1. The Chip and Its Impact
Late 1950s & 1970s
Will McCahill

2. The Background Minis (PDP-8) No threat to mainframe, complimentary
Theory it could replace mainframe at low $$
Grosch Law (Herb Grosch)
Lack of networking capabilities
(Leemans & Dedene, 2005)
(Gesswein, 2010)

3. IBM Model 701 Standardized Modules
Simplified computer design, testing, & maintenance
Circuit Modules, “Standard Modular System”
Reduced circuit modules required significantly
DEC enters market as a flip-chip module maker
IBM 701 Operator Console

4. Printed Circuits Pioneered in WWII for artillery fuze
Based on work of Paul Eisler- Austrian Refugee
US adopted “printed circuit” called it Auto-Sembly
Pattern etched on plastic board covered with copper, dipped in solvent, solvent removed non etched conductor
Cheap, easy to mass produce (paperback books)
(Gootee, 2004)

5. Reliable electronics
US Air Force wants electronics for onboard ballistic missiles
Desire to move away from hand coiled computer circuits
Expensive
Errors

6. Military efforts Multimillion $ rockets fail to launch
Creation of formal procedure to penetrate product lines of manufacturers for Minuteman program
Molecular Electronics
Clean rooms invented at Sandia National Laboratories for atomic weapons
Workers wear gowns
Constant flow of ultra-filtered air (top down)
Pressure and temperature regulated
Documented product steps
Used for transistors by electronics industry
Minuteman “Hi-Rel” standard
100x failure reduction rate

7. Integrated Circuits Jack Kilby
Degree in electrical engineering from Illinois-1947
Joined Centralab
Brought the company in to germanium transistors business
Left for a company that could make the investment for a move to silicon

8. Jack Kilby Texas Instruments Micro-module
Depositing components in ceramic wafer
Kilby said it was inefficient but found inspiration
Idea to make all individual components out of single piece of silicon -1958
Silicon more expensive
Saved money because whole circuit could be made from one block of silicon
Removed individual wiring and packaging of circuit components
First full silicon circuit build in August 1958
Single block Germanium circuit built in September 1958
Company had limited silicon building abilities
Applied for patent in 1959

9. Jack Kilby TI markets their “solid circuit”
Extremely successful
Other miniaturization efforts end
Micromodule and molecular electronics projects now dead
(Kilby, 2000)

10. Robert Noyce From Grinell, Iowa (Corn Belt)
Worked for Fairchild semiconductor in Mountain View, CA
Had same idea as Kilby- but could do it
Co-worker Jean Hoerni developed planar process
Enabled silicon transistors, flat, silicon oxide
Noyce applies for patent months after Kilby for “silicon integrated circuit”
Ensuing legal battle
Work lead to massive growth in Integrated Circuit Technology

11. The Integrated Circuit Patents
Kilby and Noyce Filed patents for devices that combined operations on a single circuit in 1959
Kilby filed on behalf of Texas Instruments (single block circuit)
Noyce filed on behalf of Fairchild Semiconductor (Silicon solid circuits, metal-over-oxide interconnection scheme)

12. The Minuteman II US Military, first integrated circuit market
Autonetics chose integrated circuits for Minuteman guidance system
Discrete vs Integrated Circuit
Discrete, tested but expensive, large, slower
Integrated Circuit, untested, small, fast, efficient
Minuteman II uses 2000 integrated and 4000 discrete circuits
Compare to Minuteman I which used 15,000 discrete circuits and did less

13. The Minuteman II
1965 Press reports minuteman II is top semiconductor user
3 major military suppliers of ICs
Texas Instruments
Westinghouse
RCA
The 3 combined to produce 4000 circuits per week for Minuteman II
Military is first steady demand for semiconductor industry
Previously, highly cyclical
(National Museum of the US Air Force, 2009)

14. Fairchild Initially refuses military contracts
Noyce believes military = stifling influence
Stance changed quickly
1964, 95% of all circuit sales are government
Began to look for Space programs
(Fairchild Semiconductor, 2012)

