Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

In December 1947, William Shockley of Bell Laboratories in the United States, together with his colleagues John Bardeen and Walter Bratton, successfully developed the world's first transistor.

From left: Bardeen, Shockley, Bratton, as we all know, the transistor can be called one of the greatest inventions of the 20th century, directly sounding the horn of the information technology revolution, with far-reaching significance.

The first transistor in 1955, Shockley, with a bigger dream, left Bell Labs and returned to his hometown of California. He intends to set up his own door there and build a greater cause.

Shockley spent the summer lobbying Texas Instruments, Rockefeller, Raytheon and others to invest 500000 dollars in his plant to produce transistors, but all were rejected.

Finally, Arnold Beckman (Arnold Beckman), a chemistry professor and a good friend of Shockley's time at Caltech, decided to invest in Shockley.

This Beckman is the inventor of the pH value determination method. At that time, his company was very large, with a turnover of more than 20 million US dollars.

Arnold Beckman, whose company is still in operation, is one of the most powerful companies in the medical field.

After receiving Beckman's investment, Shockley finally founded Shockley Laboratories Co., Ltd. The company's address is in Santa Clara valley, southeast of the San Francisco Bay area, California. It was chosen because of the enthusiastic recommendation of Professor Frederick Terman, dean of the Stanford Institute of Technology at the time.

Santa Clara Valley, now known as Silicon Valley (Silicon Valley).

After the founding of Frederick Terman, the father of Silicon Valley, Shockley immediately posted recruitment messages across the country to recruit talented people in the electronics field.

General Xiao's recruitment method is also very strange, he will be advertised in the form of a code in academic journals, ordinary people simply can not understand. Moreover, before the interview, he would give candidates IQ and creativity tests, as well as psychological evaluation, which was very strange at that time.

In any case, in the name of "father of transistors", he has attracted an endless stream of professionals. Among them, there are eight young scientists from the eastern United States. They are:

Robert Noyce (Robert Noyce)

Gordon more (Gordon Moore)

Kim Helney (Jean Hoerni)

Julia Blank (Julius Blank)

Eugene Kleiner (Eugene Kleiner)

Gerald (Jay Last)

Sheldon Roberts (Sheldon Roberts)

Viktor Grinick (Victor Grinnich)

From left to right, they are: Moore, Roberts, Kleiner, Noyce, Glenick, Blank, Helney, Last. These eight young people, all under the age of 30, are in their prime, successful in their studies, and at the pinnacle of their creative ability. Among them, there are those who have received double doctorates, engineers from large companies, researchers and professors from famous universities. In short, they are all elites among the elite (The best of the best).

It is worth mentioning that three of the eight are immigrants from Europe: Kleiner (Austria), Grinick (Croatia) and Helney (Switzerland).

Of the eight, Noyce is a senior (though he was only 29 at the time) with slightly more experience. He was also the most determined to "defect" Shockley.

Handsome Noyce recalled that when he received a call from Shockley, he was excited as if he had received a call from Paradise. The first thing he did when he flew to San Francisco was to buy a house-he thought he must have followed Shockley here for the rest of his life.

In January 1956, Shockley, Bardeen and Bratton were awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics for the invention of transistors.

After learning that he had won the prize, the excited Shockley took his young scientists to the city's luxurious Dana cabin restaurant for a champagne breakfast. At this time, everyone was immersed in joy, thinking that Shockley could lead them to innovate new glory and rewrite the history of mankind.

Unfortunately, they were only half right.

With the passage of time, they found that Shockley, with the supreme aura, was not a good leader at all, or even a normal person. This talented scientist, who knows nothing about management skills, is very self-righteous, arrogant and mean.

He is ambitious, but has no business vision at all. the company's business goals change again and again, doing business in terms of personal preferences rather than products and craftsmanship. Some people even appraise him as "a genius and a complete loser".

Later, Shockley became even worse, extremely inflated, egotistical and too egotistical to disagree, and even made rude remarks about Beckman, the investor who helped him.

The paranoid Shockley often makes a mountain out of a molehill. A female secretary cut her hand in the laboratory. Shockley decided that someone was sabotage and even used a polygraph to detect the lies of all the staff. no, no, no. no, no, no.

