Robert Noyce

Robert Norton Noyce (1927-1990) coinvented the integrated circuit, an electronic component which is considered to be among the twentieth century's most significant technological developments.

The laptop computer, the ignition control in a modern automobile, the "brain" of a VCR that allows for its programming, and thousands of other computing devices all depend for their operation on the integrated circuit that Robert Noyce coinvented. He was not only a brilliant inventor, credited with more than a dozen patents for semiconductor devices and processes, but a forceful businessman who founded the Fairchild Semiconductor Corporation and the Intel Corporation and who, at the time of his death, was president and CEO of Sematech.

Robert Norton Noyce was born December 12, 1927, in Burlington, Iowa, the third of four boys in the family. His parents were Ralph Noyce, a minister who worked for the Iowa Conference of Congregational Churches, and Harriet Norton Noyce. Growing up in a two-story church-owned house in Grinnell, a small town in central Iowa, Noyce was gifted in many areas, excelling in sports, music, and acting as well as academic work. He exhibited a talent for math and science while in high school and took the Grinnell college freshman physics course in his senior year. Noyce went on to receive his baccalaureate degree in physics from Grinnell, graduating Phi Beta Kappa in 1949. It was at Grinnell that he was introduced to the transistor (an electronic device that allows a small current to control a larger one in another location) by his mentor Grant Gale, head of Grinnell's physics department. Noyce was excited by the invention, seeing it as freeing electronics from the constraints of the bulky and inefficient vacuum tube. After he received his Ph.D. in physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1954, Noyce--who had no interest in pure research--started working for Philco in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where the company was making semiconductors (materials whose conductivity of an electrical current puts them midway between conductors and insulators).

After three years, Noyce became convinced Philco did not have as much interest in transistors as he did. By chance in 1956 he was asked by William Shockley, Nobel laureate and coinventor of the transistor, to come work for him in California. Excited by the opportunity to develop state-of-the-art transistor technology, Noyce moved to Palo Alto, which is located in an area that came to be known as Silicon Valley (named for the silicon compounds used in the manufacture of computer chips). But Noyce was no happier with Shockley than he had been with Philco; both Shockley's management style and the direction of his work--which ignored transistors--were disappointing. In 1957 Noyce left with seven other Shockley engineers to form a new company, financed by Fairchild Camera and Instrument, to be called Fairchild Semiconductor. At age twenty-nine, Noyce was chosen as the new corporation's leader.

Invents the Integrated Circuit

The first important development during the early years at Fairchild was the 1958 invention, by Jean Hoerni (an ex-Shockley scientist), of a process to protect the elements on a transistor from contaminants during manufacturing. This was called the planar process, and involved laying down a layer of silicon oxide over the transistor's elements. In 1959, after prodding from one of his patent attorneys to find more applications for the planar process, Noyce took the next step of putting several electronic components, such as resistors and transistors, on the same chip and layering them over with silicon oxide. Combining components in this fashion eliminated the need to wire individual transistors to each other and made possible tremendous reductions in the size of circuit components with a corresponding increase in the speed of their operation. The integrated circuit, or microchip as it became commonly known, had been born. More than one person, however, was working toward this invention at the same time. Jack Kilby of Texas Instruments had devised an integrated circuit the year before, but it had no commercial application. Nevertheless, both Kilby and Noyce are considered coinventors of the integrated circuit. In 1959 Noyce applied for a semiconductor integrated circuit patent using his process, which was awarded in 1961.

Both technological advances and competition in the new microchip industry increased rapidly. The number of transistors that could be put on a microchip grew from ten in 1964 to one thousand in 1969 to thirty-two thousand in 1975. (By 1993 up to 3.1 million transistors could be put on a 2.15-inch-square microprocessor chip.) The number of manufacturers eventually grew from two (Fairchild and Shockley) to dozens. During the 1960s Noyce's company was the leading producer of microchips, and by 1968 he was a millionaire. However, Noyce still felt constricted at Fairchild; he wanted more control and so--along with Gordon Moore (also a former Shockley employee)--he formed Intel in Santa Clara, California. Intel went to work making semiconductor memory, or data storage. Subsequently, Ted Hoff, an Intel scientist, invented the microprocessor and propelled Intel into the forefront of the industry. By 1982 Intel could claim to have pioneered three-quarters of the previous decade's advances in microtechnology.