15. Apollo Fairchild tries to win guidance computer contract 1961
Eldon Hall, Instrumentation Lab, opens discussion with Fairchild and Texas Instruments
IC is light, small, still not much data on mass production
Hall goes with Fairchild “Micrologic” chip design
Approved by NASA Nov. 1962

16. Apollo Minuteman guidance computer used 20 different typed of IC’s
Apollo used one type of IC
Each guidance system used ~5,000 IC chips
First test flight was February 1965
75 Apollo guidance computers were built, 25 actually flew
Chips dropped in price dramatically from $1000 to $20 during Apollo contract
Performance increases, 1975 one astronaut carries a pocket calculator (HP-65) with more capabilities than on-board computer
Apollo guidance computer, display and keyboard interface (DSKY), Draper Laboratories, 1968

17. Commercial Impact of the Chip
IBM rolls out System/360 line with “solid logic technology”- similar to micromodule
Significantly behind in technology
Used circuits deposited in ceramic substrate
360 announced in 1964, IBM has 2 conflicting reports-memorandums
Sept 1963, “ICs do not constitute a competitive threat now or in the next 5 years”
Sept 1964, “Rapid progress in Monolithics(IBM term for ICs), IBM has 2-4 year lag in practical experience, needs 6 months to 1 year to catch up in IC expertise
Both were correct

18. Commercial Impact
IBMs system/360 was a success but IBM adopted ICs for 370 to remain competitive
370 was announced at the end of the decade (1969)
Before that:
1965, Scientific Data Systems announces computer that uses ICs
1965, RCA announces 360 compatible machines that use ICs
1966, SDS and RCA machines are being delivered
SDS 930
RCA Spectra 70 Model 46, 1967

19. Second Generation Minis 1965-70
Tons of market entrants
Low barriers to entry
No need to match product announcement
Industry focused on low-cost, compact, technical innovation
Innovation speeds up
Costs stay the same or drop
DEC is the big guy, but not dominant
Innovation based market, lots of bank investment
100 new companies or divisions of established companies offered minicomputers to commercial market from
Average of 1 new entrant offering a mini every 3 weeks for 5 years

20. Second Generation of Minis
IC makers ramp up production
Introduce TTL logic, inexpensive, easy to design with
Packaged in black plastic with leads arranged on either side
Rugged, easy to handle
Dual in-line packaging
1970 chip-chip connection also standardized with invention of printed circuit board by Globe-Union
Designers for minicomputers could now lay out a circuit board with places for all the ICs necessary for the circuits of a small computer

21. EBCDIC IBM develops EBCDIC
8-bit character encoding used mainly on IBM mainframe
Developed in 1963 for System/360
Moved IBM away from rest of computer industry
Everyone else used ASCII
IBM helped develop ASCII but did not have time to add it to their System/360 launch
System/360 was a success and IBM decided to stay with EBCDIC for consumer sake
It has no advantage over ASCII other than a cent character

22. Word Length
DEC used 12-bit word length and 6-bit code for each character in PDP-8
Computer Controls Corporation announced DDP-116, a 16-bit minicomputer
Almost beat out DEC but…
Purchased by Honeywell in 1966 and withered away (Honeywell focused on Mainframes)

23. Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA)
Wanted to link computers
Computers ran on different systems
Used descendant of CCC’s DDP-116, DDP 516 to be IMP (Interface message processor) to translate for machines
Created ARPANET
nodes
nodes
nodes
Dismantled in 1988
Precursor to the internet
IMPs replaced by software and hardware for the internet

24. Data General Edson DeCastro leaves DEC
Upset after 16-bit design is turned down for PDP-X
Founded Data General Spring 1968
Proved brainpower was all that mattered
Ken Olsen believed DeCastro developed PDP-X while at DEC
Data General launched Nova, 1968
Elegant machine, not the PDP-X
Incorporated advances in circuits and packaging

