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Why integrated circuits needed a new way to connect transistors
Before integrated circuits, building a circuit meant assembling separate components and wiring them together. The more transistors a circuit needed, the more difficult the wiring became. Malcolm Penn’s 2022 account gives the example of roughly 10 wires for a simple four-transistor flip-flop, about 25 for eight transistors, and 60 to 70 for 16. Hand-soldered connections consumed space and labor, and their number grew faster than the transistor count.
That wiring burden was a central obstacle to making circuits more complex. Texas Instruments engineer Jack Kilby demonstrated two transistors integrated on a semiconductor substrate in 1958, but the devices still relied on wire bonds. A process that could protect the semiconductor surface and make connections within the device offered a path toward more practical, repeatable production.
What planar technology changed
Hoerni’s protected, flatter transistor
Jean Hoerni addressed surface contamination by covering silicon with a thin layer of silicon dioxide (SiO2). This passivation layer protected the surface while allowing selected regions, including the emitter and base, to be formed by diffusion. The result was a flatter transistor structure that could be made more consistently and was better suited to automated production. Fairchild announced the process in January 1959.
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Noyce’s patterned connections
Robert Noyce saw that the insulating oxide layer could do more than protect the transistor: it could separate the silicon from conducting paths laid across its surface. Patterned metal connections over the oxide could link components much as traces on a printed-circuit board do. That addressed the wiring bottleneck and made it possible to connect multiple elements as part of an integrated circuit rather than rely on a tangle of separate wires.
The distinction matters: Hoerni’s process supplied a protected, manufacturable planar structure; Noyce recognized how to use its insulating surface for integrated interconnections. Penn characterizes planar technology as one of microelectronics’ most consequential inventions, but that ranking is his assessment, not a measured comparison.
How the early integrated-circuit approaches differed
| Approach | How components were connected | Manufacturing significance |
|---|---|---|
| Kilby’s 1958 demonstration | Two transistors were integrated on a semiconductor substrate, with devices connected by wire bonds. | Demonstrated integration, but retained a wiring method that limited the practical scaling of more complex circuits. |
| Hoerni’s planar process and Noyce’s interconnections | A silicon-dioxide insulating layer protected the surface; patterned conducting paths could run over it to connect circuit elements. | The flatter, protected structure was more amenable to repeatable production and automation, while patterned paths addressed the interconnection problem. |
This distinction became part of the patent history. Noyce filed his patent in April 1959. Texas Instruments argued that Kilby’s earlier patent language covered Noyce’s claims, but both patents were declared valid and the companies reached a cross-licensing agreement. Kilby later said that he and Noyce jointly invented the integrated circuit, although Texas Instruments management took a different position.
Rank #2
Fairchild’s first working planar IC and Apollo demand
Getting adjacent transistors to operate in isolation took Fairchild about 18 months of development. The company produced its first working isolated integrated circuit on September 27, 1960. In March 1961 it announced a direct-coupled transistor-logic family based on the planar resistor-transistor-logic process associated with Hoerni and Jay Last.
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One device, the µL903 three-input NOR gate, became a basic building block of the Apollo guidance computer. Penn reports that the lunar navigation computer—designed by MIT and built by Raytheon—used 5,000 devices. The connection between a manufacturing process and a demanding application is important: planar technology enabled integration, while a program such as Apollo created a reason to produce and use integrated circuits at scale.
Why Fairchild produced the Fairchildren
The first departures
Fairchild Semiconductor had been founded by a team of entrepreneurs, but Sherman Fairchild’s 1959 purchase of their shares turned them into employees and weakened the cohesion of the original group. Internal disagreements over the integrated-circuit project added pressure. Marketing executive Tom Bay challenged its spending, while Gordon Moore and Robert Noyce did not decisively support Jay Last during the dispute.
Hoerni and Last left Fairchild on January 31, 1961, to establish Amelco in Mountain View. Arthur Rock arranged financing from Teledyne, and Eugene Kleiner and Sheldon Roberts joined shortly afterward. Signetics, another Fairchild spinout, followed in 1961 and introduced its SE100 diode-transistor-logic family in 1962.
What “Fairchildren” means
“Fairchildren” is the name given to companies started by people who left Fairchild. It describes a network of spinouts, not a single company or a formal organization. The label captures how Fairchild’s technical talent and experience spread through the region as employees became founders and joined new ventures. Amelco, the first spinout in this account, later disappeared through mergers and rebrandings; Penn reports that its intellectual-property portfolio survives under Microchip.
Packaging and overseas assembly helped production scale
The dual-in-line package
In 1964, Fairchild engineers Don Forbes, Rex Rice and Bryant “Buck” Rogers developed the dual-in-line package; Fairchild launched it in 1965. Its two parallel rows of pins made an integrated circuit easier to mount and connect. The original dimensions reported by Penn were 0.1 inch (2.54 mm) between pins and 0.3 inch (7.62 mm) between rows.
Texas Instruments’ less expensive plastic-resin version helped drive adoption. Later versions supported as many as 64 pins, according to Penn’s account. The package remained important for decades before surface-mount packages displaced it in the late 2000s. The shift from wire connections inside a circuit to a standard package outside it was another part of making integrated circuits practical to assemble into larger systems.
Hong Kong assembly and test
As a wafer could carry as many as 15,000 die, assembly labor became a larger cost consideration. Fairchild opened what Penn describes as the industry’s first Far East assembly-and-test operation in a former shoe factory in Kowloon, Hong Kong, in 1963. Lower labor costs were one attraction; non-unionized facilities, technical staff, engineering schools and tax incentives also drew semiconductor companies overseas. Malaysia later became another major destination.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.How the Fairchild network led to Intel and venture capital
Moore and Noyce found Intel
Gordon Moore and Robert Noyce left Fairchild in March 1968 and formed NM Electronics that summer. About a year later, they acquired the naming rights from hotel chain Intelco and adopted the Intel name. Their move is a prominent example of the Fairchildren pattern: experienced Fairchild colleagues took technical and managerial knowledge with them to build another company.
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From founder networks to Silicon Valley finance
Arthur Rock helped arrange the financing for Amelco; later, Eugene Kleiner partnered with Hewlett-Packard research-and-development head Thomas Perkins to form Kleiner Perkins. The firm’s Palo Alto office on Sand Hill Road became a landmark for Silicon Valley venture capital. Penn distinguishes the firm’s physical presence in the Valley from the earlier role Rock and Hayden Stone may have played in establishing venture capital as a financing business.
The roots of this startup culture were not only financial. Planar manufacturing made more complex circuits feasible; packaging and overseas assembly helped companies produce them at scale; and Fairchild’s departures carried experience into new firms. Venture capital could then support companies founded by people who already knew the technology and the industry.
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