In this way, the company has been established for more than a year and can not come up with a single product. Everyone lost confidence and patience with Shockley.

Especially those young engineers, they did not want to waste their precious youth on Shockley, so they began to brew their own "defection" plan. To be exact, of the eight people mentioned above, with the exception of Noyce, the remaining seven are determined to leave.

But at that time, they knew nothing but technology. Most of all, there is no money.

So Kleiner, one of the seven, gave it to Hayden Stone & Co., which is in charge of his father's corporate banking. Wrote a letter with a very simple investment plan.

In the proposal, Kleiner wrote:

"We are a team with rich experience and diverse skills. we are proficient in physics, chemistry, metallurgy, machinery, electronics and other fields. we can start the semiconductor business within three months after the funds are in place."

After Kleiner's letter was mailed, seven people waited nervously for a reply.

Kleiner's letter was handed over to Arthur Locke (Arthur Rock), an employee at Hayden Stone Investment Bank. Arthur Locke is keenly aware of the opportunities in the letter. He attaches great importance to the talents of these young people and is optimistic about the long-term development of the semiconductor industry.

So he persuaded his boss, Bud Coyle, to fly to San Francisco to meet the young people.

Arthur Locke, a legendary figure in the history of American technology investment (known as the father of venture capital), was associated with the birth of Intel and Apple. In San Francisco, seven young people met for the first time with two investors from New York.

After the meeting, the seven people found that they were all technical, ignorant of management and business, and needed a "leading brother" who could take the lead. And who is suitable to be the "leading brother"? They all thought of Noyce, who was absent.

In their eyes, Noyce is their most recognized and trusted "leader". Noyce has both IQ and EQ, and he is their convincing leader. However, as mentioned earlier, Noyce always admired Shockley and did not want to "betray" him.

As a result, the seven men sent Roberts as a representative to persuade Noyce. Roberts worked hard and talked to Noyce until midnight, and finally succeeded in persuading Noyce.

In fact, Noyce had been suppressed by Shockley many times before (and missed a chance for a Nobel Prize), and he knew very well that there would be no future if he persisted, and it was only a matter of time before he left.

Early the next morning, eager Roberts went door to door to seven other homes, picked them up, stuffed them into his van, and made his way to San Francisco.

After the tense and excited meeting, Locke and Coyle were moved. Locke took out ten brand-new one-dollar bills and slapped them on the table: "Don't say anything and do it!" Coyle looked around at them and said, "the agreement is not ready. If you want to join, sign this!"

So eight young people and two bankers signed their names around the avatar in Washington.

One of the signed $1 bills is now in collection at Stanford University on September 18, 1957 (which was later named by the New York Times as one of the ten most important days in American history), and eight young people tendered their resignations to Shockley. Shockley flew into a rage, denouncing the "ungrateful" young people as the "rebellious Gang of eight" (traitorous eight) and translated as "eight traitors".

Who would have thought that the term "rebellious Gang of eight" coined by Shockley turned out to be synonymous with Silicon Valley legend. This rebellious culture has also become a symbol of the spirit of Silicon Valley and has been "handed down" by generations of Silicon Valley people.

Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley resigned, ready to start work, but the money is not yet available.

Locke is responsible for finding investment for the new company. He listed 35 companies and called door to door. However, they all ended in failure.

By chance, Locke and Coyle met Sherman Fairchild (Sherman Fairchild), the boss of Fairchild cameras and Instruments (Fairchild Camera & Instrument).

Note: "Fairchild" is the transliteration of "Fairchild", but it is usually paraphrased as "Fairchild".

Fairchild's father once funded Thomas Watson Sr. to start IBM. As heir, he became the largest individual shareholder in IBM and was very rich.

Fairchild is interested in technology and is an inventor himself. His invention of aircraft photographic equipment made him a fortune in World War II.

After talking to Locke and others, Fairchild, who was on the cover of time magazine, decided to invest 1.5 million dollars. With this investment, Xiantong Semiconductor, Silicon Valley's first venture capital semiconductor company, has finally been established.