Noyce's management style could be called "roll up your sleeves." He shunned fancy corporate cars, offices, and furnishings in favor of a less-structured, relaxed working environment in which everyone contributed and no one benefited from lavish perquisites. Becoming chairman of the board of Intel in 1974, he left the work of daily operations behind him, founding and later becoming chairman of the Semiconductor Industry Association. In 1980 Noyce was honored with the National Medal of Science and in 1983, the same year that Intel's sales reached one billion dollars, he was made a member of the National Inventor's Hall of Fame. He was dubbed the Mayor of Silicon Valley during the 1980s, not only for his scientific contributions but also for his role as a spokesperson for the industry. Noyce spent much of his later career working to improve the international competitiveness of American industry. Early on he recognized the strengths of foreign competitors in the electronics market and the corresponding weaknesses of domestic companies. In 1988 Noyce took charge of Sematech, a consortium of semiconductor manufacturers working together and with the United States government to increase U.S. competitiveness in the world marketplace.

Noyce was married twice. His first marriage to Elizabeth Bottomley ended in divorce (which he attributed to his intense involvement in his work); the couple had four children together. In 1975 he married Ann Bowers, who was then Intel's personnel director. Noyce enjoyed reading Hemingway, flying his own airplane, hang gliding, and scuba diving. He believed that microelectronics would continue to advance in complexity and sophistication well beyond its current state, leading to the question of what use society would make of the technology. Noyce died on June 3, 1990, of a sudden heart attack.

Associated Organizations

Historical Context

• The Life and Times of Robert Noyce (1927-1990)
• At the time of Noyce's birth:
• Calvin Coolidge was 30th U.S. President
• Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences was founded
• Charles Lindbergh made first nonstop solo flight across Atlantic
• Holland Tunnel opened in New York City
• U.S. sent troops to China
• At the time of Noyce's death:
• Soviet Union ended Communist Party monopoly on power
• George Bush was 41st U.S. President
• Nelson Mandela was released from prison in South Africa
• Sandinista rule in Nicaragua ended
• Iraqi troops invaded Kuwait
• The times:
• 1939-1945: World War II
• 1940s-1950s: Abstract Expressionism
• 1950-1953: Korean War
• Mid-1950s-1970s: Pop Art
• 1957-1975: Vietnam War
• 1960-present: Postmodernist Period in American Literature
• 1967-1970: Nigerian Civil War
• 1971: Pakistan Civil War
• 1983: American Invasion of Grenada
• Noyce's contemporaries:
• Neil Armstrong (1930-) American astronaut
• Rupert Murdoch (1931-) American businessman
• Jane Goodall (1934-) British enthologist
• Robert Woodrow Wilson (1936-) American physicist
• Jack Nicklaus (1940-) American golfer
• Anne Tyler (1941-) American writer
• Jay D. Hair (1945-) American environmentalist
• Margaret Joan Geller (1947-) American astronomer
• Gerald Adams (1948-) Irish politician
• Ernesto Zedillo (1951-) Mexican president
• Selected world events:
• 1928: Disney cartoon Steamboat Willie introduced Mickey Mouse
• 1931: New York's Waldorf-Astoria Hotel opened
• 1935: Mobster Dutch Schulz shot and mortally wounded
• 1938: Kristallnacht (Night of Broken Glass) erupted in Germany
• 1943: Pentagon completed in Arlington, Virginia
• 1946: First session of UN General Assembly opened in London
• 1951: Angola and Mozambique became provinces of Portugal
• 1956: Sudan became an independent nation
• 1960: Soviet Union shot down an American U-2 spy plane
• 1963: Martin Luther King Jr delivered his "I have a dream" speech

Further Reading

• Bonner, M., W. L. Boyd, and J. A. Allen, Robert N. Noyce, 1927-1990, Sematech, 1990.
• Encyclopedia of Computer Science, Van Nostrand, 1993, pp. 522-523.
• Fifty Who Made the Difference, Villard Books, 1984, pp. 270-303.
• Palfreman, Jon, and Doron Swade, The Dream Machine, BBC Books, 1991.
• Slater, Robert, Portraits in Silicon, MIT Press, 1987.