History of Semiconductor Engineering

When basic researchers started working on semiconductors in the late nineteen thirties and on integrated circuits at the end of the nineteen fifties, they did not know that their work would change the lives of future generations. Very few people at that time recognized the significance of perhaps the most important invention of the century. Although historians have assigned the invention of integrated circuits to Jack Kilby and Robert Noyce, in this book, the author argues that the group of inventors was much larger. This richly illustrated account is a personal recollection of the development of integrated circuits and personalities - such as Russell Ohl, Karl Lark-Horovitz, William Shockley, Carl Frosch, Lincoln Derick, Calvin Fuller, Kurt Lehovec, Jean Hoerni, Shelton Roberts, Jay Last, Issy Haas, Bob Norman, Dave Allison, Jim Null, Tom Longo, Bob Widlar, Frank Wanlass, Federico Fagin, and Dave Talbert. Here is the first comprehensive behind-the-scences account of the history of the integrated circuit, the microelectronics industry and the people closely involved in the development of the transistor and integrated circuit.