1 00:00:04,440 --> 00:00:12,319 Speaker 1: Welcome to Tech Stuff, a production from iHeartRadio. Hey there, 2 00:00:12,320 --> 00:00:15,720 Speaker 1: and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland. 3 00:00:15,720 --> 00:00:18,599 Speaker 1: I'm an executive producer with iHeart Podcasts and How the 4 00:00:18,680 --> 00:00:22,560 Speaker 1: Tech are you. So it's President's Day here in the 5 00:00:22,640 --> 00:00:25,799 Speaker 1: United States, and as such, it is a holiday in 6 00:00:25,880 --> 00:00:29,120 Speaker 1: our office, so our office is not open. But I 7 00:00:29,160 --> 00:00:31,920 Speaker 1: didn't want to leave you without an episode on a Monday, 8 00:00:32,120 --> 00:00:35,199 Speaker 1: and so we're actually dipping into our classics, which we 9 00:00:35,240 --> 00:00:39,000 Speaker 1: don't do as frequently these days. This is actually a 10 00:00:39,000 --> 00:00:42,160 Speaker 1: part one of a multi part podcast, but I thought 11 00:00:42,360 --> 00:00:44,920 Speaker 1: it's still really fascinating. It's telling the story of a 12 00:00:45,040 --> 00:00:49,159 Speaker 1: very important company and its origins. It is the Intel Story, 13 00:00:49,560 --> 00:00:55,240 Speaker 1: Part one. I hope you enjoy. Today we're going to 14 00:00:55,280 --> 00:00:59,360 Speaker 1: do another one of my wonderful episodes about the history 15 00:00:59,520 --> 00:01:02,800 Speaker 1: of a big company in technology. And I use the 16 00:01:02,800 --> 00:01:06,080 Speaker 1: word wonderful somewhat tongue in cheek, because it's weird to 17 00:01:06,080 --> 00:01:09,640 Speaker 1: toot one's own horn. But I genuinely enjoy researching these 18 00:01:09,680 --> 00:01:13,399 Speaker 1: episodes because I always learned something that I didn't know 19 00:01:13,560 --> 00:01:17,839 Speaker 1: before about companies that I'm really familiar with from a 20 00:01:17,880 --> 00:01:21,440 Speaker 1: product standpoint, but maybe not so much behind the scenes. 21 00:01:21,920 --> 00:01:27,440 Speaker 1: That's certainly the case with today's topic. Intel. Now, Intel 22 00:01:27,600 --> 00:01:31,960 Speaker 1: is a major player in the computer's industry, obviously in 23 00:01:32,000 --> 00:01:37,280 Speaker 1: the semiconductor and microprocessor industries, big big deal. But I 24 00:01:37,319 --> 00:01:40,320 Speaker 1: wanted to take this opportunity to kind of talk about 25 00:01:40,319 --> 00:01:43,240 Speaker 1: the history of the company, how it developed over time, 26 00:01:43,560 --> 00:01:46,240 Speaker 1: and sort of the contributions it has made to the 27 00:01:46,240 --> 00:01:52,800 Speaker 1: industry of electronics and computers. Right, So, chances are at 28 00:01:52,800 --> 00:01:55,400 Speaker 1: some point or another in your life, you've used a 29 00:01:55,480 --> 00:01:58,160 Speaker 1: device that had a little sticker on it that said 30 00:01:58,200 --> 00:02:02,280 Speaker 1: that there was Intel in side. The company is famous 31 00:02:02,320 --> 00:02:05,400 Speaker 1: for producing the chips that make our computers and electronics 32 00:02:05,480 --> 00:02:09,240 Speaker 1: so powerful. So they're famous for making the stuff that 33 00:02:09,360 --> 00:02:13,440 Speaker 1: makes our other stuff work. But what is the actual 34 00:02:13,560 --> 00:02:17,080 Speaker 1: story behind the company. Well, to understand that, we're gonna 35 00:02:17,080 --> 00:02:20,280 Speaker 1: have to do something that I'm infamous for doing, which 36 00:02:20,320 --> 00:02:22,800 Speaker 1: is that we're going to have to go roll the 37 00:02:22,880 --> 00:02:27,000 Speaker 1: clock back well before there ever was an Intel. Because 38 00:02:27,200 --> 00:02:29,840 Speaker 1: I really do think that to have a true understanding 39 00:02:30,240 --> 00:02:33,840 Speaker 1: of any subject, not just a company, but really anything, 40 00:02:34,160 --> 00:02:37,840 Speaker 1: you need to go back quite a bit and get 41 00:02:38,000 --> 00:02:42,000 Speaker 1: the foundation set before you start just spouting off facts. 42 00:02:42,360 --> 00:02:44,600 Speaker 1: I could tell you that Intel was founded in the 43 00:02:44,680 --> 00:02:47,960 Speaker 1: late nineteen sixties and pick up from there. But without 44 00:02:48,040 --> 00:02:51,760 Speaker 1: understanding the pathway that led there, you don't have as 45 00:02:51,800 --> 00:02:55,600 Speaker 1: full an appreciation. At least in my opinion, that's the case. 46 00:02:55,680 --> 00:03:00,720 Speaker 1: Certainly personally for me, that's the case. So we're going 47 00:03:00,760 --> 00:03:03,800 Speaker 1: to look at a couple of companies that preceded Intel 48 00:03:03,960 --> 00:03:06,040 Speaker 1: to understand why there's an Intel in the first place, 49 00:03:06,080 --> 00:03:11,000 Speaker 1: and we'll talk about the Traitorous Eight. There's treachery involved 50 00:03:11,000 --> 00:03:14,240 Speaker 1: in this story, and we'll also talk about Moore's Law. 51 00:03:14,440 --> 00:03:17,040 Speaker 1: That's going to play a big part in this discussion 52 00:03:17,080 --> 00:03:19,880 Speaker 1: as well, because all of this is wrapped up in 53 00:03:19,960 --> 00:03:23,320 Speaker 1: the birth of Intel, and it's a story of not 54 00:03:23,400 --> 00:03:26,880 Speaker 1: just technology, but of people. And as we all know, 55 00:03:27,000 --> 00:03:32,560 Speaker 1: people are complicated critters. We're capable of great and terrible things, 56 00:03:32,600 --> 00:03:35,200 Speaker 1: and sometimes things that are both great and terrible at 57 00:03:35,200 --> 00:03:38,400 Speaker 1: the same time. So today we're going to look at 58 00:03:38,600 --> 00:03:43,880 Speaker 1: some stories about people who made amazing contributions to us 59 00:03:43,920 --> 00:03:49,800 Speaker 1: in the form of engineering, advancing science, understanding the physics 60 00:03:49,840 --> 00:03:52,760 Speaker 1: of electronics at a deeper level that allowed us to 61 00:03:52,800 --> 00:03:56,920 Speaker 1: create incredible gadgets. But we'll also learn some not so 62 00:03:57,120 --> 00:04:01,160 Speaker 1: nice stuff, some things about people that were or at 63 00:04:01,320 --> 00:04:05,440 Speaker 1: least disturbing, if not worse. But much of our story 64 00:04:05,520 --> 00:04:11,080 Speaker 1: is going to revolve around semiconductors, so as a refresher, 65 00:04:11,480 --> 00:04:14,360 Speaker 1: a semiconductor is a class of material that has a 66 00:04:14,440 --> 00:04:18,760 Speaker 1: much lower resistance to the flow of electrical current in 67 00:04:18,839 --> 00:04:22,720 Speaker 1: one direction than it does in the other direction. If 68 00:04:22,800 --> 00:04:25,320 Speaker 1: you listen to my episodes about the history of electricity, 69 00:04:25,600 --> 00:04:30,000 Speaker 1: you remember about the concept of resistance, right, that's the 70 00:04:30,040 --> 00:04:34,960 Speaker 1: tendency of any given material to resist the flow of electrons. So, 71 00:04:35,240 --> 00:04:37,920 Speaker 1: if you have something that's a really good conductor, it 72 00:04:37,960 --> 00:04:41,080 Speaker 1: tends to have a very low resistance. It allows electrons 73 00:04:41,120 --> 00:04:45,120 Speaker 1: to move through fairly freely. But something with a very 74 00:04:45,200 --> 00:04:49,120 Speaker 1: high resistance, like a very very high resistance that's an insulator, 75 00:04:49,480 --> 00:04:52,240 Speaker 1: it doesn't allow electrons to pass through nearly as easily. 76 00:04:53,400 --> 00:04:56,480 Speaker 1: If you're able to take a conductor and you're able 77 00:04:56,520 --> 00:05:00,520 Speaker 1: to lower the temperature near to absolute zero, it ends 78 00:05:00,600 --> 00:05:04,159 Speaker 1: up becoming a superconductor, meaning that there's no resistance at all, 79 00:05:04,200 --> 00:05:07,760 Speaker 1: and it allows electrons to pass through without any resistance. 80 00:05:08,480 --> 00:05:14,080 Speaker 1: So resistance is this tendency to again resist the flow 81 00:05:14,080 --> 00:05:18,080 Speaker 1: of electrons. It turns out that in some materials this 82 00:05:18,160 --> 00:05:23,240 Speaker 1: is a variable where under one set of circumstances, electrons 83 00:05:23,240 --> 00:05:26,120 Speaker 1: will flow through very easily, and under a different set 84 00:05:26,120 --> 00:05:30,839 Speaker 1: of circumstances using that same material, electrons will not flow 85 00:05:30,880 --> 00:05:35,320 Speaker 1: through nearly as easily. These are what we call semiconductors, 86 00:05:36,200 --> 00:05:40,640 Speaker 1: because sometimes they conduct and sometimes they do not. It 87 00:05:40,680 --> 00:05:42,560 Speaker 1: can be useful to think of this as sort of 88 00:05:43,000 --> 00:05:46,560 Speaker 1: like an inclined plane or a slide. If you have 89 00:05:46,600 --> 00:05:49,920 Speaker 1: a marble and you let it roll down a slide, 90 00:05:49,920 --> 00:05:53,040 Speaker 1: it does so easily with very little effort, right. You 91 00:05:53,080 --> 00:05:55,000 Speaker 1: just have to move it so it hits that inclined 92 00:05:55,000 --> 00:05:57,440 Speaker 1: plane and gravity does the rest of the work. To 93 00:05:57,440 --> 00:05:59,800 Speaker 1: move the marble back up the slide, you have to 94 00:05:59,800 --> 00:06:03,000 Speaker 1: put forth some effort. You have to push the marble 95 00:06:03,200 --> 00:06:07,120 Speaker 1: up the slide, working against gravity to do so. Semiconductors 96 00:06:07,160 --> 00:06:09,640 Speaker 1: are kind of similar, except we're talking about electrons, not 97 00:06:11,279 --> 00:06:15,680 Speaker 1: large macro objects like marbles. And it's not a perfect analogy, 98 00:06:15,800 --> 00:06:18,120 Speaker 1: but it allows you to kind of understand what's going 99 00:06:18,160 --> 00:06:22,880 Speaker 1: on now. A semiconductor's tendency to allow or prevent electricity 100 00:06:22,880 --> 00:06:25,000 Speaker 1: from flowing through it can be altered in a few 101 00:06:25,000 --> 00:06:29,320 Speaker 1: different ways depending upon the material. So, for example, some 102 00:06:29,440 --> 00:06:33,599 Speaker 1: semiconductor material will change its resistance if you introduce some 103 00:06:33,960 --> 00:06:38,520 Speaker 1: impurities into it. This is called doping, where you strategically 104 00:06:39,120 --> 00:06:43,640 Speaker 1: add in some of these impurities to change it from 105 00:06:43,640 --> 00:06:47,560 Speaker 1: being say pure silicon, to doped silicon, and this would 106 00:06:47,600 --> 00:06:52,520 Speaker 1: allow for the transfer of electrons in one direction more easily. 107 00:06:53,640 --> 00:06:55,640 Speaker 1: Or you might be able to change the resistance of 108 00:06:55,640 --> 00:06:59,320 Speaker 1: a semiconductor by applying a magnetic field to it, or 109 00:06:59,720 --> 00:07:03,159 Speaker 1: there are other ways of changing Like I mentioned with superconductors, 110 00:07:03,160 --> 00:07:06,159 Speaker 1: that's temperature. So there are a lot of different factors 111 00:07:06,200 --> 00:07:10,240 Speaker 1: that can change the way a conductor conducts electricity, whether 112 00:07:10,280 --> 00:07:13,240 Speaker 1: it's with little resistance or with a great deal of resistance. 