Inventor: Robert Norton Nouce
Criteria: | Co-inventor. Entrepreneur. |
Birth: | December 12, 1927 in Burlington, Iowa |
Death: | June 3, 1990 in Austin, Texas |
Nationality: | American |
Robert Norton
Noyce was born December 12, 1927 in Burlington, Iowa. A noted visionary and natural leader, Robert Noyce
helped to create a new industry when he developed the technology that would eventually
become the microchip. Noted as one of the original computer entrepreneurs, he founded two
companies that would largely shape today’s computer industry—Fairchild
Semiconductor and Intel.
Bob Noyce's nickname was the "Mayor of Silicon
Valley." He was one of the very first scientists to work in the area --
long before the stretch of California had earned the Silicon name -- and he ran two of the
companies that had the greatest impact on the silicon industry: Fairchild Semiconductor
and Intel. He also invented the integrated chip, one of the stepping stones along
the way to the microprocessors in today's computers.
Noyce, the son of a preacher, grew up in
Grinnell, Iowa. He was a physics major at Grinnell College, and exhibited while there an
almost baffling amount of confidence. He was always the leader of the crowd.
This could turn against him occasionally -- the local farmers didn't approve of him and
weren't likely to forgive quickly when he did something like steal a pig for a college
luau. The prank nearly got Noyce expelled, even though the only reason the farmer
knew about it was because Noyce had confessed and offered to pay for it.
While in college, Noyce's physics professor
Grant Gale got hold of two of the very first transistors ever to come out of Bell
Labs. Gale showed them off to his class and Noyce was hooked. The field was
young, though, so when Noyce went to MIT in 1948 for his Ph.D., he found he knew more
about transistors than many of his professors.
After a brief stint making transistors for the
electronics firm Philco, Noyce decided he wanted to work at Shockley Semiconductor.
In a single day, he flew with his wife and two kids to California, bought a house, and
went to visit Shockley to ask for a job -- in that order.
As it was, Shockley and Noyce's scientific
vision -- and egos -- clashed. When seven of the young researchers at Shockley
semiconductor got together to consider leaving the company, they realized they needed a
leader. All seven thought Noyce, aged 29 but full of confidence, was the natural
choice. So Noyce became the eighth in the group that left Shockley in 1957 and
founded Fairchild Semiconductor.
Noyce was the general manager of the company and
while there invented the integrated chip -- a chip of silicon with many transistors all
etched into it at once. Fairchild Semiconductor filed a patent for a semiconductor
integrated circuit based on the planar process on July 30, 1959. That was
the first time he revolutionized the semiconductor industry. He stayed with
Fairchild until 1968, when he left with Gordon Moore to found Intel. At Intel he
oversaw Ted Hoff's invention of the microprocessor -- that was his second
revolution.
At both companies, Noyce introduced a very
casual working atmosphere, the kind of atmosphere that has become a cultural stereotype of
how California companies work. But along with that open atmosphere came
responsibility. Noyce learned from Shockley's mistakes and he gave his young, bright
employees phenomenal room to accomplish what they wished, in many ways defining the
Silicon Valley working style was his third revolution.
Noyce was working to prevent the acquisition of
a Silicon Valley materials supplier by a Japanese concern when he died unexpectedly of a
heart attack in July 1990 at his home in Austin, Texas. He was 62 years old.
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