Book read: The Man Behind the Micro Chip by Leslie Berlin

A biography and historical account of one of the founders of Intel, Robert Noyce, and his influence on the founding of Silicon Valley.

The account covers his early life, university education, and early work on the transistor. His steps into the corporate world with Fairchild Semiconductor, Intel, and lastly a government backed industry association SEMATECH designed to pool knowledge and know-how for the good of the US semiconductor industry.

A really detailed account, about a fast moving industry that probably is a little careless in charting its history. Berlin really gets through a lot of facts and figures but still keeps a personal account of Noyce the man and how influential he was in setting up and investing in other start ups in the Valley.

I always wonder how industries do not lose their know-how and production techniques. Often the book talks about chance discoveries, or productions lines losing "the process" to making high yield chips. Part of the SEMATECH consortium was to try and protect this hard discovered knowledge.

The book also described the Japanese manufacturers of DRAM flooding the American market and under cutting prices - effectively selling at a loss in the late 1980s. I can remember DRAM prices rising in the early 90s, an effect of this maybe. Intel got out of memory and pioneered the microprocessor although almost dropped the idea a couple of times in their history.

Noyce himself was an engaging personality and a great influence on those around him, a hard working life was rewarded only with death just a couple of weeks into retirement.

Inspirational read, and someone anyone who works in this field should read about.