Page 61 - EE Times Europe March 2022

EE|Times EUROPE 61

EE TIMES 50TH ANNIVERSARY
The Roots of Silicon Valley, Part 3: Startup Fever

and Venture Capital

By Malcolm Penn, Future Horizons

The third and final part of our series explores the legacy of Silicon Valley as a result

of the three key inventions that changed the world in the 1960s: the integrated circuit,
startup fever, and venture capital.

MELTING POT FOR THE FAIRCHILDREN trade war stories, talk shop, exchange ideas, today — to cluster around the university. To
Sheldon Roberts, Eugene Kleiner, and Jean change jobs, and develop new contacts. Key that end, Stanford provided intellectual prop-
Hoerni’s collective decision to leave and com- venues included the Wagon Wheel, Lion & erty and office space, often rent-free other
pete against Fairchild, just over three years Compass, and Ricky’s, along with the than the local property taxes.
after the company was founded, was the first Peppermill and the Sunnyvale Hilton. While it is unclear who came up with the
of what would be many subsequent defec- Stanford University, and particularly Fred moniker “Silicon Valley,” Don Hoefler, a tech-
tions and spinouts. The “Fairchildren” would Terman, also played a catalytic role, propelled nology reporter for the industry publication
directly or indirectly create dozens of corpo- by the engineering department chair’s vision Electronic News, is often credited with popu-
rations, including Intel and AMD. Fairchild for academia to develop a new relationship larizing the name in a 1971 column about the
thus sowed the seeds of innovation across with the science- and technology-based region’s chip industry. Hoefler also promoted
multiple companies in the region that would industries dependent on brainpower as their the area’s innovative qualities and was one of
eventually become known as Silicon Valley. greatest asset. Terman further recognized the the first writers to chronicle the Northern Cali-
Local watering holes, restaurants, and other need to develop local industry, not just by fornian technology industry as a community.
hot spots provided venues for Silicon Valley’s building a community of interest between fac-
“work hard, play hard” ethos, where industry ulty and industry but also by encouraging new THE FAIRCHILD LEGACY
folk gathered after work to drink, gossip, brag, enterprises — what we would call startups Throughout the first half of the 1960s,
Fairchild was the undisputed semiconduc-
tor leader, forging ahead across all industry
segments, be it design, technology, pro-
duction, or sales. Early sales and marketing
efforts were modest and military-oriented;
that changed in 1961 when Robert Noyce
and Tom Bay recruited a group of aggressive
salesmen and marketing specialists, including
W.J. “Jerry” Sanders III and Floyd Kvamme.
The newcomers transformed Fairchild’s sales
and marketing departments into one of the
industry’s legends.
Among the pivotal moments was Fairchild’s
entry into the consumer TV market. Attracted
by potential high volumes, Sanders wanted
to replace the tube (valve) CRT driver with a
transistor, but the target price was US$1.50.
Transistors at that time were selling to the
military for US$150. In what can only be
regarded as a massive leap of faith, Noyce’s
instructions to Sanders were, “Go take the
order, Jerry. We’ll figure out how to do it later.
Maybe we’ll have to build it in Hong Kong and
put it in plastic, but right now, let’s just do it.”
In 1963, Fairchild hired Robert Widlar to
design analog operational amplifiers using
Fairchild’s digital IC process. Despite its
unsuitability, Widlar, in partnership with
process engineer Dave Talbert, succeeded
in adapting the process to produce two
revolutionary parts: the world’s first oper-
ational amplifiers, the µA702 in 1964 and
Industry folk would meet, gossip, trade ideas, and change jobs at watering holes like the µA709 in 1965. With these two parts, Fairchild
Wagon Wheel (pictured), Lion & Compass, and Ricky’s. (Source: Computer History Museum) now dominated both the analog and digital

www.eetimes.eu | MARCH 2022