25. Data General SuperNova launched in 1971
Used ICs for RAM instead of Magnetic Core
It had always been possible, just 10x more expensive
Not first, University of Illinois used 256-bit memory chips for central memory for super computing device
Paved the way for Data General
SuperNova established semiconductor for RAM in commercial computing

26. Intel
Robert Noyce, Gordon Moore leave Fairchild in July 1968 to found Intel
Andrew Grove joined them later
Focused on using semiconductor for memory
Name stands for integrated electronics
Introduced 1,024-bit dynamic RAM chip, the 1103
By 1971, magnetic core was done

27. PDP-11
January 1969, DEC being out competed by 16-bit minis (they only had PDP-8/I, a 12 bit)
March 1969 – 4 DEC Engineers fly out to Pittsburgh to consult with Gordon Bell at Carnegie Mellon
Bell shot down proposed design but liked a subproject of Harold McFarlanes
DEC used McFarland’s idea and announced PDP-11 in Jan 1970
Regained lost ground for the company
Re-defined the concept of the bus

28. PDP-11 Invention of the Unibus Every machine had a bus
Breakthrough by connecting nearly all systems to common 56-line bus
Made customization easy for customers (expansion, specialized demand)
Still used in computers today

29. DEC Growth speeds up PDP-8 PDP-11
From 900 employees in 1965 to 5800 employees in 1970
PDP-11
Grew to employees in 1977
170,000 PDP units sold in 1970s
Recession hit in the early 1970s, DEC and Data General both grew significantly

30. General Breakthroughs
PDP-11 architecture
Opened minicomputer up to traditional mainframe computer applications
Programmed in languages like FORTRANN not machine code
Came with programming tools (edit, finding, bug correction
Nova breakthrough design and packaging

31. General Breakthroughs

32. Jeopardy Team A Team B Team Bryant IBM Minis Government Miscellaneous1 2 3 4 5

33. Bibliography
Ceruzzi, P. (2003). A history of modern computing. (2nd ed., pp ). Salisbury, UK: Techset Composition Ltd.
Leemans, H., & Dedene, G. (2005). Grosch's law: a statistical illusion?. Retrieved from
Gesswein, D. (2010). Online pdp-8 home page, run a pdp-8. Retrieved from
IBM's 360 and Early 370 Systems. Emerson W. Pugh, Lyle R. Johnson and John H. Palmer. (Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press, 1991), pp
Gootee, T. (2004, July 19). Making pcbs. Retrieved from
Kilby, J. (2000). Autobiography. Retrieved from
Twin Cities Public Television. , & ScienCentral, Inc (1999).Robert Noyce. Retrieved from
Last Minuteman II missile silo imploded : Dec 22, The implosion at Hotel-11 ends the Minuteman II implosion process started by the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty
National Museum of the US Air Force. (2009, January 8).Minuteman 2 mission procedures trainer. Retrieved from

34. Bibliography
Fairchild Semiconductor. (2012). Fairchild company history. Retrieved from
Computer History Museum. (2012). Aerospace systems are first the applications for ics in computers. Retrieved from
Bush, Edgar G. "The Use of Solid Circuits in Satellite Instrumentation," Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD, NASA Technical Note D-1758 (July 1964).
Kilby, Jack S. "Invention of the Integrated Circuit," IEEE Transactions on Electron Devices, Vol. ED-23, No 7 (July 1976).
Spicer, Dag. "One Giant Leap: The Apollo Guidance Computer," Dr Dobb’s Journal (August 12, 2001).
Fairchild Journal of Semiconductor Progress, (July-August 1977).
Bell; Gordon; Strecker, Bill (1975). "What We Learned From the PDP-11". microsoft.com. p. 139. Retrieved September 10, 2008.
Eckhouse, jr., Richard H.; Morris, L. Robert (1979), Microcomputer Systems Organization, Programming and Applications (PDP-11), Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey