X-Nico

4 unusual facts about Fairchild Semiconductor


Microprocessor Chronicles

Another film in the series, The Fairchild Chronicles, talks about Mountain View's Fairchild Semiconductor.

Rich Page

At Fairchild Semiconductor, Rich developed test programs for Fairchild's microprocessors, memory products and custom chips.

Stanley Mazor

In 1964, he became a programmer with Fairchild Semiconductor, followed by a position as computer designer in the Digital Research Department, where he co-patented “Symbol,” a high-level language computer.

Telecom Corridor Genealogy Project

The regional business family tree that is most famous is the Silicon Valley Fairchild family tree.


1N4001 and 1N5400 series diodes

In the version of these components manufactured for Fairchild Semiconductor by Suzhou, the silicon chip that rectifies the current weighs just 880 micrograms.

Charge-coupled device

Several companies, including Fairchild Semiconductor, RCA and Texas Instruments, picked up on the invention and began development programs.

Cumberland County, Maine

The county is the economic and industrial center of the state, having the resources of the Port of Portland, the Maine Mall, and having corporate headquarters of major companies such as Fairchild Semiconductor, IDEXX Laboratories, Unum, and TD Bank.

Four-phase logic

R. K. "Bob" Booher, an engineer at Autonetics, invented four-phase logic, and communicated the idea to Frank Wanlass at Fairchild Semiconductor; Wanlass promoted this logic form at General Instrument Microelectronics Division.

Jean Hoerni

But Shockley's strange behavior would compel the so-called 'traitorous eight': Hoerni, Julius Blank, Victor Grinich, Eugene Kleiner, Jay Last, Gordon Moore, Robert Noyce and Sheldon Roberts, to leave his laboratory and create the Fairchild Semiconductor corporation.

Reticon

Co-founder Gene Weckler started Reticon after several years at Shockley and eight years at Fairchild Semiconductor.

Sheldon Roberts

He joined the seminal Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory division of Beckman Instruments in Mountain View, California, but left the company along with other members of the "traitorous eight" with the backing of Sherman Fairchild to form the influential Fairchild Semiconductor corporation.

Texas Instruments TMS9900

The TMS9900 was designed as a single chip version of the TI 990 minicomputer series, much like the Intersil 6100 was a single chip PDP-8 (12 bit), and the Fairchild 9440 and Data General mN601 were both one-chip versions of Data General's Nova.


see also