Fairchild Semiconductor's parent company is Fairchild's Fairchild Group, which is in charge of Fairchild Group Vice President Richard Hodgson (Richard Hodgson). Hodgson had planned to make Noyce general manager, but Noyce refused, he only wanted to be the technical director, so Hodgson hired Ed Baldwin (Ed Baldwin) of Hughes to be general manager of Fairchild Semiconductor.

In terms of company shares, it is determined as follows: the company is divided into 1325 shares, each of the eight is 100 shares, Hayden Stone is 225 shares, and the remaining 300 shares are reserved for the company's future management.

The investment agreement states that if the company's net profit exceeds $300000 for three consecutive years, Xiantong has the right to recover its shares at $3 million or $5 million five years later.

The agreement marks the first real venture capital in Silicon Valley. Locke and Coyle, the earliest venture capitalists in Silicon Valley, helped develop the company's business strategy, analyze financing needs, find capital and share profits.

The establishment of Xiantong Semiconductor Company is recognized as a symbol of the birth of Silicon Valley. Although it was Shockley who brought silicon here, it was Fairchild Semiconductor that created Silicon Valley and its unique culture.

After the establishment of Fairchild Semiconductor, the first order came from IBM. This is also a "relationship order". As mentioned earlier, Fairchild is a major shareholder in IBM, and with his help, Fairchild got this critical order.

In this order, IBM ordered 100 silicon tubes from Fairchild at $150 each.

From left: Fairchild, Moore, and Noyce have a division of labor among eight people in order to complete the order on time and quality: Noyce and Rast are responsible for silicon wafer etching; Helney is responsible for the diffusion process; Roberts is responsible for cutting and polishing; Moore is responsible for designing and building furnaces; Kleiner and Blank are responsible for developing processing equipment and improving manufacturing processes; Grinnick is responsible for testing.

Under the joint efforts of Noyce and his team, half a year later, Xiantong's first batch of double-diffused NPN silicon transistors came out and the order was successfully delivered. Since then, however, Fairchild has not been able to get a silicon tube order from IBM (IBM later partnered with Texas Instruments to build its own transistor production line).

However, through this order, Xiantong successfully gained a foothold and began to enter the stage of rapid development.

At the end of 1958, Xiantong Semiconductor had sales of US $500000 and 100 employees.

In February 1959, when Texas Instruments engineer Kilby (J.kilby) applied for the first integrated circuit invention patent, Noyce was shocked. He immediately summoned the team members to discuss countermeasures.

The difficulties faced by Kilby and his integrated circuit product Kilby at Texas Instruments, such as twice diffusion on silicon wafers and interconnecting wires, are Fairchild Semiconductor's specialty. Noyce proposed that the method of evaporating and depositing metal can be used instead of hot welding wire, which is the best way to solve the problem of connecting components to each other.

On July 30, 1959, they also applied for a patent with the United States Patent Office.

The two companies began a protracted dispute over the right to invent integrated circuits. In 1966, both Kilby and Noyce were awarded the Balantine Medal by the Franklin Institute. Kilby was praised as "the inventor of the first integrated circuit", while Noyce was praised as the person who "put forward the theory of integrated circuit suitable for industrial production". In 1969, the final judgment of the court also legally recognized that the integrated circuit was a simultaneous invention.

Go back to 1960. At that time, Xiantong's parent company exercised its rights and bought back all its shares in accordance with the investment agreement. The gang of eight gets 250000 dollars each. In the United States at that time, this was a huge sum of money.

From 1960 to 1965, Xiantong Semiconductor's sales doubled every year. In 1966, Xiantong was already the second largest semiconductor company after Texas Instruments.

But also since the 1960s, the crisis of Fairy Child has begun to emerge.

First of all, Xiantong's parent company acquired a stake in the Gang of eight, which greatly affected the Gang's enthusiasm for work.

In addition, although Fairchild Semiconductor is as far away as California, its every move is controlled by its parent company, which is headquartered in New York, and its development is subject to too many constraints. Not only that, the parent company also took away Xiantong Semiconductor's profits and invested in a large number of unprofitable businesses.

As a result, people want to change, the gang of eight began a new "rebellion" one after another.

In 1961, Helney, Lester and Robert ran away and founded Amelco, later known as Teledyne (Terrida), engaged in semiconductor testing.

