As I've said in the past, one of the best ongoing documentations of the history of Silicon Valley is SEMI's Oral History Project, curated by Craig Addison.
Since September 2004, he has interviewed many of the people (several of which have since passed away) who were present at the creation of the semiconductor manufacturing business, especially those hardy souls who kickstarted the semiconductor equipment and materials industries. The 40th conversation in the series has just been published as the lead feature in the SEMI Global Update April 2008 e-newsletter, and it's one of the most historic and important yet: Craig interviews industry pioneer Gordon Moore, cofounder of Fairchild Semi and Intel.
Their lengthy discussion starts with Moore's early career days at Shockley, then segues to Fairchild's and Intel's start-up periods, with a focus on how those early companies often had to design and make their own equipment and materials, but began to find suppliers who could do a better job of it than they did. Craig also asks Moore about Sematech, Semicons, the "law" that has come to be associated with the good doctor's name, earlier wafer-size transitions, industry economic cycles, and, well, more.
Here's an excerpt that sheds some historical light on how the semiconductor equipment business came into existence.
Craig: Now, there's also the story of Art Lasch, and I believe that you encouraged him to go off and make the capillaries and then eventually he started his own company.
GM: Art Lasch was my technician for a good part of the time there. He helped me build the furnaces. And then when we developed the gold ball bonding technology, where a small gold wire was put through a glass capillary that could be used to squish it onto...to make the contacts, we had a problem that the capillaries kept getting plugged. So we had to have a significant supply of these. Art became very good at making these things. So he was encouraged by our production people--Gene Kleiner in particular, who was in charge of that--essentially to moonlight and make glass capillaries on the outside and deliver them to us. Well, that business grew, and Art next upgraded the design of the furnaces we'd built at Fairchild and started supplying furnaces also from his company, Electroglas. And that was really the first company I know of that was specifically set up to deliver equipment to the semiconductor industry.
Craig: I guess there were no IP issues back then. His furnace was based on your furnace, but he didn't particularly mind about that?
GM: It wasn't that much, and the furnaces we designed used commercially available elements. There was nothing that we thought especially patentable. And Art picked it up and improved it. And as so often is the case in the semiconductor industry, it wasn't long before the furnaces being supplied on the outside were better than the ones we were building internally.
Craig: So you started buying from Electroglas eventually and stopped making your own?
GM: Yes. And other people got into the furnace business also. But that's been repeated over and over again, that a company dedicated to supplying the equipment that has a broad market ends up doing a better job than an in-house equipment supply capability can. So, when we set up Intel, we decided we'd do nothing on equipment internally, we'd work with the vendors, and even if this resulted in technology we developed getting transferred to the rest of the industry, it would be the most effective way for us to continue to grow.
The entire interview is well worth the read, as are the 39 other conversations in the archive (which can be reached via a link on the Chip Shots' blog and website roll to the right). Although I applaud Craig and SEMI for continuing the Oral History Project, I do have one beef. Why isn't the archive, an indispensable part of the historical record, listed more prominently on SEMI's Website? Although a site search eventually turns up the appropriate links, the project deserves its own icon on the homepage and easy-to-locate presence elsewhere in the domain.
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