Oxford University Press, USA The Man behind the Microchip: Robert Noyce and the Invention of Silicon Valley

I have read many histories of Silicon Valley including thosethat focused on chips, personal computers, venture capitalistsetcetera, but this one is the best. While there is little herespecifically about the rise of personal computers this bookfills in a tremendous amount of the early history of thedevelopment of the chip, while also providing a very revealingportrait of Robert Noyce. The range of information here is verygreat. However, the book is focused on Noyce, its just that itsheds light on a great number of events that are part of theSilicon Valley lore. Leslie Berlin has done a very thorough job here. RobertNoyce was the subject of her Phd and she has been a visitingscholar at Stanford while writing this book. The book has afull set of notes so that the information she is revealing canbe traced back to the sources she has used. She has clearly hadsubstantial help from Robert Noyce's family as there are anumber of elements of this story that could only come from them.It appears that she has interviewed a large number of Noyce'scolleagues including people like Gordon Moore, Andy Grove, andCharlie Sporck and has pretty much gone through almosteverything written by Robert Noyce or about him. There is a listof about 10 Theses she references and references to each ofRobert Noyce's testimonies before congress. Ms Berlin has eveninterviewed the women who had affairs with Robert Noyce. The small town background of Mr Noyce has been written aboutbefore. However, it is clear that the entire family was verywell educated going back a couple generations. It is revealedthat Bob's older brothers also set a strong pace as they weresalutorian and Valadictorians of their class in high school.One of Bob's older brothers ended up becoming a professor ofChemistry at Berkeley. It is clear that Bob was able to havea fairly normal social life at Grinell while amassing a recordstrong enough to gain admission to MITs physics graduate school.Clearly Noyce's interest in the transistor started early as heand his Physics professor were beating their way through Belltechnical reports to understand this work. (probably the reportsthat were enshrined in Shockley's 1955 book on semiconductors) As Ms Berlin makes clear, Noyce struggled a little bitat MIT, having to do some remedial work to fill in holes inhis background. Not surprising since he came from a programwith 2 physics professors. However, apparrently one of hisfellow students, went to one of the faculty members on hisbehalf and without telling Noyce to ask them to give him morefinancial aid as he considered Noyce one of the two smartestguys in the physics grad program. (the other is revealed to beGell-Mann, not bad company) Clearly the faculty agreed to someextent as after a year he was given a fellowship. Not bad togo from struggling to a fellowship in a year in pretty fastcompany. Ms Berlin also discusses Noyce's thesis in a bit ofdetail and does it in a way that the layman can appreciate howit fits in. For me it explains why Noyce chose to work underNottingham, not widely known, when he could have worked for thefar more widely known Slater. With the typical care she hasbrought to this project it is clear that Ms Berlin has hadPhysicists examine this thesis and discuss its contents withher. Noyce was making measurments of surface states. As thiswould be pretty relevant to his work related to the planarprocess as well as the starting of the first MOS company it wasworth doing. I found the section on the Shockley Semiconductor lab alsovery revealing. It has always been clear that William Shockleywas a better scientist than businessman, however Ms Berlinreveals many of the disfunctional characteristics of that grouplike never before. Shockley's limitations as a people managerare clearly mapped. I was not aware of a number of thingsregarding the breakout of the Fairchild traitors, specificallythat Noyce was the last of this group to become committed andthe difficulty this group had in finding an investor. The Fairchild era also contains a number of revelations forme. The evolution of the planar process out of the solutionof a relability problem on the discretes is new to me. It alsobecomes much clearer as to which groups had particular expertiseand went to break off and commercialize their ideas separately.Fairchild as a source of entrepreneurs is legendary, but herethere is more detail that indicated the frustrations thatmay have lead to it and the expertise of the players. I knewthat Charlie Sporck had been the manufacturing manager atFairchild but I didnt know he had been the Operating managerfor a period or that Fairchild's inability to recruit againstother startups because the NY gang refused to allow stockoptions was a problem for them. Essentially Sporck wasFairchild's Andy Grove. Anybody in the valley has probablyexperienced this phenomenon. I'm amazed that Fairchild wassuffering from this in the early 60s. Similarly there are many revealing insights about thestartup of Intel. In the context it becomes easier tounderstand the idea behind the company. I did not know thatTed Hoff was hired to be the computer architecture guru on therecommendation of Stanford faculty and the Busicom project thatlead to the early Microprocessor is discussed in more detailthan I've seen before. In summary this is an outstanding book which is done withgreat care and attention to detail by a young historian. Thebook reads very easily for both the person who is nontechnicalas well as someone with a tech background. There is plenty herefor all. I think Ms Berlin should get the Pulitzer prize forbiography for this one.

Very good book about an underknown character who was a major influence on our modern world

The book has a fascinating subject and is well written. It fully captures and holds your attention. The author is very deft in handling arguments or controversies Noyce was involved in, presenting facts without bias. The book is even-handed and intelligent.From a literary point of view, I think the book raises the bar in terms of biograpical research. I've read a lot of biographies, and I've never seen one as well documented as this. Almost every sentenced can be traced back to its source. In addition, it has original research. I believe the author is responsible for discovering that Noyce's NDR diode was at least coincident with Esaki's Noble-prize winning work. Overall, an excellent read.

As one of the thousands of young engineers who made the great migration to the Bay Area almost 50 years ago, I really enjoyed reading Ms. Berlin's biography of Robert Noyce and her wide ranging narrative of the early days of Silicon Valley. I found her account of the founding companies and major players, not only very informative, but also an absorbing story of an evolving technology. I was of course, familiar with Noyce's achievements in the development of the microchip, but there was much about the man, his character and personality and the details of his work that was a revelation to me.Being an electronic system designer in the early 60's, I was also oppressed by the "tyranny of numbers" that was becoming more difficult to deal with as systems became larger and more complex over time. I was involved with a number of efforts to defeat the tyranny by the use of various discrete construction techniques. They were all bound to fail since they could do little to minimize the connectivity problem. The appearance of the microchip on the electronic scene was a true revolution that ultimately made possible the wonders we take for granted, from the powerful little computer on which I'm typing this, to the tiny programmable DSP (digital signal processor) hearing aid I wear. We all owe a great debt to Robert Noyce, who would have shared the Noble Prize in Physics with Jack Kilby had he lived another 10 years. As I write this, memorials for Jack Kilby, who died less than a week ago, are being held world wide. Another giant has fallen!I highly recommend Leslie Berlin's book, which is far more than just a biography of an individual, notwithstanding one as compelling as Noyce. It's also an edifying history of a technology and industry, cleverly disguised as a darned good read.I agree with the previous reviewer, a Pulitzer for Ms. Berlin!

Boring description of the life of a man. If you expect to find anything intresting about the *work* of Robert Noyce look elsewehere. For instance, the book "Bit by Bit" has a description of his work that worths more than this book in its 3 hundred pages.