In 1962, Kleiner ran away and founded Edex. In 1967, he founded Intersil. Later, he founded the venture capital company KPCB. Not only that, according to records, he has founded at least 12 companies.

In August 1968, Noyce resigned along with Moore, who was in charge of research and development, and they took away process development expert Andrew S. Grove. The company founded by the three of them was Intel, the booming IT giant of the world.

Intel founders: Grove, Noyce, Moore almost forgot to say, yes, Moore is the one who came up with the famous Moore's Law.

Moore's Law: when the price remains the same, the number of components that can be contained on an integrated circuit doubles about every 18-24 months, and its performance doubles. Soon after that, Glenick also left Fairy Boy and returned to teach at the university.

In 1969, the last member of the Gang of eight, Blanco, also left.

At this point, the gang of eight all left Xiantong Semiconductor Company.

The founders of the former rebellious gang of eight all chose to leave, not to mention employees.

Xiantong ushered in a large-scale wave of departures, and many employees chose to leave. Among them is Saunders, director of sales. He left with seven Xiantong employees and founded the ultra-micro semiconductor company. The company also has a better-known name, AMD.

Intel and AMD are a family. With the outflow of a large number of talents from Xiantong, new semiconductor companies are springing up like bamboo shoots after a spring rain.

In this regard, Jobs, a former CEO of Apple, made a very famous analogy--

"Xiantong Semiconductor Company is like a mature dandelion. As soon as you blow it, the seeds of this entrepreneurial spirit float everywhere with the wind."

Silicon Valley craze, a famous bestseller published in the early 1980s, also wrote:

"half of the 70 or so semiconductor companies in Silicon Valley are direct or indirect descendants of Fairchild. Working at Fairchild is a way to enter the semiconductor industry throughout Silicon Valley. Of the 400 attendees at a semiconductor engineers conference held in Sunnyvale in 1969, only 24 had never worked for Fairchild."

Xiantong pedigree can be said that Xiantong Semiconductor is the Whampoa military Academy for semiconductor talents in Silicon Valley and around the world.

In the case of the continuous brain drain and the emergence of competitors, Xiantong's decline must be inevitable.

From 1965 to 1968, Xiantong Semiconductor sales continued to decline.

In 1967, Xiantong Semiconductor suffered its first loss of $7.6 million, and its shares fell to $0.50 a share from $3 a year ago, halving its market capitalization.

There is nothing to say about the later story, but the wind and clouds are wavering and being sold to and fro.

In 1979, Fairchild Semiconductor was sold to Schlumberger, a French oil company.

In 1987, Schlumberger resold Fairchild Semiconductor to another American company, National Semiconductor (NSC), for 1/3 of the original price. Ironically, the company's boss is Charles Spock, the general manager who ran away from Xiantong.

When the National Semiconductor Company of the United States came here, the Xiantong Semiconductor brand no longer existed.

In 1996, National Semiconductor moved its former headquarters to Maine and restored the old name "Fairchild Semiconductor". The cradle of Silicon Valley talent left Silicon Valley.

In March 1997, Fairy Boy was sold again. This time it was paid by a venture capital firm, so Fairchild became an independent company, with Kirk Pond as CEO.

In 2016, on Semiconductor completed its acquisition of Xiantong for $2.4 billion. At this point, Xiantong Semiconductor, which once dominated Silicon Valley, ended its life in this way, and from then on there was no Fairchild Semiconductor in the world.

The story of on Senmei's acquisition of Fairy Child is coming to an end.

As you can see, Xiantong Semiconductor Company has a huge and far-reaching impact on the development of science and technology in Silicon Valley and even in the current era.

There was a saying that there were about 92 companies founded after the employees of Xiantong Semiconductor Company left. These companies employ more than 800000 people and have a market capitalization of $21 trillion, surpassing GDP in most countries. There are countless companies indirectly affected by Xiantong Semiconductor.

It can be said that without the fall of Xiantong, there would be no Silicon Valley today, nor would there be the development achievements of the semiconductor industry that has attracted worldwide attention. Our life now will be another scene.

As the saying goes, a fairy child fell and stood up tens of thousands of fairy children.

Perhaps, this is a great inspiration to us.

This article comes from the official account of Wechat: fresh Jujube classroom (ID:xzclasscom), author: Xiaozaojun

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