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ROBERT N
1927-1990
NOYCE
BY GORDON E. MOORE
ROBERT NOYCE died suddenly on June 3, 1990, at his home in
Austin, Texas, where he had been living since becoming presi-
dent of SEMATECH two years earlier. His career as a physicist,
inventor, and entrepreneur was closely tied to the development
of the semiconductor industry.
Born in Burlington, Iowa, he received his undergraduate
education at Grinnell College before going on to Massachusetts
Institute of Technology for his Ph.D. in physical electronics
unclerProfessorWayne Nottingham. Upon graduation he worked
on germanium transistors at the Philco Corporation. One of his
early contributions was a technique for controlled etching of
very thin regions in a germanium crystal that facilitated making
the first commercially available high frequency transistors.
In 1956 he joined the fledgling Shockley Semiconductor
Laboratory, a subsidiary of Beckman Instruments. There he
tackled the physics of silicon devices and the development of
technology for their production. His paper (with William Shockley
and Chih-Tang Sah) on space-charge generated currents in
silicon pen junctions explained the observed voltage current
characteristics. This discovery was an important foundation for
subsequent development of silicon transistors and other semi-
conductor devices.
Bob left Shockley Laboratory in 1957 to become one of eight
founders of Fairchild Semiconductor Corporation. This com-
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MEMORIAL TRIBUTES
pany later became the Semiconductor Division of Fairchild
Camera and Instrument Corporation. In 1959, while director of
research and development at Fairchild, he saw how a complete
circuit containing interconnected transistors, diodes, and resis-
tors could be built in a small chip of silicon the integrated
circuit. By adding extra junctions in the silicon wafers the
individual circuit elements could be isolated electrically from
each other, and a metal film insulated from the silicon by a
silicon dioxide layer then could be used to form interconnec-
tions. Shortly after Noyce's invention, Texas Instruments Inc.
announced that Jack Kilby had built a circuit consisting of several
elements in a germanium crystal. Noyce and Kilby are generally
credited as coinventors of the integrated circuit. In fact, the first
Charles Stark Draper Prize awarded by the National Academy of
Engineering was shared by Noyce and Kilby, recognizing the
unique importance that their inventions have had on society. It
is worth noting, however, that their contributions were devel-
oped independently and were very different in their execution.
In 1959 Bob became general manager of Fairchild Semicon-
ductor giving him the opportunity to guide the commercializa-
tion of his invention. Fairchild was the first to market with
integrated circuits and was the world's leacling producer for
much of the 1960s. Under Bob's management Fairchild contin-
ued to make key contributions, both technical and in the
development and evolution of the semiconductor business.
Fairchild scientists developed an understanding of the silicon-
oxide interface, enabling the corporation to make stable metal-
oxide semiconductor (MOS) transistors. This continues to be
the dominant element in today's integrated circuits. They in-
vented complementary MOS (CMOS) circuitry, the basic circuit
form still commonly used today. They also came up with the idea
of using gate arrays and standard cells as low-cost design ap-
proaches, making possible the economical production of small
quantities of logic functions. Based on these discoveries, the
company designed and sold a host of digital and analog circuits.
The early market for integrated circuits was slow to develop.
So Noyce, who appreciated the potential price elasticity of
integrated circuits, announced that Fairchild would sell the
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ROBERT N. NOYCE
chips at a price lower than the sum of the costs of the
157
individual
components necessary to make the equivalent circuit. This
decision helped trigger the explosion of the integrated circuit
market.
In 196X Noyce left Fairchild and cofounded Intel Corporation
to pursue opportunities in large-scale integration. He was Intel's
president and chief executive officer until 1975. Over this time
frame, Intel introduced the first principal semiconductor mem-
ory types DRAM, SRAM, and EPROM as well as the micro-
processor.
Once Noyce turned over the day-to-day management of Intel,
his broader interests in the electronics industry and its relation
to government and society consumed the majority of his time. By
offering his technical and business advice, he nurtured a num-
ber of technology-based companies in Silicon Valley. He was
among the first to appreciate the increasing importance of
foreign competition in electronics and the weaknesses of Arneri-
can companies. He dedicated much of the last dozen years of his
career trying to improve the competitiveness of U.S.-based
industry. Noyce was a familiar and effective figure in Washing-
ton, D.C.; a founder of the Semiconductor IndustryAssociation;
and a tireless advocate of change in education, capital forma-
tion, the tort system, and other areas—aimed at removing
impediments to U.S. competitiveness.
He was on the board oftrustees of Grinnell College from 1962
until his death and served as its chairman from 1966 to 1970. He
was also a regent of the University of California.
Noyce played a prominent role in the formation of
SEMATECH, which represented! a unique attempt to foster
cooperation among semiconductor companies and the U.S.
government in an effort to increase U.S. competitiveness in
manufacturing. When the search committee (of which Noyce
was chairman) could not identify someone to be SEMATECH's
first chief executive of firer, Noyce responded to the urging of his
colleagues in the industry and agreed to take on the responsibil-
ity himself. As he put it, "It was just too important a job to leave
to others."
He was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in
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158
MEMORIAL TRIBUTES
1969 and to the National Academy of Sciences in 1980. He
received both the National Medal of Technology and the Na-
tional Medal of Science, the Stuart Ballantine Medal of the
Franklin Institute, the IEEE Medal of Honor from the Institute
of Electrical and Electonics Engineers (IEEE), the Faraday
Medal from the Institute of Electrical Engineers (United King-
dom), the Cledo Brunetti Award from the IEEE, and the Harry
Goode Memorial Award from the American Federation of Infor-
mation Processing Societies.
Although Noyce's technical contributions in the clevelop-
ment of the integrated circuit are what earned him his long list
of prizes and fellowships, his many friends best remember him
as someone who was always approachable, always interested in
their problems and ideas, and always really with suggestions-
often involving innovative and unusual approaches at odds with
conventional wisdom. In my thirty-four years of association with
Bob, many of his suggestions provect invaluable in the progress
of my work.
Noyce was totally involved in living. He was a good athlete—
a champion diver in college and an excellent skier and he
loved scuba diving, hang gliding, and piloting his airplanes,
which ranger! from an ancient Seabee to a private jet. In fact, he
was scheduled to leave Austin to pick up his newjet the very day
he died. It was a plane in which he could fly nonstop from Austin
to either Washington, D.C., or Silicon Valley.
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Representative terms from entire chapter:
integrated circuit
