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More than Pong – Atari’s Impact on Silicon Valley Culture
Atari and its meteoric rise as a household name in the 70s might seem like ancient history, but for many young people of that era, Pong was the definition of video game. More than that seminal game, the work led by Nolan Bushnell gave birth to consumer electronics in Silicon Valley. As seen in the above video,…
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Bernie Marren on the founding of Fairchild Semiconductor, its Managers & 1st product
Bernie explains how Fairchild Semiconductor was founded in Sept 1957 and asserts that Bob Noyce was selected as the leader from the Shockley Labs employees. Noyce wasn’t looking for that position, but accepted it. Bernie names the other Fairchild managers who all got paid the same amount of money + 1 share of stock for…
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Ed Pausa on his early years at Fairchild (1959-1964) in Mt View, CA & Portland, ME
Ed explains how he was hired by Fairchild in 1959 because he had a materials background with a MS in Physical Metallurgy. Ed asked a lot of questions about their production processes and controls. He was made a foreman of Fairchild’s production plant on Charleston Ave in Mt View. Ed later became product manager for…
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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
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11 Government work at Stanford in the early 60s