No company was better equipped and better positioned to capitalize on the development of the first MOSFET than Fairchild Semiconductor. Founded in 1957 to work on silicon transistors, Jean Hoerni developed the planar process and Robert Noyce developed the ideas for the first practical integrated circuit (IC) based on Hoerni’s planar process just months before…
The first wave of semiconductor companies started in April 1952 when Bell Labs held its second transistor symposium for its transistor patent licensees, which was attended by representatives from some 40 companies. After the symposium, most of those companies started manufacturing bipolar point-contact transistors within mere months or a couple of years, and many became…