Silicon for industry: Component design, mass production, and the move to commercial markets at Fairchild semiconductor, 1960–1967

Abstract

Most accounts of the microelectronics revolution have emphasized the role of military patronage and procurement in the shaping of silicon technology and the consolidation of the semiconductor industry. Little attention has been devoted, however, to the silicon industry's shift from military to commercial markets in the early and mid‐1960s. Drawing on an examination of Fairchild Semiconductor, the firm that initiated this shift, this essay argues that the silicon industry's expansion into non‐military markets was indissociable from deep changes in manufacturing, organizational structures as well as component and system technologies. Special attention is devoted to the ways in which Fairchild created a user base for its products in the computer and consumer electronics industries by hiring engineers from these sectors and encouraging them to design components as well as applications for the firm's potential customers. This article also examines how Fairchild introduced mass production techniques from the automotive and electrical industries, delocalized its assembly operations to South‐East Asia, and developed new packaging techniques to meet the cost and manufacturing requirements of commercial users. This article is intended to contribute to recent interest in the role of user ‐ supplier relations in technological change and, more specifically, to the question of the pervasive use of silicon components across a wide range of industrial sectors, a central phenomenon in the history of industrialized economies since the 1960s.