113 00:07:15,160 --> 00:07:19,640 Speaker 1: The first recorded use of the word semiconducting that I 114 00:07:19,840 --> 00:07:23,840 Speaker 1: know of came from Alessandro Volta. And again if you 115 00:07:23,920 --> 00:07:27,240 Speaker 1: listen to those history of Electricity episodes, then you know 116 00:07:27,320 --> 00:07:30,800 Speaker 1: that Volta was an eighteenth century philosopher and inventor who 117 00:07:30,840 --> 00:07:34,840 Speaker 1: created an early battery called the voltaic pile. But as 118 00:07:34,880 --> 00:07:38,600 Speaker 1: brilliant as Volta was, he did not actually lay down 119 00:07:38,600 --> 00:07:41,480 Speaker 1: any theories about what semi conductors are or what was 120 00:07:41,520 --> 00:07:44,480 Speaker 1: going on, largely because he did not have a full 121 00:07:44,560 --> 00:07:49,680 Speaker 1: understanding of what electricity was. Remember, for centuries people thought 122 00:07:49,680 --> 00:07:53,160 Speaker 1: electricity was some form of fluid. They didn't have a 123 00:07:53,160 --> 00:07:57,480 Speaker 1: full understanding of what it actually was. In the nineteenth century, 124 00:07:57,480 --> 00:08:00,360 Speaker 1: you had Michael Faraday. He was another scientist, and he 125 00:08:00,480 --> 00:08:05,640 Speaker 1: noticed that silver sulfide's electrical resistance would change at different temperatures. 126 00:08:06,120 --> 00:08:10,680 Speaker 1: So he made this observation. If he changed the temperature 127 00:08:10,840 --> 00:08:15,800 Speaker 1: of silver sulfide, the resistance would also change. Johann Hittorff, 128 00:08:15,920 --> 00:08:19,480 Speaker 1: who was another scientist, published a study about temperature dependence 129 00:08:19,520 --> 00:08:24,040 Speaker 1: of the electrical conductivity of certain materials, adding to more 130 00:08:24,600 --> 00:08:30,200 Speaker 1: knowledge about the nature of semiconductors. Several scientists formulated theories 131 00:08:30,320 --> 00:08:33,000 Speaker 1: about semiconductors and the factors that would cause them to 132 00:08:33,080 --> 00:08:36,000 Speaker 1: change their resistance to electrical flow, but it wouldn't be 133 00:08:36,240 --> 00:08:40,160 Speaker 1: until the mid twentieth century that someone figured out how 134 00:08:40,160 --> 00:08:42,959 Speaker 1: they could be used to solve what was becoming a 135 00:08:43,080 --> 00:08:48,080 Speaker 1: very tricky problem. Now, initially this problem was all about 136 00:08:48,800 --> 00:08:53,559 Speaker 1: signal amplification. Now, signals are very important in all sorts 137 00:08:53,600 --> 00:08:58,240 Speaker 1: of different electronic applications, and often the signal that you 138 00:08:58,360 --> 00:09:02,160 Speaker 1: generate maybe very weak and you need to amplify it. 139 00:09:02,240 --> 00:09:05,120 Speaker 1: You need to increase the amplitude of the signal in 140 00:09:05,240 --> 00:09:07,959 Speaker 1: order for you to do something useful with it that. 141 00:09:08,000 --> 00:09:12,200 Speaker 1: It was certainly the case with telephone communication. In the 142 00:09:12,360 --> 00:09:16,840 Speaker 1: early twentieth century. A little company called AT and T 143 00:09:17,360 --> 00:09:20,400 Speaker 1: was struggling with this because they were laying out a 144 00:09:20,559 --> 00:09:25,800 Speaker 1: coast to coast network of telephone lines. They were allowing 145 00:09:25,880 --> 00:09:29,720 Speaker 1: for transcontinental phone calls, but they needed to be able 146 00:09:29,760 --> 00:09:33,439 Speaker 1: to boost the signal that went along the telephone lines 147 00:09:33,800 --> 00:09:36,600 Speaker 1: so that the thing you heard on one end would 148 00:09:36,640 --> 00:09:40,000 Speaker 1: be intelligible, so that if I'm talking in Atlanta and 149 00:09:40,040 --> 00:09:42,480 Speaker 1: I want someone in San Francisco to hear me, the 150 00:09:42,520 --> 00:09:47,240 Speaker 1: signal remains strong throughout the entire journey from Atlanta to 151 00:09:47,280 --> 00:09:50,120 Speaker 1: San Francisco. So they needed to figure out a way 152 00:09:50,120 --> 00:09:56,760 Speaker 1: to amplify signals, and initially they were looking at using 153 00:09:56,840 --> 00:10:00,640 Speaker 1: vacuum tubes. Now AT and T was really interesting in 154 00:10:00,640 --> 00:10:04,880 Speaker 1: innovating in this space, largely because the company was starting 155 00:10:04,920 --> 00:10:09,000 Speaker 1: to worry about its patents, and it purchased several patents 156 00:10:09,000 --> 00:10:13,600 Speaker 1: from Alexander Graham Bell, who we attribute the creation of 157 00:10:13,640 --> 00:10:17,600 Speaker 1: the telephone to, and those patents were what allowed AT 158 00:10:17,720 --> 00:10:23,000 Speaker 1: and T to maintain a strategic advantage over other potential competitors. 159 00:10:23,640 --> 00:10:30,280 Speaker 1: But patents they expire after a while. So once they expire, 160 00:10:30,400 --> 00:10:33,600 Speaker 1: that information is then available for anyone to use without 161 00:10:33,600 --> 00:10:37,200 Speaker 1: having to pay a license. So the patent allows you 162 00:10:37,320 --> 00:10:40,320 Speaker 1: to see how people are doing things, but it prevents 163 00:10:40,360 --> 00:10:44,160 Speaker 1: you from following that same example unless you license the 164 00:10:44,240 --> 00:10:48,200 Speaker 1: information from the patent holder. Well, once a patent expires, 165 00:10:49,000 --> 00:10:52,000 Speaker 1: it's free game. So AT and T was looking at 166 00:10:52,040 --> 00:10:54,120 Speaker 1: these patents expiring and they said, well, we really need 167 00:10:54,160 --> 00:10:57,440 Speaker 1: to innovate in other spaces to maintain our competitive advantage. 168 00:10:57,720 --> 00:11:00,199 Speaker 1: And you've heard me probably talk about Aten He I 169 00:11:00,320 --> 00:11:03,439 Speaker 1: did some episodes about the company not that long ago, 170 00:11:03,720 --> 00:11:09,000 Speaker 1: and they were very good at maintaining their advantage for 171 00:11:09,000 --> 00:11:11,600 Speaker 1: a really long time, even after they got broken up 172 00:11:11,760 --> 00:11:17,679 Speaker 1: by the United States government. Well, the company was so 173 00:11:17,720 --> 00:11:21,319 Speaker 1: concerned about this they even brought Thomas Vale out of retirement, 174 00:11:21,360 --> 00:11:24,240 Speaker 1: that was their former president of the company, and they 175 00:11:24,240 --> 00:11:27,040 Speaker 1: wanted to really tackle this problem. And again, initially they 176 00:11:27,080 --> 00:11:32,160 Speaker 1: started to use vacuum tubes as signal amplifiers. These were 177 00:11:32,200 --> 00:11:35,439 Speaker 1: devices that were invented by a guy named Lee de Forest. 178 00:11:35,559 --> 00:11:37,600 Speaker 1: And one day I will have to do a full 179 00:11:37,679 --> 00:11:41,520 Speaker 1: episode about vacuum tube technology and exactly how it works. 180 00:11:42,080 --> 00:11:46,160 Speaker 1: But it's a little outside the scope of this episode. Now, 181 00:11:46,320 --> 00:11:49,240 Speaker 1: one thing you should know is vacuum tubes were not 182 00:11:49,480 --> 00:11:52,240 Speaker 1: a perfect technology. They had a lot of drawbacks. They 183 00:11:52,240 --> 00:11:54,920 Speaker 1: were delicate, they could burn out, so you'd have to 184 00:11:54,960 --> 00:12:00,280 Speaker 1: replace them fairly regularly. They were also very long, large 185 00:12:00,320 --> 00:12:03,200 Speaker 1: and bulky, so you could not have a small form 186 00:12:03,320 --> 00:12:06,680 Speaker 1: factor for whatever device you were using that had vacuum 187 00:12:06,679 --> 00:12:10,240 Speaker 1: tube amplifiers in it. And they generated a lot of heat, 188 00:12:10,760 --> 00:12:14,000 Speaker 1: which in some applications is problematic. Now, there are some 189 00:12:14,080 --> 00:12:17,600 Speaker 1: things where people still love to use vacuum tubes as 190 00:12:17,640 --> 00:12:23,280 Speaker 1: their signal amplifier. People who use amplifiers for musical instruments love, 191 00:12:24,040 --> 00:12:30,240 Speaker 1: generally speaking, amplifiers that use vacuum tubes. Those are valued 192 00:12:30,520 --> 00:12:34,240 Speaker 1: very highly in the musical field. But for something like 193 00:12:34,559 --> 00:12:37,880 Speaker 1: long distance telephone calls, it was seen as sort of 194 00:12:38,080 --> 00:12:40,800 Speaker 1: a band aid to the problem. And so the company 195 00:12:41,160 --> 00:12:44,080 Speaker 1: AT and T was really interested in figuring out an 196 00:12:44,120 --> 00:12:48,120 Speaker 1: alternative to these, and they tasked their research and development 197 00:12:48,280 --> 00:12:51,640 Speaker 1: ARM to try and come up with something. That ARM 198 00:12:51,800 --> 00:12:54,600 Speaker 1: was known as Bell Labs. They wanted to find an 199 00:12:54,600 --> 00:12:57,400 Speaker 1: alternative to vacuum tubes, something that could boost a signal 200 00:12:57,480 --> 00:13:00,160 Speaker 1: similar to the tubes, but take up a fraction of 201 00:13:00,200 --> 00:13:04,600 Speaker 1: size and put out very little heat comparatively speaking. The 202 00:13:04,760 --> 00:13:08,320 Speaker 1: team leader for this project at Bell Labs was a 203 00:13:08,320 --> 00:13:13,000 Speaker 1: guy named William Bill Shockley. Now, in a way, Shockley 204 00:13:13,000 --> 00:13:16,080 Speaker 1: would become partly responsible for the foundation of Intel, but 205 00:13:16,800 --> 00:13:19,760 Speaker 1: it wasn't because he was a founder of Intel. He wasn't. 206 00:13:19,800 --> 00:13:23,360 Speaker 1: He was not among the co founders of Intel. However, 207 00:13:23,640 --> 00:13:26,439 Speaker 1: you could argue that he was at least partly responsible 208 00:13:26,480 --> 00:13:31,480 Speaker 1: for Intel ever existing. Shockley was born in London, England, 209 00:13:31,679 --> 00:13:35,079 Speaker 1: but both his parents were American. His father was a 210 00:13:35,120 --> 00:13:38,520 Speaker 1: mining engineer who had contract work in the UK and 211 00:13:38,559 --> 00:13:41,200 Speaker 1: so had moved his family to the United Kingdom. His 212 00:13:41,320 --> 00:13:44,080 Speaker 1: mother was one of the first women to graduate Stanford, 213 00:13:44,120 --> 00:13:48,000 Speaker 1: and she held degrees in mathematics and art. Now, apparently 214 00:13:48,400 --> 00:13:53,360 Speaker 1: the Shackley family was a group of curmudgeonly folks. They 215 00:13:53,360 --> 00:13:58,959 Speaker 1: were a little grouchy. From all accounts, they might have 216 00:13:59,320 --> 00:14:04,040 Speaker 1: had arrested As a family feature. His parents never seemed 217 00:14:04,040 --> 00:14:05,920 Speaker 1: to be able to stay in one place for more 218 00:14:05,960 --> 00:14:07,960 Speaker 1: than a year, so they moved around a lot, and 219 00:14:08,000 --> 00:14:11,000 Speaker 1: Shockley himself would develop many of the same characteristics as 220 00:14:11,000 --> 00:14:14,320 Speaker 1: his parents, being a little difficult to be around, which 221 00:14:14,320 --> 00:14:17,640 Speaker 1: is probably a generous way of putting it now. Eventually, 222 00:14:17,920 --> 00:14:22,000 Speaker 1: Shockley attended the California Institute of Technology or cal TECH, 223 00:14:22,160 --> 00:14:25,360 Speaker 1: back in nineteen twenty eight, and he majored in physics. 224 00:14:25,640 --> 00:14:30,240 Speaker 1: He was apparently really quite the prankster over at cal Tech. 225 00:14:30,280 --> 00:14:33,640 Speaker 1: Supposedly his pranks were the stuff of legend. I did not, however, 226 00:14:34,000 --> 00:14:38,200 Speaker 1: look into those for this episode, maybe in a future one. 227 00:14:38,280 --> 00:14:41,920 Speaker 1: He pursued a doctorate at MIT in nineteen thirty three, 228 00:14:42,520 --> 00:14:44,960 Speaker 1: and then he became an apprentice to a man named 229 00:14:45,080 --> 00:14:48,320 Speaker 1: Philip Morse, and as a result he got a job 230 00:14:48,360 --> 00:14:52,280 Speaker 1: at Bell Labs. He gained a reputation as a brilliant 231 00:14:52,320 --> 00:14:55,760 Speaker 1: and innovative problem solver. Now this is a bit of 232 00:14:55,760 --> 00:14:59,360 Speaker 1: a tangent, but it's an example of his sense of innovation. 233 00:15:00,280 --> 00:15:03,800 Speaker 1: He was one of the people who made an early 234 00:15:03,880 --> 00:15:07,560 Speaker 1: design for a nuclear reactor. He actually partnered with a 235 00:15:07,560 --> 00:15:10,840 Speaker 1: guy named James Fisk to work on this. They were 236 00:15:10,840 --> 00:15:13,720 Speaker 1: trying to suss out how you could make a sustained 237 00:15:13,920 --> 00:15:17,520 Speaker 1: nuclear reaction, and Shockley's idea was that you could use 238 00:15:17,760 --> 00:15:21,720 Speaker 1: uranium in little chunks, and you could separate the chunks 239 00:15:21,720 --> 00:15:24,560 Speaker 1: of uranium from each other using some other material, and 240 00:15:24,640 --> 00:15:27,400 Speaker 1: the purpose of that material would be to slow down 241 00:15:27,520 --> 00:15:31,560 Speaker 1: but not capture neutrons as they're given off by the uranium, 242 00:15:32,240 --> 00:15:35,240 Speaker 1: and by doing that, allowing the neutrons to hit other 243 00:15:35,800 --> 00:15:39,480 Speaker 1: atoms of U two thirty five and thus generate more 244 00:15:39,560 --> 00:15:44,080 Speaker 1: neutrons as the U two thirty five would decay, and 245 00:15:44,440 --> 00:15:50,160 Speaker 1: these neutrons would then move out to again impact other 246 00:15:50,280 --> 00:15:54,080 Speaker 1: U two thirty five atoms and sustain the reaction, so 247 00:15:54,120 --> 00:15:58,840 Speaker 1: that you would just continuously have this release of radioactive energy. Now, 248 00:15:58,840 --> 00:16:02,120 Speaker 1: their work would end up being classified by the US government, 249 00:16:02,600 --> 00:16:05,960 Speaker 1: as this was during World War II and considered highly 250 00:16:06,080 --> 00:16:10,720 Speaker 1: dangerous material. It turned out that the scientists who were 251 00:16:10,760 --> 00:16:14,200 Speaker 1: working on the Manhattan Project were concentrating on essentially the 252 00:16:14,240 --> 00:16:18,680 Speaker 1: same thing that Fisk and Shockley were thinking about, except, 253 00:16:18,880 --> 00:16:21,320 Speaker 1: of course, Shocklei and Fisk were mostly interested in a 254 00:16:21,400 --> 00:16:24,400 Speaker 1: nuclear reactor, whereas the Manhattan Project was all about a 255 00:16:24,480 --> 00:16:28,040 Speaker 1: more uncontrolled nuclear reaction to create a bomb. But they 256 00:16:28,040 --> 00:16:30,920 Speaker 1: were all working on similar things. They didn't have any 257 00:16:30,960 --> 00:16:33,320 Speaker 1: knowledge of each other because the US government was very 258 00:16:33,360 --> 00:16:36,800 Speaker 1: much concerned with keeping this stuff secret and safe from 259 00:16:36,840 --> 00:16:40,880 Speaker 1: potential enemies, so they didn't know anything about each other's 260 00:16:40,920 --> 00:16:44,600 Speaker 1: projects until after World War two had ended. I interrupt 261 00:16:44,680 --> 00:16:47,640 Speaker 1: this classic episode about the Intel story in order for 262 00:16:47,720 --> 00:17:00,240 Speaker 1: us to take a quick break to thank our sponsors. Now, 263 00:17:00,240 --> 00:17:03,200 Speaker 1: before the war, Shockley had actually worked with a guy 264 00:17:03,280 --> 00:17:07,800 Speaker 1: named Walter Brittain who together they were trying to create 265 00:17:08,000 --> 00:17:12,520 Speaker 1: this alternative to vacuum tube technology, a solid state alternative 266 00:17:12,960 --> 00:17:16,440 Speaker 1: to vacuum tube amplifiers. But while they were working on it, 267 00:17:16,440 --> 00:17:19,080 Speaker 1: it didn't go anywhere. They couldn't create something that was 268 00:17:19,119 --> 00:17:23,719 Speaker 1: actually working. Then the war happened and their attentions were elsewhere. 269 00:17:24,280 --> 00:17:28,280 Speaker 1: But after the war, Shockley decided to try this again. 270 00:17:28,320 --> 00:17:31,760 Speaker 1: They brought on another theorist over to Bell Labs named 271 00:17:31,880 --> 00:17:36,360 Speaker 1: John Bardeen. Now Bardeen and Britain were starting to work 272 00:17:36,400 --> 00:17:40,080 Speaker 1: together closely to try and create this alternative vacuum tubes, 273 00:17:40,720 --> 00:17:45,679 Speaker 1: and Shockley was the administrative leader for their team, but 274 00:17:46,480 --> 00:17:49,360 Speaker 1: he was mostly working on his own on his own 275 00:17:49,359 --> 00:17:53,040 Speaker 1: little processes and inventions, So he would occasionally stop in 276 00:17:53,520 --> 00:17:56,600 Speaker 1: see what the two were working on, give some guidance 277 00:17:56,720 --> 00:17:59,919 Speaker 1: or maybe some suggestions, and then he would head off 278 00:18:00,000 --> 00:18:03,399 Speaker 1: often work on his own some more so, he was 279 00:18:03,480 --> 00:18:08,159 Speaker 1: not actually part of the team that, on December sixteenth, 280 00:18:08,240 --> 00:18:13,160 Speaker 1: nineteen forty seven, unveiled the first working transistor, a solid 281 00:18:13,160 --> 00:18:17,000 Speaker 1: state alternative to vacuum tube technology instead. That was Britain 282 00:18:17,080 --> 00:18:21,119 Speaker 1: and Bardeen who created that first point contact resist transistor, 283 00:18:22,000 --> 00:18:25,400 Speaker 1: and that would become the foundation for the electronics industry. 284 00:18:25,520 --> 00:18:29,560 Speaker 1: The transistor that is not the point contact version, just 285 00:18:29,640 --> 00:18:34,160 Speaker 1: the transistor in general. And I've done episodes about transistor, 286 00:18:34,240 --> 00:18:35,879 Speaker 1: so I'm not going to talk about it too much. 287 00:18:36,000 --> 00:18:39,800 Speaker 1: But the reason our electronics are so small is because 288 00:18:41,000 --> 00:18:44,000 Speaker 1: engineers developed the transistor. Otherwise we would still be dependent 289 00:18:44,080 --> 00:18:46,600 Speaker 1: upon vacuum tubes and that would really limit the types 290 00:18:46,640 --> 00:18:49,879 Speaker 1: of technology we could have at our disposal because they 291 00:18:49,880 --> 00:18:53,800 Speaker 1: would be so bulky and hot. So it really did 292 00:18:54,000 --> 00:19:00,000 Speaker 1: open up an enormous world of opportunity for really everyone 293 00:19:00,000 --> 00:19:03,840 Speaker 1: and ultimately, but especially at and t early on now 294 00:19:03,880 --> 00:19:09,520 Speaker 1: Shockley reportedly had a complicated reaction to the development of 295 00:19:09,680 --> 00:19:13,000 Speaker 1: this first transistor. On one hand, he was really proud 296 00:19:13,040 --> 00:19:15,800 Speaker 1: of his team. He was leading a team that had 297 00:19:16,560 --> 00:19:20,600 Speaker 1: made a major scientific and engineering breakthrough with the invention 298 00:19:20,720 --> 00:19:24,960 Speaker 1: of the transistor. But on the other end, he was 299 00:19:25,080 --> 00:19:29,119 Speaker 1: a little disappointed and frustrated that he was not directly 300 00:19:29,200 --> 00:19:31,880 Speaker 1: part of this team. And he also had his pride 301 00:19:31,960 --> 00:19:34,119 Speaker 1: hurt quite a bit because he had attempted to do 302 00:19:34,160 --> 00:19:37,040 Speaker 1: the same thing before World War Two but could never 303 00:19:37,080 --> 00:19:39,520 Speaker 1: get it to work. But these other two guys they 304 00:19:39,600 --> 00:19:42,119 Speaker 1: got it to work. So I have a feeling that 305 00:19:42,160 --> 00:19:45,200 Speaker 1: he felt a little upset that he did not come 306 00:19:45,280 --> 00:19:49,640 Speaker 1: up with the solution to this problem. Rather these other 307 00:19:49,680 --> 00:19:53,640 Speaker 1: two guys did. He didn't let that completely derail him. However, 308 00:19:54,160 --> 00:19:57,640 Speaker 1: while he was in a hotel room in Chicago where 309 00:19:57,640 --> 00:20:01,800 Speaker 1: he was attending the American Physical Society convention, he came 310 00:20:01,880 --> 00:20:05,160 Speaker 1: up with an alternative to the point contact transistor called 311 00:20:05,160 --> 00:20:09,879 Speaker 1: the sandwich transistor, which was easier to manufacture than the 312 00:20:09,960 --> 00:20:14,600 Speaker 1: point contact type, so it ended up immediately being a 313 00:20:14,640 --> 00:20:18,600 Speaker 1: replacement for this initial design of transistors. It did the 314 00:20:18,640 --> 00:20:22,560 Speaker 1: same thing in a different form factor. So while he 315 00:20:22,680 --> 00:20:25,480 Speaker 1: was a little might have been a little bitter about 316 00:20:25,520 --> 00:20:28,680 Speaker 1: not being in on the team when they made this breakthrough, 317 00:20:28,960 --> 00:20:33,200 Speaker 1: he then immediately almost made an improvement to that design 318 00:20:33,240 --> 00:20:37,960 Speaker 1: to make it more practical. At and T made a decision. 319 00:20:38,160 --> 00:20:40,360 Speaker 1: It was kind of a political decision on the back end, 320 00:20:41,200 --> 00:20:44,320 Speaker 1: because you had Britain and Bardeen, who were the two 321 00:20:44,400 --> 00:20:47,760 Speaker 1: guys who actually invented the transistor, but then you had Shockley, 322 00:20:47,800 --> 00:20:51,560 Speaker 1: who was the administrative lead of the team and who 323 00:20:51,600 --> 00:20:55,480 Speaker 1: had at least had some input, although not directly responsible 324 00:20:55,480 --> 00:20:58,000 Speaker 1: for the invention, and AT and T wanted to make 325 00:20:58,040 --> 00:21:00,520 Speaker 1: sure they didn't step on any toes, so they made 326 00:21:00,600 --> 00:21:04,280 Speaker 1: a decision where they say that any photo of the 327 00:21:04,320 --> 00:21:07,359 Speaker 1: transistor that was to include the development team would also 328 00:21:07,440 --> 00:21:11,480 Speaker 1: have to have Shockli in it, sort of as a 329 00:21:11,560 --> 00:21:17,080 Speaker 1: way of saying his contributions were important or instrumental for 330 00:21:17,160 --> 00:21:19,879 Speaker 1: the development of the transistor. Now, this also tended to 331 00:21:19,920 --> 00:21:22,919 Speaker 1: rub other people the wrong way, people who said he 332 00:21:22,960 --> 00:21:26,679 Speaker 1: didn't have nearly enough involvement to justify being in every 333 00:21:26,760 --> 00:21:31,000 Speaker 1: single photo of this transistor. So it created a little 334 00:21:31,000 --> 00:21:35,960 Speaker 1: bit of drama. And also Shockli was reportedly difficult to 335 00:21:36,000 --> 00:21:40,399 Speaker 1: work with at times. He had a very forceful and 336 00:21:40,520 --> 00:21:47,840 Speaker 1: somewhat brusque personality that people didn't always enjoy being around. 337 00:21:48,080 --> 00:21:50,720 Speaker 1: I'm dancing around it a lot, but it's largely because 338 00:21:50,760 --> 00:21:55,000 Speaker 1: I never met Shockli, so I can't tell any firsthand information. 339 00:21:55,040 --> 00:21:58,479 Speaker 1: I'm merely reporting what other people have said and even 340 00:21:59,040 --> 00:22:01,439 Speaker 1: third and fourth hand accounts of that sort of stuff. 341 00:22:01,480 --> 00:22:04,159 Speaker 1: So I like to be careful and not put too 342 00:22:04,200 --> 00:22:08,280 Speaker 1: many words in too many people's mouths. If I can. Shockley, 343 00:22:08,800 --> 00:22:11,520 Speaker 1: to his credit, always tried to make sure that any 344 00:22:11,640 --> 00:22:15,560 Speaker 1: stories that were about this transistor indicated that Britain and 345 00:22:15,640 --> 00:22:18,119 Speaker 1: Bardeen had been the ones to make the breakthrough. So 346 00:22:18,160 --> 00:22:21,639 Speaker 1: he wasn't trying to steal credit, he wasn't claiming it 347 00:22:21,720 --> 00:22:24,159 Speaker 1: for his own. He wanted to make sure that the 348 00:22:24,200 --> 00:22:28,280 Speaker 1: people responsible were credited with their work. But often Shockley 349 00:22:28,320 --> 00:22:32,639 Speaker 1: would be cited as the primary or sometimes sole inventor 350 00:22:32,760 --> 00:22:36,919 Speaker 1: of the transistor. That the narrative sort of became. He 351 00:22:36,960 --> 00:22:40,720 Speaker 1: had been working on it, he was derailed by World 352 00:22:40,720 --> 00:22:43,800 Speaker 1: War Two, came back and now it's a thing, and 353 00:22:43,920 --> 00:22:46,720 Speaker 1: he would point out that's an oversimplification of what had 354 00:22:46,760 --> 00:22:50,560 Speaker 1: happened in many different respects. And in nineteen fifty six 355 00:22:50,600 --> 00:22:53,320 Speaker 1: he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for his 356 00:22:53,440 --> 00:22:56,919 Speaker 1: work on the transistor, along with Britain and Bardeen. But 357 00:22:57,480 --> 00:22:59,520 Speaker 1: the fact that he also got a Nobel Prize for 358 00:22:59,600 --> 00:23:02,399 Speaker 1: this when he wasn't directly involved with the invention of 359 00:23:02,440 --> 00:23:09,920 Speaker 1: the first working transistor again upset some people. Shockley would 360 00:23:10,480 --> 00:23:16,560 Speaker 1: end up completely alienating himself from Britain and Bardeen. Neither 361 00:23:16,600 --> 00:23:19,000 Speaker 1: of them wanted to work with him anymore. They felt 362 00:23:19,000 --> 00:23:23,800 Speaker 1: that it was a difficult working relationship. Bardeen and Britain 363 00:23:23,840 --> 00:23:26,840 Speaker 1: would actually both refuse to work with Shockley, and in 364 00:23:26,920 --> 00:23:31,679 Speaker 1: nineteen fifty three Shockley himself left Bell Labs and first 365 00:23:31,680 --> 00:23:34,719 Speaker 1: he went back to Caltech and he worked there for 366 00:23:34,760 --> 00:23:37,160 Speaker 1: a while, but he was looking for something more permanent, 367 00:23:38,000 --> 00:23:43,640 Speaker 1: and then he encountered a financier named Arnold Beckmann, and 368 00:23:43,760 --> 00:23:48,400 Speaker 1: with Beckmann's help and some funding, Shockley founded a new 369 00:23:48,480 --> 00:23:54,680 Speaker 1: company in California called the Shackley Semiconductor Company. They picked 370 00:23:54,680 --> 00:23:58,800 Speaker 1: a location near Stanford in northern California. Shockley thought that 371 00:23:58,800 --> 00:24:03,960 Speaker 1: that was an attractive spot, that the weather, the climate 372 00:24:03,960 --> 00:24:07,800 Speaker 1: there was really nice, the location was beautiful, it was 373 00:24:07,840 --> 00:24:10,159 Speaker 1: close to Stanford, so it would make it easy to 374 00:24:10,840 --> 00:24:14,000 Speaker 1: recruit students who were already at Stanford directly out of 375 00:24:14,040 --> 00:24:19,520 Speaker 1: school to come work at Shacklei Semiconductor. So he thought 376 00:24:19,520 --> 00:24:22,400 Speaker 1: of this as a y strategy. And in fact, Shacklei 377 00:24:22,480 --> 00:24:26,760 Speaker 1: had a reputation for being able to recognize brilliant scientists 378 00:24:26,800 --> 00:24:31,440 Speaker 1: and engineers. Maybe he couldn't manage them because of his personality, 379 00:24:31,440 --> 00:24:33,720 Speaker 1: but he certainly could recognize them, and so he was 380 00:24:33,760 --> 00:24:36,720 Speaker 1: really good at recruiting people who would be very very 381 00:24:36,760 --> 00:24:44,240 Speaker 1: strong performers in the semiconductor industry. By the way, SHACKLEI 382 00:24:44,320 --> 00:24:48,320 Speaker 1: semi Conductor would become the second company in Silicon Valley. 383 00:24:49,760 --> 00:24:52,480 Speaker 1: This is the early early days of Silicon Valley, before 384 00:24:52,520 --> 00:24:56,960 Speaker 1: you had countless companies there, and shackle semi Conductor was 385 00:24:57,000 --> 00:25:00,320 Speaker 1: the second such company in Silicon Valley. The first one 386 00:25:00,800 --> 00:25:03,879 Speaker 1: was Hewitt Packard, which was found in a Palo Alto 387 00:25:04,040 --> 00:25:07,639 Speaker 1: garage back in nineteen thirty nine and really set the 388 00:25:07,640 --> 00:25:12,080 Speaker 1: standard for founding a company in Silicon Valley. There were 389 00:25:12,119 --> 00:25:15,639 Speaker 1: so many companies that were founded in garages from that 390 00:25:15,720 --> 00:25:18,520 Speaker 1: point forward, some of them in Silicon Valley, some of 391 00:25:18,520 --> 00:25:22,480 Speaker 1: them in other places. So Apple Computers, for example, founded 392 00:25:22,520 --> 00:25:27,040 Speaker 1: in a garage in Palo Alto, California. Microsoft also founded 393 00:25:27,080 --> 00:25:29,920 Speaker 1: in a garage, but that time we're talking more about Washington, 394 00:25:30,040 --> 00:25:36,119 Speaker 1: not about California. Still same kind of thing. Well, you 395 00:25:36,200 --> 00:25:38,840 Speaker 1: got Hewitt Packard that paved the way back in nineteen 396 00:25:38,880 --> 00:25:42,200 Speaker 1: thirty nine, and then Shockley Semiconductor becoming the second company 397 00:25:42,280 --> 00:25:45,320 Speaker 1: in Silicon Valley. This was before it had even developed 398 00:25:45,359 --> 00:25:50,200 Speaker 1: that name. And Shockley, always good at recognizing strong talent, 399 00:25:50,280 --> 00:25:52,719 Speaker 1: hired on some brilliant people to join his team. And 400 00:25:52,760 --> 00:25:57,399 Speaker 1: two of those people were Gordon Moore and Robert Nois, 401 00:25:57,840 --> 00:26:01,840 Speaker 1: who would eventually go on to found Intel. But we're 402 00:26:02,040 --> 00:26:06,760 Speaker 1: not there yet. As long as I've talked about Shockley Semiconductor, 403 00:26:07,119 --> 00:26:09,680 Speaker 1: we haven't gotten to the point where Noise and More 404 00:26:09,840 --> 00:26:12,280 Speaker 1: go off to find Intel. We actually have some more 405 00:26:12,400 --> 00:26:15,480 Speaker 1: drama first with Shockley, and then we have another company 406 00:26:15,520 --> 00:26:18,240 Speaker 1: to talk about before we even get to Intel. But 407 00:26:18,280 --> 00:26:21,359 Speaker 1: first let's give some background on both Moore and Noise. 408 00:26:22,000 --> 00:26:25,640 Speaker 1: Gordon Moore grew up in California and was really interested 409 00:26:25,720 --> 00:26:28,280 Speaker 1: in science as a kid. He earned his PhD in 410 00:26:28,400 --> 00:26:31,800 Speaker 1: chemistry and physics from Caltech and he joined the Applied 411 00:26:31,960 --> 00:26:36,760 Speaker 1: Physics Laboratory at Johns Hopkins University in Laurel, Maryland. While 412 00:26:36,760 --> 00:26:41,440 Speaker 1: he was there, his chief responsibility was working on solid 413 00:26:41,520 --> 00:26:45,120 Speaker 1: rocket propellants for the US Navy. But he felt that 414 00:26:45,440 --> 00:26:48,080 Speaker 1: his talents would be better suited for the private sector 415 00:26:48,240 --> 00:26:51,480 Speaker 1: and that that would be more challenging and profitable, so 416 00:26:51,680 --> 00:26:55,119 Speaker 1: he decided to relocate, moved back to California, and he 417 00:26:55,320 --> 00:27:01,040 Speaker 1: joined Shockley Semiconductor. Robert Nois grew up in Iowa and 418 00:27:01,200 --> 00:27:04,640 Speaker 1: was interested in physics and inventing at an early age. 419 00:27:04,720 --> 00:27:07,840 Speaker 1: He earned degrees in physics at Grinnell College and a 420 00:27:07,960 --> 00:27:12,399 Speaker 1: PhD in solid state physics from MIT. He went to 421 00:27:12,440 --> 00:27:16,280 Speaker 1: work for the phil Co Corporation before meeting William Shockley, 422 00:27:16,320 --> 00:27:20,800 Speaker 1: who recruited him to join Shockley Semiconductor. But William Shockley's 423 00:27:20,800 --> 00:27:25,879 Speaker 1: management style was rough. People did not like working for 424 00:27:26,080 --> 00:27:31,359 Speaker 1: him or with him, and several members of his engineering 425 00:27:31,400 --> 00:27:36,440 Speaker 1: team started to resent William Shockley, and in nineteen fifty seven, 426 00:27:36,600 --> 00:27:38,879 Speaker 1: just a year after most of them had joined the 427 00:27:38,920 --> 00:27:42,120 Speaker 1: company less than a year in some cases, a group 428 00:27:42,160 --> 00:27:47,040 Speaker 1: of eight engineers, including More and Neis, tried to remove 429 00:27:47,160 --> 00:27:51,880 Speaker 1: Shockley as the head of Shockley semi Conductor. This attempt failed. 430 00:27:52,119 --> 00:27:55,159 Speaker 1: They were not able to do that, so instead all 431 00:27:55,200 --> 00:27:58,080 Speaker 1: eight of them quit the company to go and found 432 00:27:58,240 --> 00:28:03,879 Speaker 1: their own company. Buckley was absolutely livid about this. He 433 00:28:04,480 --> 00:28:08,920 Speaker 1: was incredibly angry, and he would thenceforth refer to those 434 00:28:09,000 --> 00:28:15,000 Speaker 1: eight gentlemen as the traitorous eight, because they had betrayed 435 00:28:15,119 --> 00:28:18,800 Speaker 1: him by leaving his company after he had given them 436 00:28:18,880 --> 00:28:26,960 Speaker 1: all the opportunities. Now, William Shockley's legacy is at best complicated. 437 00:28:27,560 --> 00:28:32,160 Speaker 1: He made notable contributions in science and engineering, and without 438 00:28:32,240 --> 00:28:35,679 Speaker 1: those contributions we would not have the technology we have today, 439 00:28:35,800 --> 00:28:38,160 Speaker 1: we would probably be a few years behind where we 440 00:28:38,200 --> 00:28:42,920 Speaker 1: are right now. But he was also a complicated guy 441 00:28:42,960 --> 00:28:48,400 Speaker 1: who had awful ideas in philosophy and ideology. So, for example, 442 00:28:48,440 --> 00:28:51,800 Speaker 1: in the nineteen sixties, Shockley began to espouse his theory 443 00:28:51,880 --> 00:28:56,120 Speaker 1: of dysgenics, which included the racist notion that people of 444 00:28:56,200 --> 00:29:00,280 Speaker 1: African descent were naturally the intellectual inferiors of peaceeople of 445 00:29:00,320 --> 00:29:07,680 Speaker 1: European stock. So he garnered a lot of criticism for 446 00:29:07,840 --> 00:29:12,240 Speaker 1: these views, which he was not shy in sharing, and 447 00:29:12,440 --> 00:29:18,760 Speaker 1: it has in many ways diminished people's opinions of Shockley 448 00:29:18,920 --> 00:29:22,200 Speaker 1: and affected how we even talk about his contributions to 449 00:29:22,240 --> 00:29:29,840 Speaker 1: engineering and science, which were considerable, but his insistence that 450 00:29:30,280 --> 00:29:38,080 Speaker 1: dysgenics was a valid worldview was undeniably terrible. So that 451 00:29:38,160 --> 00:29:40,880 Speaker 1: when I said great and terrible things, this would definitely 452 00:29:40,880 --> 00:29:46,880 Speaker 1: fall into that terrible category. And it also illustrates how 453 00:29:47,000 --> 00:29:50,480 Speaker 1: a lot of people found William Shockley difficult to be around. 454 00:29:51,920 --> 00:29:55,400 Speaker 1: The traders ate, however, had their own goal, which was 455 00:29:55,440 --> 00:29:59,600 Speaker 1: creating their own company. Now was that company Intel? Well, 456 00:30:00,000 --> 00:30:02,600 Speaker 1: we'll find out after we take a quick break to 457 00:30:02,720 --> 00:30:14,440 Speaker 1: thank our sponsor. Okay, So No, the new company was 458 00:30:14,480 --> 00:30:18,400 Speaker 1: not Intel, not yet. The new company that these eight 459 00:30:18,520 --> 00:30:23,040 Speaker 1: men founded was called Fairchild Semiconductor. Now this was an 460 00:30:23,080 --> 00:30:28,000 Speaker 1: extension of an already existing company. That company was Fairchild 461 00:30:28,080 --> 00:30:33,000 Speaker 1: Camera and Instrument Corporation. So this company that produced cameras 462 00:30:33,040 --> 00:30:37,480 Speaker 1: and other instruments wanted to get into the burgeoning semiconductor 463 00:30:37,520 --> 00:30:41,520 Speaker 1: and transistor business, but they didn't really have the wherewithal 464 00:30:41,560 --> 00:30:44,960 Speaker 1: to do it within the company itself. So these eight 465 00:30:45,080 --> 00:30:48,240 Speaker 1: people come up to the company and say, hey, we 466 00:30:48,360 --> 00:30:52,840 Speaker 1: just left Shockley Semiconductor. We're free to work with you. 467 00:30:53,240 --> 00:30:57,480 Speaker 1: We'd be willing to set up the Fairchild Semiconductor Company. 468 00:30:57,560 --> 00:31:01,600 Speaker 1: You give us the capital to start the company, will 469 00:31:01,640 --> 00:31:07,080 Speaker 1: start producing products for Fairchild. So it was a great relationship. 470 00:31:07,120 --> 00:31:11,000 Speaker 1: Fairchild got an enormous jump ahead of the competition because 471 00:31:11,280 --> 00:31:14,840 Speaker 1: these were some of the leading thinkers in transistors and 472 00:31:14,840 --> 00:31:19,400 Speaker 1: semiconductors of the time. So it allowed Fairchild to get 473 00:31:20,200 --> 00:31:26,400 Speaker 1: a really big head start over other competitors. Now this 474 00:31:26,440 --> 00:31:30,040 Speaker 1: podcast is not the Fairchild Semiconductor story. I've actually talked 475 00:31:30,040 --> 00:31:33,320 Speaker 1: about Fairchild semi Conductor in a previous episode. But Noise 476 00:31:33,360 --> 00:31:36,880 Speaker 1: and more, who I promise are going to co found 477 00:31:36,920 --> 00:31:41,440 Speaker 1: Intel before this episode is over. They were at Fairchild 478 00:31:41,480 --> 00:31:44,200 Speaker 1: semi Conductor for eleven years, so it hoops us to 479 00:31:44,280 --> 00:31:46,680 Speaker 1: learn a little bit more about what they accomplished while 480 00:31:46,680 --> 00:31:50,160 Speaker 1: they were there. Now, one of the most important contributions 481 00:31:50,360 --> 00:31:54,880 Speaker 1: Noise made at Fairchild was the development of the integrated circuit. 482 00:31:55,680 --> 00:31:58,600 Speaker 1: These days, integrated circuits are common, so it can be 483 00:31:58,600 --> 00:32:01,240 Speaker 1: a little challenging to understand and how important this was, 484 00:32:01,320 --> 00:32:03,840 Speaker 1: how big a deal it was at the time. But 485 00:32:03,920 --> 00:32:07,440 Speaker 1: let's just use our imaginations for a little moment now. 486 00:32:09,240 --> 00:32:13,520 Speaker 1: Before Noise and also a Texas instrument's engineer named Jack 487 00:32:13,640 --> 00:32:19,600 Speaker 1: Kilby who was independently working on the same challenge. Circuits 488 00:32:19,640 --> 00:32:23,040 Speaker 1: were made of independent, discrete components that were attached to 489 00:32:23,080 --> 00:32:27,479 Speaker 1: each other with wires. So every element of a circuit 490 00:32:27,560 --> 00:32:31,160 Speaker 1: was its own little, separate do hickey that was connected 491 00:32:31,160 --> 00:32:34,520 Speaker 1: by wires to other do hickeys in the circuit. The 492 00:32:34,560 --> 00:32:37,480 Speaker 1: do hickeys dependent upon whatever you wanted the circuit to do, 493 00:32:37,880 --> 00:32:40,880 Speaker 1: whether they were resistors or they were some form of 494 00:32:40,880 --> 00:32:45,680 Speaker 1: electrical load like a light or something else, switches, that 495 00:32:45,720 --> 00:32:50,360 Speaker 1: sort of stuff. So these were Macro's circuits, right. They're large, 496 00:32:50,440 --> 00:32:52,600 Speaker 1: they are things that you could work with with your 497 00:32:52,640 --> 00:32:55,640 Speaker 1: hands if you needed to, and if you were to 498 00:32:55,640 --> 00:32:58,560 Speaker 1: look at early circuitry, each individual component would be its 499 00:32:58,640 --> 00:33:03,520 Speaker 1: own thing. Graded circuits, as the name suggests, is a 500 00:33:03,560 --> 00:33:06,360 Speaker 1: circuit in which all those components are integrated together on 501 00:33:06,480 --> 00:33:11,640 Speaker 1: a single wafer of semiconductor material. Now, both Noise over 502 00:33:11,720 --> 00:33:15,840 Speaker 1: at Fairchild and Kilby over at Texas Instruments developed this 503 00:33:15,920 --> 00:33:19,080 Speaker 1: idea independently, and both of them got credit for it. 504 00:33:19,600 --> 00:33:22,000 Speaker 1: The Noise came up with a means of creating the 505 00:33:22,040 --> 00:33:26,720 Speaker 1: connections between components on a circuit using a process called 506 00:33:26,760 --> 00:33:31,480 Speaker 1: the planar process. This involves evaporating lines of conductive material 507 00:33:31,920 --> 00:33:36,320 Speaker 1: directly onto the semiconductor wafer. So this is sort of 508 00:33:36,360 --> 00:33:40,400 Speaker 1: like designing the wires the connect of different pieces together, 509 00:33:40,480 --> 00:33:43,760 Speaker 1: but you do it by evaporating this metallic material so 510 00:33:43,800 --> 00:33:48,800 Speaker 1: that it forms on the subway the semiconductor wafer and 511 00:33:48,840 --> 00:33:52,040 Speaker 1: a very specific pattern that allows the connections between the 512 00:33:52,080 --> 00:33:56,480 Speaker 1: different components. And it was a revolutionary technique at the time. 513 00:33:57,400 --> 00:34:01,640 Speaker 1: As for Gordon Moore, his most famous miss contribution during 514 00:34:01,640 --> 00:34:05,160 Speaker 1: his time at Fairchild is what we now call Moore's law. 515 00:34:05,600 --> 00:34:09,040 Speaker 1: Now that's not to say it was his most important contribution, 516 00:34:09,560 --> 00:34:13,440 Speaker 1: but it's the one that most folks are aware of now. 517 00:34:13,480 --> 00:34:15,760 Speaker 1: This comes from an observation he made in a paper 518 00:34:15,800 --> 00:34:20,880 Speaker 1: that he titled Cramming More Components onto Integrated Circuits, which 519 00:34:20,960 --> 00:34:24,520 Speaker 1: was published in the journal Electronics in nineteen sixty five. 520 00:34:25,280 --> 00:34:29,760 Speaker 1: And it's probably not what you think it is. Moore's 521 00:34:29,840 --> 00:34:34,080 Speaker 1: law tends to be slightly misconstrued from the way that 522 00:34:34,120 --> 00:34:38,920 Speaker 1: Gordon Moore presented it in this paper. The common interpretation 523 00:34:39,040 --> 00:34:43,040 Speaker 1: today is that Moore's law means that every eighteen to 524 00:34:43,080 --> 00:34:48,080 Speaker 1: twenty four months computers double in processing power. So a 525 00:34:48,120 --> 00:34:51,040 Speaker 1: computer from two years ago would be half as powerful 526 00:34:51,120 --> 00:34:53,960 Speaker 1: as the computer you can buy today, and a computer 527 00:34:54,000 --> 00:34:56,600 Speaker 1: two years from now will be twice as powerful as 528 00:34:56,640 --> 00:34:59,520 Speaker 1: the computers you buy today. Computer from four years ago 529 00:34:59,600 --> 00:35:02,399 Speaker 1: would be half as powerful as one from two years ago, 530 00:35:02,400 --> 00:35:05,160 Speaker 1: et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And so Moore was 531 00:35:05,200 --> 00:35:10,120 Speaker 1: making an observation about the linear relationship between time and 532 00:35:11,200 --> 00:35:15,839 Speaker 1: in this interpretation, processing power of computers. But that's not 533 00:35:16,000 --> 00:35:18,880 Speaker 1: entirely what Moore was actually talking about back in nineteen 534 00:35:18,920 --> 00:35:22,880 Speaker 1: sixty five. Instead, Moore was observing that as companies developed 535 00:35:22,880 --> 00:35:28,440 Speaker 1: more advanced methods of designing, producing, and mass manufacturing, discrete components, 536 00:35:28,960 --> 00:35:34,960 Speaker 1: namely transistors, onto integrated circuits. It followed this linear pathway. 537 00:35:35,960 --> 00:35:38,840 Speaker 1: So a company would make a breakthrough, it would invest 538 00:35:38,880 --> 00:35:42,680 Speaker 1: in the manufacturing process to develop a transistor or rather 539 00:35:42,920 --> 00:35:45,359 Speaker 1: smaller transistor, so that you could fit more of those 540 00:35:45,400 --> 00:35:48,919 Speaker 1: transistors on a single semiconductor chip, and then they would 541 00:35:48,960 --> 00:35:53,160 Speaker 1: make money by selling this more advanced semiconductor chip with 542 00:35:53,239 --> 00:35:56,520 Speaker 1: more transistors on it, which would give them more money 543 00:35:56,560 --> 00:36:00,319 Speaker 1: to put back into research and development and to make 544 00:36:00,400 --> 00:36:05,200 Speaker 1: even smaller transistors to make more powerful semiconductor chips and 545 00:36:05,239 --> 00:36:08,520 Speaker 1: then sell those in future circuits. So, in other words, 546 00:36:08,560 --> 00:36:10,640 Speaker 1: Moore was pointing out that this trend was supported by 547 00:36:10,640 --> 00:36:15,880 Speaker 1: the economics of the semiconductor and integrated circuit industries. This 548 00:36:16,080 --> 00:36:20,680 Speaker 1: wasn't so much a commentary on technological progress, but more 549 00:36:21,160 --> 00:36:27,719 Speaker 1: how the market supported the ability for engineers to research 550 00:36:27,800 --> 00:36:31,760 Speaker 1: and develop and design and produce these more powerful circuits. 551 00:36:31,960 --> 00:36:36,319 Speaker 1: It's a delicate and subtle difference from the way Moore's 552 00:36:36,360 --> 00:36:39,560 Speaker 1: law tends to be communicated, but I think it's an 553 00:36:39,560 --> 00:36:48,360 Speaker 1: important distinction. There's profit to be made in innovation. So moreover, 554 00:36:48,880 --> 00:36:52,840 Speaker 1: this classical approach of cramming more components onto an integrated 555 00:36:52,880 --> 00:36:58,200 Speaker 1: circuit would eventually become inaccurate as well. So originally it 556 00:36:58,239 --> 00:37:02,880 Speaker 1: was Gordon Moore saying, here, in nineteen sixty five, we 557 00:37:02,960 --> 00:37:06,799 Speaker 1: can fit twice as many transistors on a chip as 558 00:37:06,880 --> 00:37:09,440 Speaker 1: we could back in nineteen sixty three, and the reason 559 00:37:09,520 --> 00:37:13,960 Speaker 1: for that is that we have developed enough technology due 560 00:37:14,000 --> 00:37:18,680 Speaker 1: to the economic viability of these chips, to have the 561 00:37:18,719 --> 00:37:21,880 Speaker 1: size of the transistors and thus double the number that 562 00:37:21,920 --> 00:37:26,400 Speaker 1: can be on a semiconductor chip. Same thing would hold 563 00:37:26,400 --> 00:37:29,359 Speaker 1: true that this observation, as long as it maintains that 564 00:37:29,440 --> 00:37:32,480 Speaker 1: linear pathway, means that in two years will fit twice 565 00:37:32,520 --> 00:37:36,080 Speaker 1: as many transistors as today. Two years more, it'll be 566 00:37:36,160 --> 00:37:39,640 Speaker 1: twice as many as that, et cetera, et cetera. That's 567 00:37:39,680 --> 00:37:42,880 Speaker 1: not exactly the truth. Now we don't really see the 568 00:37:42,960 --> 00:37:48,720 Speaker 1: number of discrete components doubling every eighteen to twenty four months. Today, 569 00:37:48,760 --> 00:37:52,800 Speaker 1: we're really talking about components that are on the nanoscale. 570 00:37:53,320 --> 00:37:56,839 Speaker 1: So a nanometer is one billionth of a meter. That 571 00:37:57,000 --> 00:37:59,960 Speaker 1: is a scale that is so small you cannot view 572 00:38:00,120 --> 00:38:03,320 Speaker 1: it with an optical microscope. You would need a scanning 573 00:38:03,360 --> 00:38:07,719 Speaker 1: electron microscope or something along those lines. Optical microscopes aren't 574 00:38:07,760 --> 00:38:10,439 Speaker 1: going to allow you to see things on the nanoscale. 575 00:38:10,440 --> 00:38:16,879 Speaker 1: That's how tiny these components are. In microprocessors today. At 576 00:38:16,880 --> 00:38:21,160 Speaker 1: that scale, quantum effects come into play, these weird quantum 577 00:38:21,200 --> 00:38:27,080 Speaker 1: mechanics effects that mean your structures may not behave the 578 00:38:27,080 --> 00:38:31,600 Speaker 1: way you intended because of things like electron tunneling. Electron 579 00:38:31,600 --> 00:38:37,280 Speaker 1: tunneling is a fancy way of saying electrons be crazy yo. Essentially, 580 00:38:37,680 --> 00:38:41,799 Speaker 1: electrons have an area of potential where they could be 581 00:38:41,960 --> 00:38:47,080 Speaker 1: at any given moment around their respective atoms, or if 582 00:38:47,080 --> 00:38:50,839 Speaker 1: they're free floating electrons. It just means there's a zone 583 00:38:51,360 --> 00:38:55,680 Speaker 1: within which the electron might be at any point, like 584 00:38:55,760 --> 00:38:58,320 Speaker 1: it may be if you were to draw a circle, 585 00:38:58,600 --> 00:39:01,560 Speaker 1: you could imagine that the electron could be anywhere within 586 00:39:01,560 --> 00:39:07,520 Speaker 1: that circle at any given moment. Transistors involve electron gates 587 00:39:07,920 --> 00:39:10,759 Speaker 1: that are supposed to control the flow of electrons. Either 588 00:39:10,800 --> 00:39:12,800 Speaker 1: they allow them to pass through or do not allow 589 00:39:12,840 --> 00:39:16,040 Speaker 1: them to pass through. If the electron gates get so 590 00:39:16,280 --> 00:39:20,920 Speaker 1: thin that this zone where an electron can appear can 591 00:39:21,000 --> 00:39:23,799 Speaker 1: sometimes be on the other side of a closed gate. 592 00:39:25,239 --> 00:39:27,920 Speaker 1: It means that sometimes the electron is on the other 593 00:39:27,960 --> 00:39:29,759 Speaker 1: side of the closed gate, even though it didn't have 594 00:39:29,840 --> 00:39:32,400 Speaker 1: to go through the gate itself. It's as if the 595 00:39:32,400 --> 00:39:36,919 Speaker 1: electron has tunneled through the gate. This is a non 596 00:39:36,960 --> 00:39:40,520 Speaker 1: trivial problem when you're talking about transistors that have to 597 00:39:40,760 --> 00:39:44,680 Speaker 1: govern the movement of electrons. Now, engineers have figured out 598 00:39:44,680 --> 00:39:48,759 Speaker 1: ways around this, using different materials in different architectures, but 599 00:39:48,800 --> 00:39:52,040 Speaker 1: it does mean that we're rapidly approaching a point where 600 00:39:52,239 --> 00:39:56,440 Speaker 1: we can't just make stuff smaller. We're getting to a 601 00:39:56,560 --> 00:40:00,759 Speaker 1: fundamental limit of how small these components can be while 602 00:40:00,840 --> 00:40:06,400 Speaker 1: still running on the basics of computer logic and electricity 603 00:40:06,440 --> 00:40:10,760 Speaker 1: the way we have been running them in the past. However, 604 00:40:10,800 --> 00:40:13,040 Speaker 1: it does mean that we don't really talk about cramming 605 00:40:13,080 --> 00:40:16,480 Speaker 1: more components onto a chip. Necessarily, we talk about what 606 00:40:16,480 --> 00:40:20,439 Speaker 1: its output is. Can it put out twice as much 607 00:40:20,480 --> 00:40:24,400 Speaker 1: processing power as the ones that came eighteen months or 608 00:40:24,440 --> 00:40:27,479 Speaker 1: twenty four months ago. That's kind of how we frame 609 00:40:27,640 --> 00:40:30,720 Speaker 1: Moore's law these days. By the way, you might wonder, 610 00:40:31,680 --> 00:40:35,240 Speaker 1: if Moore's law is true and computers are getting twice 611 00:40:35,239 --> 00:40:38,040 Speaker 1: as fast every couple of years, why is it that 612 00:40:38,080 --> 00:40:40,440 Speaker 1: my computers never seem to get twice as fast. Well, 613 00:40:40,440 --> 00:40:43,000 Speaker 1: the problem with that is that you have software bloat 614 00:40:43,360 --> 00:40:47,279 Speaker 1: that often goes along with these improvements and hardware. So 615 00:40:47,320 --> 00:40:51,359 Speaker 1: if your software is demanding more and more resources from 616 00:40:51,400 --> 00:40:55,640 Speaker 1: a computer as it gets more advanced, as new types 617 00:40:55,640 --> 00:40:58,880 Speaker 1: of software come out, then all you're really doing is 618 00:40:58,920 --> 00:41:01,279 Speaker 1: just trying to stay ahead of the software bloat With 619 00:41:01,360 --> 00:41:04,360 Speaker 1: more powerful hardware. The software just takes more advantage of 620 00:41:04,360 --> 00:41:07,920 Speaker 1: the hardware that's there, because the software two years from 621 00:41:07,920 --> 00:41:11,440 Speaker 1: now is going to require more assets than the software 622 00:41:11,440 --> 00:41:15,759 Speaker 1: from today, So it's just constantly treading water. You never 623 00:41:15,840 --> 00:41:19,200 Speaker 1: really get to a point where the computer really feels 624 00:41:19,239 --> 00:41:23,360 Speaker 1: twice as fast as your old computer, unless you're just 625 00:41:23,480 --> 00:41:26,360 Speaker 1: running legacy software, in which case you might say, wow, 626 00:41:26,440 --> 00:41:31,879 Speaker 1: this is wicked fast, all right. Noise and More both 627 00:41:31,920 --> 00:41:35,840 Speaker 1: did very well at Fairchild. Robert Noise became the general 628 00:41:35,920 --> 00:41:39,279 Speaker 1: manager of Fairchild Semiconductor. Gordon Moore was the head of 629 00:41:39,320 --> 00:41:43,000 Speaker 1: research and development. But while they and the six others 630 00:41:43,040 --> 00:41:46,640 Speaker 1: whom Shockley named traders were the ones to found the company, 631 00:41:47,320 --> 00:41:50,719 Speaker 1: they didn't really control the company. It still fell under 632 00:41:50,760 --> 00:41:55,279 Speaker 1: the umbrella of the parent company, Fairchild Camera and Instrument 633 00:41:55,719 --> 00:41:57,799 Speaker 1: which meant that Noise and More and all the others 634 00:41:57,880 --> 00:42:00,439 Speaker 1: still had to answer to other people, people who didn't 635 00:42:00,480 --> 00:42:03,600 Speaker 1: all have the same priorities that they did. So one 636 00:42:03,640 --> 00:42:07,400 Speaker 1: big sticking point was that Fairchild Camera and Instrument was 637 00:42:07,440 --> 00:42:12,440 Speaker 1: taking some of the profits from Fairchild Semiconductor and using 638 00:42:12,480 --> 00:42:16,280 Speaker 1: them in areas outside the semiconductor industry. They were investing 639 00:42:16,280 --> 00:42:19,120 Speaker 1: them in other parts of the company. So to Noise 640 00:42:19,200 --> 00:42:22,040 Speaker 1: and More, it felt like Fairchild Camera and Instrument was 641 00:42:22,080 --> 00:42:25,040 Speaker 1: siphoning away some of the profits they were generating in 642 00:42:25,120 --> 00:42:28,040 Speaker 1: order to support other parts of their business, and they 643 00:42:28,040 --> 00:42:31,640 Speaker 1: didn't like that. So they felt the money should have 644 00:42:31,680 --> 00:42:35,239 Speaker 1: remained with the semiconductor industry, maybe invested back into the 645 00:42:35,239 --> 00:42:39,400 Speaker 1: company or into the employees. And it became increasingly disenchanted 646 00:42:39,440 --> 00:42:42,560 Speaker 1: with the way things were running. So in July nineteen 647 00:42:42,680 --> 00:42:46,960 Speaker 1: sixty eight, Noise and More both tendered their resignation from 648 00:42:47,040 --> 00:42:52,160 Speaker 1: Fairchild Semiconductor. So they had already left Shockley Semiconductor to 649 00:42:52,320 --> 00:42:55,520 Speaker 1: found Fairchild Semiconductor. Now they were going to leave Fairchild 650 00:42:55,520 --> 00:42:59,919 Speaker 1: semi Conductor to found a third company. They each put 651 00:43:00,120 --> 00:43:03,840 Speaker 1: fourth a quarter of a million dollars as an initial 652 00:43:03,960 --> 00:43:06,319 Speaker 1: investment in this new company, so together they had a 653 00:43:06,360 --> 00:43:08,959 Speaker 1: half million, and they raised another two and a half 654 00:43:09,000 --> 00:43:13,160 Speaker 1: million from various investors, who were primarily organized by a 655 00:43:13,280 --> 00:43:17,080 Speaker 1: businessman named Arthur Rock. And by the way, here's another 656 00:43:17,120 --> 00:43:21,360 Speaker 1: fun trivia note. Arthur Rock, the businessman who arranged to 657 00:43:21,400 --> 00:43:23,759 Speaker 1: get that two and a half million, He's the guy 658 00:43:23,800 --> 00:43:26,680 Speaker 1: who came up with the term venture capitalist. So if 659 00:43:26,719 --> 00:43:29,800 Speaker 1: you've ever heard venture capitalist, that was a term coined 660 00:43:29,800 --> 00:43:35,000 Speaker 1: by Arthur Rock, the guy who helped fund Intel. Now, 661 00:43:35,080 --> 00:43:37,840 Speaker 1: according to the founders, they presented Arthur Rock with a 662 00:43:37,880 --> 00:43:41,480 Speaker 1: business proposal that was a grand total of one pages long. 663 00:43:41,680 --> 00:43:45,080 Speaker 1: It only was one page, very simple business proposal that 664 00:43:45,200 --> 00:43:47,719 Speaker 1: essentially said they wanted to form a company that would 665 00:43:47,719 --> 00:43:53,640 Speaker 1: build integrated circuits. So Rock got on board. He managed 666 00:43:53,640 --> 00:43:56,000 Speaker 1: to secure the funding from various investors. He put in 667 00:43:56,080 --> 00:43:59,920 Speaker 1: ten thousand of his own dollars into the investment pool, 668 00:44:00,440 --> 00:44:03,080 Speaker 1: and he would eventually become the first chairman of the 669 00:44:03,120 --> 00:44:06,160 Speaker 1: new company. But why are they gonna call it? So 670 00:44:06,280 --> 00:44:09,040 Speaker 1: first they started thinking about potential names. They said, well, 671 00:44:09,040 --> 00:44:12,719 Speaker 1: maybe we can name it after ourselves. But then they 672 00:44:12,760 --> 00:44:16,000 Speaker 1: realized that they called it the More Noise Company, it 673 00:44:16,000 --> 00:44:20,759 Speaker 1: would sound like more noise and somehow being the head 674 00:44:20,800 --> 00:44:27,080 Speaker 1: of the More Noise Company didn't seem terribly attractive. They 675 00:44:27,120 --> 00:44:31,680 Speaker 1: then went with the company name n M Electronics. The 676 00:44:31,719 --> 00:44:35,400 Speaker 1: initials of their last names of Noise and More. But 677 00:44:35,880 --> 00:44:39,439 Speaker 1: this didn't last very long either, and within a month 678 00:44:39,560 --> 00:44:43,480 Speaker 1: or so they were changing their minds. They decided to 679 00:44:43,520 --> 00:44:46,160 Speaker 1: go with a totally different name, and they renamed their 680 00:44:46,200 --> 00:44:51,480 Speaker 1: new company Intel, which was inspired by the phrase integrated Electronics. 681 00:44:51,920 --> 00:44:55,239 Speaker 1: So they took INT from integrated and l from Electronics 682 00:44:55,280 --> 00:44:59,280 Speaker 1: to get Intel. They couldn't just adopt the name right away, however, 683 00:44:59,400 --> 00:45:03,120 Speaker 1: because there were as another business called Intelco. That had 684 00:45:03,160 --> 00:45:06,000 Speaker 1: the rights to it. So first Nois and Moore purchased 685 00:45:06,040 --> 00:45:08,800 Speaker 1: the rights to the name, and then they used Intel 686 00:45:08,920 --> 00:45:13,000 Speaker 1: and Intel was officially born. They located the company in 687 00:45:13,160 --> 00:45:18,640 Speaker 1: Santa Clara, California, and shortly after establishing Intel, they recruited 688 00:45:18,680 --> 00:45:22,799 Speaker 1: a guy named Andrew Grove from Fairchild Semiconductor. The three 689 00:45:22,840 --> 00:45:25,239 Speaker 1: of them would each serve as the chairman and chief 690 00:45:25,239 --> 00:45:28,280 Speaker 1: executive officer of Intel at some point over the next 691 00:45:28,280 --> 00:45:32,239 Speaker 1: three decades. A bit later, in nineteen sixty nine, they 692 00:45:32,320 --> 00:45:36,000 Speaker 1: released the company logo. The original logo had Intel in 693 00:45:36,080 --> 00:45:39,400 Speaker 1: all lowercase letters. You can still see that today, but 694 00:45:39,600 --> 00:45:43,040 Speaker 1: the original logo had the E in Intel at a 695 00:45:43,120 --> 00:45:45,680 Speaker 1: lower level than the rest of the letters, so it 696 00:45:45,880 --> 00:45:48,600 Speaker 1: was dropped down. The dropped down e logo is what 697 00:45:48,640 --> 00:45:52,840 Speaker 1: they called it now. At first, Intel's concentration was the 698 00:45:52,880 --> 00:45:57,200 Speaker 1: design and production of memory chips, which included a bipolar 699 00:45:57,360 --> 00:46:00,319 Speaker 1: memory chip called the three to one H one shlot Key. 700 00:46:00,840 --> 00:46:03,560 Speaker 1: Bipolar in this case doesn't have to do with any 701 00:46:03,600 --> 00:46:08,600 Speaker 1: sort of personality issue. It's just to talk about the 702 00:46:08,640 --> 00:46:11,920 Speaker 1: specific type of memory. This helped the company get some 703 00:46:12,000 --> 00:46:15,560 Speaker 1: attention while it developed more innovative products, and then the 704 00:46:15,560 --> 00:46:19,800 Speaker 1: company made waves by launching the first metal oxide semiconductor 705 00:46:19,880 --> 00:46:23,840 Speaker 1: for static random access memory, also known as the eleven 706 00:46:23,960 --> 00:46:26,400 Speaker 1: ZHO one. Now, there are lots of different types of 707 00:46:26,400 --> 00:46:31,920 Speaker 1: computer memory. There's ROM memory, or read only memory RAM, 708 00:46:32,040 --> 00:46:36,040 Speaker 1: or random access memory, cache memory, and tons more. As 709 00:46:36,040 --> 00:46:39,040 Speaker 1: the name suggests, the purpose of memory is to store 710 00:46:39,160 --> 00:46:42,280 Speaker 1: some sort of information so that the computer might refer 711 00:46:42,360 --> 00:46:46,400 Speaker 1: to it for any given application. Storing information and computer 712 00:46:46,480 --> 00:46:50,480 Speaker 1: memory simplifies things, speeds it up considerably because the computer 713 00:46:50,520 --> 00:46:53,640 Speaker 1: doesn't have to reference some other form of storage each 714 00:46:53,680 --> 00:46:57,800 Speaker 1: time it needs to reference a particular piece of information. Instead, 715 00:46:58,080 --> 00:47:00,360 Speaker 1: it stores that information in computer memory so it can 716 00:47:00,440 --> 00:47:02,919 Speaker 1: reference it very quickly. And I've talked a lot about 717 00:47:02,960 --> 00:47:05,000 Speaker 1: computer memory on this show, and I'm sure most of 718 00:47:05,000 --> 00:47:07,480 Speaker 1: you now have at least some understanding of it, but 719 00:47:07,480 --> 00:47:10,000 Speaker 1: I always like to take these opportunities to at least 720 00:47:10,000 --> 00:47:13,319 Speaker 1: take a kind of big picture view of the technology. 721 00:47:13,840 --> 00:47:18,400 Speaker 1: So think of RAM computer memory like a big spreadsheet table, 722 00:47:18,440 --> 00:47:21,600 Speaker 1: because essentially that's what it is. The columns of the 723 00:47:21,600 --> 00:47:25,120 Speaker 1: spreadsheet we would call bitlines, and the rows in the 724 00:47:25,120 --> 00:47:29,040 Speaker 1: spreadsheet are called word lines. The intersection of bitlines and 725 00:47:29,120 --> 00:47:32,640 Speaker 1: word lines is the address of a memory cell, and 726 00:47:32,719 --> 00:47:38,239 Speaker 1: computers can access information stored in RAM using this general address. 727 00:47:38,600 --> 00:47:40,759 Speaker 1: Right they know the address of the memory cell, they 728 00:47:40,800 --> 00:47:43,800 Speaker 1: can pull the information out of that cell right away. 729 00:47:44,400 --> 00:47:47,799 Speaker 1: This is really useful and it's pretty fast. This differentiates 730 00:47:47,920 --> 00:47:52,400 Speaker 1: RAM from sequential memory. Sequential memory, as it sounds, is 731 00:47:52,480 --> 00:47:56,719 Speaker 1: stored in sequence. This would be like a tape, a 732 00:47:56,800 --> 00:48:00,840 Speaker 1: videotape or a cassette tape where you have to actually 733 00:48:01,239 --> 00:48:04,440 Speaker 1: go at the beginning of the piece of data and 734 00:48:04,560 --> 00:48:07,319 Speaker 1: move down, go all the way through the data to 735 00:48:07,400 --> 00:48:11,239 Speaker 1: find the section that you need in order to retrieve it. 736 00:48:11,239 --> 00:48:14,520 Speaker 1: It's much more time consuming. If you want an analogy, 737 00:48:14,640 --> 00:48:18,000 Speaker 1: imagine that you have an enormous book with tons of 738 00:48:18,040 --> 00:48:20,600 Speaker 1: information written down in it, but it has no table 739 00:48:20,600 --> 00:48:23,360 Speaker 1: of contents. There are no page numbers. There are no 740 00:48:23,480 --> 00:48:26,440 Speaker 1: chapter headings, so if you wanted to find something specific 741 00:48:26,440 --> 00:48:28,560 Speaker 1: in the book, you would have to essentially start at 742 00:48:28,560 --> 00:48:31,680 Speaker 1: the beginning and start skimming through line by line to 743 00:48:31,719 --> 00:48:34,440 Speaker 1: try and find the information you wanted. But if you 744 00:48:34,520 --> 00:48:38,040 Speaker 1: had a similar book that was organized in chapters with 745 00:48:38,120 --> 00:48:40,719 Speaker 1: page numbers, section numbers, that sort of thing, and it 746 00:48:40,719 --> 00:48:43,640 Speaker 1: has an amazing index, you would be able to find 747 00:48:43,640 --> 00:48:46,680 Speaker 1: what you were looking for pretty quickly. That's what RAM 748 00:48:46,760 --> 00:48:49,440 Speaker 1: does with computers. And I might do a full episode 749 00:48:49,480 --> 00:48:52,320 Speaker 1: to talk about the actual science and technology behind memory, 750 00:48:52,320 --> 00:48:54,520 Speaker 1: but that would take up so much time, and for 751 00:48:54,560 --> 00:48:56,400 Speaker 1: now we're just going to skip over it and just 752 00:48:56,440 --> 00:48:59,759 Speaker 1: say Intel's first products were memory chips. But where they 753 00:48:59,760 --> 00:49:03,440 Speaker 1: sit successful. We'll find out about that. We'll have to 754 00:49:03,680 --> 00:49:06,680 Speaker 1: come back after a quick break to thank our sponsor. 755 00:49:14,960 --> 00:49:19,120 Speaker 1: EH kind of successful. The eleven oh one met with 756 00:49:19,280 --> 00:49:22,319 Speaker 1: limited success, and that was largely because the approach, while 757 00:49:22,360 --> 00:49:25,920 Speaker 1: it was innovative, was a little limited in that first 758 00:49:26,320 --> 00:49:30,520 Speaker 1: memory chip. In nineteen seventy, Intel launched the eleven oh three, 759 00:49:30,719 --> 00:49:34,560 Speaker 1: which was a dynamic RAM chip or d RAM chip 760 00:49:34,920 --> 00:49:37,880 Speaker 1: with one kill a byte of memory, though some records 761 00:49:37,920 --> 00:49:39,880 Speaker 1: say it was one kill a bit, which is actually 762 00:49:39,920 --> 00:49:44,040 Speaker 1: a pretty big difference. Remember, a byte is eight bits 763 00:49:44,440 --> 00:49:47,520 Speaker 1: of information, and a bit is your basic unit of information. 764 00:49:47,600 --> 00:49:51,360 Speaker 1: It's either a zero or a one. This was a 765 00:49:51,440 --> 00:49:55,279 Speaker 1: much more useful chip than the somewhat limited eleven oh one, 766 00:49:55,360 --> 00:49:57,880 Speaker 1: and it became a successful product for the company. One 767 00:49:57,920 --> 00:50:00,879 Speaker 1: of their first big customers for the eleven oh three 768 00:50:01,640 --> 00:50:07,759 Speaker 1: was Honeywell Incorporated. Honeywell is another huge name in computers. 769 00:50:08,160 --> 00:50:10,400 Speaker 1: I'll need to do a full episode about Honeywell in 770 00:50:10,440 --> 00:50:15,440 Speaker 1: the future. The company chose Intel's chips to replace the 771 00:50:15,600 --> 00:50:18,879 Speaker 1: core memory technology in Honeywell computer so this was an 772 00:50:19,080 --> 00:50:23,840 Speaker 1: enormous win for Intel. That same year, Intel purchased twenty 773 00:50:23,880 --> 00:50:27,240 Speaker 1: six acres of land on the corner of Coffin Road 774 00:50:27,760 --> 00:50:31,200 Speaker 1: and Central Expressway in Santa Clara. It had been a 775 00:50:31,280 --> 00:50:34,839 Speaker 1: peach orchard. So just think if they had gone with 776 00:50:34,920 --> 00:50:38,080 Speaker 1: that land first. If Intel had bought that land as 777 00:50:38,120 --> 00:50:42,440 Speaker 1: its first action, maybe they would have not named themselves Intel. 778 00:50:42,560 --> 00:50:45,440 Speaker 1: Maybe they would have given themselves some sort of peach 779 00:50:45,640 --> 00:50:48,960 Speaker 1: name because they bought a peach orchard. Maybe we would 780 00:50:49,000 --> 00:50:52,440 Speaker 1: have ended up with peach chips and apple products further 781 00:50:52,520 --> 00:50:59,439 Speaker 1: down the line, which would make a delicious Cobbler Cobbler 782 00:51:02,160 --> 00:51:06,640 Speaker 1: the company's innovations and memory would eventually become the industry standard, which, 783 00:51:06,680 --> 00:51:09,719 Speaker 1: as you can imagine, was great news for Intel. But 784 00:51:09,800 --> 00:51:13,120 Speaker 1: the innovation didn't stop there. Now we're going to end 785 00:51:13,280 --> 00:51:16,600 Speaker 1: this episode in nineteen seventy one, which was just a 786 00:51:16,640 --> 00:51:19,399 Speaker 1: couple of years after the company was founded. But that's 787 00:51:19,480 --> 00:51:22,560 Speaker 1: because there were some really big things that happened in 788 00:51:22,680 --> 00:51:27,560 Speaker 1: nineteen seventy one. First, Intel introduced a new technology that 789 00:51:27,680 --> 00:51:32,680 Speaker 1: year called erasable programmable read only memory or e PROM 790 00:51:32,840 --> 00:51:37,440 Speaker 1: or sometimes just EROM memory. This chip had an incredibly 791 00:51:37,520 --> 00:51:42,359 Speaker 1: useful feature. It could retain information in computer memory even 792 00:51:42,440 --> 00:51:46,920 Speaker 1: after you switched off the computer's power. So typically a 793 00:51:47,000 --> 00:51:50,520 Speaker 1: power cycle will wipe out computer memory because once you 794 00:51:50,600 --> 00:51:54,200 Speaker 1: remove power, nothing is going to the memory. It cannot 795 00:51:54,320 --> 00:51:57,920 Speaker 1: maintain its state and it returns to a base state. 796 00:51:58,120 --> 00:52:01,719 Speaker 1: So anything that was stored in memory is essentially wiped out. 797 00:52:02,040 --> 00:52:05,200 Speaker 1: The information that you have stored on the hard drive 798 00:52:05,480 --> 00:52:08,880 Speaker 1: or whatever other media you're using is still there, but 799 00:52:08,920 --> 00:52:12,160 Speaker 1: the stuff that was in this volatile computer memory is gone. 800 00:52:12,960 --> 00:52:16,760 Speaker 1: E PROM was a type of non volatile computer memory, 801 00:52:17,000 --> 00:52:19,719 Speaker 1: meaning that when you had power cut off, it would 802 00:52:19,800 --> 00:52:24,000 Speaker 1: maintain the state that it was in before power was removed, 803 00:52:24,440 --> 00:52:29,640 Speaker 1: thus it would remain within computer memory. This particular Intel 804 00:52:29,680 --> 00:52:33,839 Speaker 1: product was called the seventeen oh two because Intel had 805 00:52:33,840 --> 00:52:36,560 Speaker 1: a habit of numbering products, which made it a little 806 00:52:36,640 --> 00:52:40,880 Speaker 1: less sexy than other company products, but at least you 807 00:52:40,880 --> 00:52:43,279 Speaker 1: could figure out what each thing did based upon the 808 00:52:43,360 --> 00:52:47,440 Speaker 1: numbering system that Intel used. Also, in nineteen seventy one, 809 00:52:47,640 --> 00:52:50,840 Speaker 1: the company would make another big step. They would go public. 810 00:52:50,880 --> 00:52:54,120 Speaker 1: They would hold an initial public offering. So from its 811 00:52:54,120 --> 00:52:56,879 Speaker 1: founding in nineteen sixty eight through to nineteen seventy one, 812 00:52:56,920 --> 00:52:59,760 Speaker 1: it was a private company. It was supporting itself mainly 813 00:52:59,840 --> 00:53:03,200 Speaker 1: through through sales and through more rounds of venture capital. 814 00:53:03,560 --> 00:53:08,000 Speaker 1: But eventually they were making enough a success to go public. 815 00:53:08,120 --> 00:53:11,000 Speaker 1: It was only three years in so they held an 816 00:53:11,040 --> 00:53:14,480 Speaker 1: IPO and stocks for priced at twenty three dollars and 817 00:53:14,520 --> 00:53:18,719 Speaker 1: fifty cents per share, and the company raised six point 818 00:53:18,760 --> 00:53:23,359 Speaker 1: eight million dollars. Now, compared to some modern day electronics 819 00:53:23,360 --> 00:53:28,000 Speaker 1: companies and tech companies, six point eight million dollars seems laughable, 820 00:53:28,400 --> 00:53:31,960 Speaker 1: right you think of Intel, It's this enormous company and 821 00:53:31,960 --> 00:53:34,879 Speaker 1: it got to start with an IPO that only raised 822 00:53:34,920 --> 00:53:38,880 Speaker 1: six point eight million. When you see IPOs today for 823 00:53:39,000 --> 00:53:42,680 Speaker 1: other companies in the dozens and dozens or hundreds of 824 00:53:42,760 --> 00:53:46,120 Speaker 1: millions of dollars for evaluation. It's crazy to think about it. 825 00:53:46,160 --> 00:53:49,680 Speaker 1: But then also remember this was nineteen seventy one. So 826 00:53:50,080 --> 00:53:52,799 Speaker 1: for one thing, we got to adjust for inflation, well 827 00:53:52,960 --> 00:53:56,800 Speaker 1: we don't. I already did it. The adjustment for inflation 828 00:53:57,080 --> 00:54:00,000 Speaker 1: would be around forty one million dollars in today's month, 829 00:54:00,320 --> 00:54:04,400 Speaker 1: so still modest compared to some tech companies today, but 830 00:54:04,640 --> 00:54:07,120 Speaker 1: it was an enormous sum back then. Keep in mind 831 00:54:07,680 --> 00:54:11,120 Speaker 1: this is before the personal computer industry. Computers at this 832 00:54:11,160 --> 00:54:15,920 Speaker 1: point are still monstrously large things that research institutions and 833 00:54:15,960 --> 00:54:20,319 Speaker 1: some big companies have, and that's it. So it was 834 00:54:20,320 --> 00:54:26,600 Speaker 1: still a pretty enormous story. I wouldn't turn down forty 835 00:54:26,600 --> 00:54:29,439 Speaker 1: one million dollars, by the way, So if anyone wants 836 00:54:29,480 --> 00:54:33,960 Speaker 1: to make an investment of forty one million dollars in 837 00:54:34,040 --> 00:54:39,400 Speaker 1: Jonathan Strickland, I'm more than willing to enter negotiations. So 838 00:54:39,880 --> 00:54:44,120 Speaker 1: just throwing that out there. Intel employees also in nineteen 839 00:54:44,160 --> 00:54:46,840 Speaker 1: seventy one got to move into their new headquarters building, 840 00:54:46,880 --> 00:54:50,320 Speaker 1: which had been constructed on that land they had purchased earlier. 841 00:54:51,360 --> 00:54:55,680 Speaker 1: They owned this building. Intel owned the land, they owned 842 00:54:55,719 --> 00:54:58,680 Speaker 1: the building itself. They were no longer renting out space 843 00:54:58,760 --> 00:55:02,000 Speaker 1: from other companies, so nineteen seventy one had to move 844 00:55:02,040 --> 00:55:05,360 Speaker 1: in day, which is kind of cool. And also in 845 00:55:05,400 --> 00:55:07,719 Speaker 1: nineteen seventy one, that was when Intel got into the 846 00:55:07,760 --> 00:55:11,640 Speaker 1: business most people know them for, which would be microprocessors. 847 00:55:12,640 --> 00:55:16,560 Speaker 1: Now that project would actually date all the way back 848 00:55:16,600 --> 00:55:20,400 Speaker 1: to the founding of Intel or shortly thereafter. They started 849 00:55:20,400 --> 00:55:23,280 Speaker 1: the project in nineteen sixty nine. It wasn't until nineteen 850 00:55:23,320 --> 00:55:25,359 Speaker 1: seventy one that they had something to show for it. 851 00:55:25,600 --> 00:55:28,640 Speaker 1: But in nineteen sixty nine, another company called the Nipon 852 00:55:28,920 --> 00:55:32,839 Speaker 1: Calculating Machine Corporation came to Intel and said, we want 853 00:55:32,880 --> 00:55:37,680 Speaker 1: you to design twelve custom chips for our printing calculator, 854 00:55:38,160 --> 00:55:42,560 Speaker 1: which would be the Boozycom one four one PF or busycom, 855 00:55:42,560 --> 00:55:46,680 Speaker 1: probably because it's spelled like business, but it's busycom, not boozycom. 856 00:55:47,320 --> 00:55:50,000 Speaker 1: But I'm sure after using a printing calculator that was 857 00:55:50,040 --> 00:55:52,439 Speaker 1: one of the earliest ones ever made, you'd probably want 858 00:55:52,440 --> 00:55:58,759 Speaker 1: it to be a Boozycom, I'm guessing. Anyway, Intel engineers 859 00:55:59,120 --> 00:56:01,759 Speaker 1: took a look at this proposal and they countered. They said, 860 00:56:01,960 --> 00:56:05,480 Speaker 1: we could actually make what you want, but with four 861 00:56:05,600 --> 00:56:10,560 Speaker 1: custom chips instead of twelve. One of those custom chips 862 00:56:10,719 --> 00:56:14,440 Speaker 1: would be memory, one of them would be read only memory, 863 00:56:14,680 --> 00:56:17,000 Speaker 1: that sort of thing, but one of them would be 864 00:56:17,120 --> 00:56:20,720 Speaker 1: a programmable chip that could be used for all sorts 865 00:56:20,760 --> 00:56:24,440 Speaker 1: of different stuff, and Nipon agreed to this. Well, this 866 00:56:24,560 --> 00:56:27,399 Speaker 1: was an innovative idea to have this programmable chip as 867 00:56:27,440 --> 00:56:31,400 Speaker 1: opposed to something that was made from the beginning for 868 00:56:31,520 --> 00:56:35,800 Speaker 1: a very specific application. To have a programmable chip would 869 00:56:35,800 --> 00:56:41,360 Speaker 1: open up incredible opportunities further down the line, probably beyond 870 00:56:41,440 --> 00:56:47,440 Speaker 1: what Intel had anticipated. So through this project, Intel was 871 00:56:47,480 --> 00:56:50,600 Speaker 1: able to create the four zero zero four chip. This 872 00:56:50,760 --> 00:56:55,040 Speaker 1: was a central processing unit or CPU. Intel purchased the 873 00:56:55,160 --> 00:56:59,040 Speaker 1: rights from Nipon to market this chip separately from those 874 00:56:59,080 --> 00:57:02,800 Speaker 1: calculating machines, because if they hadn't, then Nipon would have 875 00:57:02,880 --> 00:57:07,040 Speaker 1: had the exclusivity to that technology for their calculating machines, 876 00:57:07,320 --> 00:57:11,080 Speaker 1: and then Intel would have missed out on a tremendous opportunity. 877 00:57:11,440 --> 00:57:13,959 Speaker 1: So they purchased the rights and the four zero zero 878 00:57:14,000 --> 00:57:19,400 Speaker 1: four processor was born. Electronic News heralded this event with 879 00:57:19,480 --> 00:57:24,919 Speaker 1: a headline that read, announcing a new era in integrated electronics, 880 00:57:24,920 --> 00:57:29,040 Speaker 1: and that's exactly what it was. The ability to create 881 00:57:29,080 --> 00:57:36,680 Speaker 1: a programmable central processing unit was a non trivial contribution 882 00:57:37,200 --> 00:57:42,240 Speaker 1: to the advancement of electronics and computer science. I hope 883 00:57:42,240 --> 00:57:45,680 Speaker 1: you enjoyed this episode about the Intel story, and I 884 00:57:45,680 --> 00:57:47,800 Speaker 1: hope you're all well, and I'll talk to you again 885 00:57:48,320 --> 00:57:58,200 Speaker 1: really soon. Tech Stuff is an iHeartRadio production. For more 886 00:57:58,280 --> 00:58:03,000 Speaker 1: podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or 887 00:58:03,040 --> 00:58:04,960 Speaker 1: wherever you listen to your favorite shows.