Introduction - Computer Busses - page 2

resistance changed. From this work, they made a crystal called a diode, which worked like a
valve, but had many advantages, including the fact that it did not require a vacuum and was
much smaller. It also worked well at room temperatures, required little electrical current and
had no warm-up time. This was the start of microelectronics.
One of the great revolutions of all time occurred on December 1948 when William
Shockley, Walter Brattain, and John Bardeen at the Bell Labs produced a transistor that
could act as a triode. It was made from a germanium crystal with a thin p-type section sand-
wiched between two n-type materials. Rather than release its details to the world, Bell
Laboratories kept its invention secret for over seven months so that they could fully under-
stand its operation. They soon applied for a patent for the transistor and, on 30 June 1948,
they finally revealed the transistor to the world. Unfortunately, as with many other great in-
ventions, it received little public attention and even less press coverage (the New York Times
gave it 4½ inches on page 46). It must be said that few men have made such a profound
change on the world, and Shockley, Brattain, and Bardeen were deservedly awarded the No-
bel Prize in 1956. To commercialize on his success, Shockley, in 1955, founded Shockley
Semiconductor. Then in 1957, eight engineers decided they could not work within Shockley
Semiconductor and formed Fairchild Semiconductors, which would become one of the most
inventive companies in Silicon Valley. Unfortunately, most of the time Fairchild Semicon-
ductors did not fully exploit its developments, and was more of an incubator for many of the
innovators in the electronics industry. Around the same time, Kenneth Olsen founded the
Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC), who would go on to become one of the key compa-
nies in the computer industry, along with IBM.
Previously, in 1952, GW Dummer, a radar expert from Britain's Royal Radar Establish-
ment had presented a paper proposing that a solid block of materials could be used to con-
nect electronic components, without connecting wires. This would lay the foundation of the
integrated circuit.
Transistors were initially made from germanium, which is not a robust material and can-
not withstand high temperatures. The first company to propose the use of silicon transistors
was a geological research company named Texas Instruments (which had diversified into
transistors). Then, in May 1954, Texas Instruments started commercial production of silicon
transistors. Soon many companies were producing silicon transistors and, by 1955, the elec-
tronic valve market had peaked, while the market for transistors was rocketing. The larger
electronic valve manufacturers, such as Western Electric, CBS, Raytheon and Westinghouse
failed to adapt to the changing market and quickly lost their market share to the new transis-
tor manufacturing companies, such as Texas Instruments, Motorola, Hughes and RCA.
In July 1958, at Texas Instruments, Jack St. Clair Kilby proposed the creation of a mono-
lithic device (an integrated circuit) on a single piece of silicon. Then, in September, he pro-
duced the first integrated circuit, containing five components on a piece of germanium that
was half an inch long and was thinner than a toothpick.
The following year, Fairchild Semiconductor filed for a patent for the planar process of
manufacturing transistors. This process made commercial production of transistors possible
and led to Fairchild's introduction, in two years, of the first commercial integrated circuit.
Within a few years, transistors were small enough to make hearing aids that fitted into the
ear, and soon within pacemakers. Companies, such as Sony, started to make transistors oper-
ate over higher frequencies and within larger temperature ranges. Eventually they became so
small that many of them could be placed on a single piece of silicon. These were referred to
as microchips and they started the microelectronics industry. The first two companies who
developed the integrated circuit, were Texas Instruments and Fairchild Semiconductor. At
Fairchild Semiconductor, Robert Noyce constructed an integrated circuit with components