Both May 6 and May 8 Evening Program(s), click here

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• John Hollar, CHM CEO will chair a panel discussion between:
• Charles E. Phipps, former VP Marketing, TI and General Partner, Sevin Rosen Funds
• Jay W. Lathrop, former DOFL and TI scientist, Professor Emeritus Clemson University
• L. Arthur D'Asaro, former senior scientist at Bell Telephone Laboratories

The chip emerged from Cold War demands for improved reliability, performance, and miniaturization of electronics systems. The later 1950s witnessed diverse efforts to pack components into tiny modules and to integrate multiple components in a single slice of semiconductor material. Fierce technological competition between these different approaches to microcircuitry -- from “Tinkertoys” to Molecular Electronics to “Solid Circuits” -- resulted in the planar integrated circuit of today.

Michael Riordan, co-author of Crystal Fire: The Birth of the Information Age, will survey the personalities and technologies behind these early efforts at microcircuitry by Bell Labs, IBM, RCA, Texas Instruments, and Westinghouse.

In excerpts from a video interview, Dr. Thomas Stanley will recount some of the pioneering microcircuitry work at RCA in the late 1950s. A panel of speakers will then present and discuss their own experiences in this fast-moving, competitive race to the future. Topics will include the first counter to be fabricated on a silicon chip at Bell Labs (1955), early steps in photolithography at the Army’s Diamond Ordnance Fuse Lab (DOFL), and the breakthrough contribution of Jack Kilby’s "Solid Circuits" that propelled Texas Instruments to a world leader in integrated circuits.

• Christophe Lécuyer, author of Making Silicon Valley, on Jean Hoerni and his development of the planar process.
• Leslie Berlin, author of the biography of Robert Noyce The Man Behind the Microchip, on Noyce and his conception of the planar integrated circuit.
• Gordon E. Moore, Fairchild and Intel co-founder and director of R&D on the early days of the industry and the background to the contributions of Hoerni and Noyce.
• Jay T. Last, Fairchild co-founder and leader of the Micrologic team on the creative efforts required to turn Noyce’s concept into a working product.

Jack Kilby’s Solid Circuits established that all the components required to make general-purpose electronic circuits could be fabricated using a common semiconductor material. However their hand-wired interconnections made them difficult and expensive to produce in high volume.

Seeking to solve reliability problems with transistors at Fairchild Semiconductor, co-founder Jean Hoerni invented a new manufacturing approach: the planar process. Fairchild’s Director of R & D, Robert Noyce, realized that the Hoerni’s process would allow interconnecting multiple transistors on one chip in a batch process that also made them more reliable and lower in cost.

The planar integrated circuit, first created by Jay Last’s team at Fairchild, remains the basis of the modern semiconductor industry and ranks with the printing press, the steam engine, and wireless communications in terms of global social impact. Four speakers will describe the personal, technical, and business stories associated with bringing Fairchild Micrologic, the first planar integrated circuit family, to market.

The Computer History Museum is partnering with the Chemical Heritage Foundation and the IEEE Santa Clara Valley Section to celebrate the 50th anniversary of these transformative developments.

Major funding for the Salute to the Semiconductor is generously provided by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation and the Intel Corporation. Additional funding for the IC@50 events is provided by the National Semiconductor Foundation, a charitable fund at the Silicon Valley Community Foundation.