more about this session at: http://sites.ieee.org/sv-techhist/?p=344 [Thanks to Tom Gardner for the above description.]
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Bernie discusses his move from AVCO in Detroit to Minneapolis & Fairchild Sales
Bernie Marren talks about his move from working with nuclear weapon fuses to selling a semiconductor product that Fairchild wouldn’t describe to him and that didn’t work.
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Early Small Scale Integrated Circuits
Alan provides background about the 1st ICs- Small Scale Integrated (SSI) circuits – and their lack of noise immunity as a potential problem. Bernie says Fairchild stimulated demand for SSIs by drastically cutting the price. David reaffirms that fact, while calling attention to unreliable plastic packages that had just come out. Ed chimes in that…
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Ted Hoff Discusses the Early Days of the IC Business
Ted Hoff explains why 1959 was a key year for semiconductors. The Planar Process, invented by Jean Hoerni, produced gradients that made for faster transistors (switching) and better base thickness control. David Laws adds that the planar process saved Fairchild in more ways than one as they had trouble with the earlier Mesa transistors. It…
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The Founder of Intersil
Double PhD & brilliant scientist Jean Hoerni was not only the inventor of the planar process at Fairchild (the basis of the integrated circuit), but also an entrepreneur. In 1964, he founded Union Carbide Electronics and in 1967 Intersil. Yet Hoerni had difficulty recruiting & retaining people at the companies he founded, because he was…
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Early Semiconductor Applications
