El primer microprocesador

El primer microprocesador

The planar process was a logical outgrowth of the diffusion and oxide masking process. Planarization was the creation of physicist Jean Hoerni of newly-formed Fairchild Semiconductor. Hoerni observed the production limitations of conventional 3-dimensional transistor designs (e.g., the "mesa" transistor). Hoerni reasoned that a design based on a "plain" would be superior. Thus, the planar transistor, as the name implies, was flat. Flattening the mesa enabled electrical connections to be made, not laboriously by hand, but by depositing an evaporated metal film on appropriate portions of the semiconductor wafer. Using a lithographic process of a series of etched and plated regions on a thin, flat surface or wafer of silicon, the "chip" was born out of the planar transistor. Like the printing process itself, the planar process allowed for significantly greater rates of production output at even higher yields.

More importantly, the planar process enabled the integration of circuits on a single substrate since electrical connections between circuits could be accomplished internal to the chip. Robert Noyce of Fairchild quickly recognized this. As Gordon Moore recalls:

"When we were patenting this [planar transistor] we recognized it was a significant change, and the patent attorney asked us if we really thought through all the ramifications of it. And we hadn't, so Noyce got a group together to see what they could come up with and right away he saw that this gave us a reason now you could run the metal up over the top without shorting out the junctions, so you could actually connect this one to the next-door neighbor or some other thing."

Fairchild introduced the first planar transistor in 1959 and the first planar IC in 1961. Moore views the 1959 innovation of the planar transistor as the origin of "Moore's Law."

Perhaps more than any other single process innovation, planarization set the industry on its historical exponential pace of progress. As one early industrial technologist noted, "The planar process is the key to the whole of semiconductor work." George Gilder's account in his 1989 treatise, Microcosm, is more eloquent:

"Known as the planar integrated circuit, Fairchild's concept comprised the essential device and process that dominates the industry today. . . Ultimately it moved the industry deep into the microcosm..."

Bob Schaller. The Origin, Nature, and Implications of "MOORE'S LAW" The Benchmark of Progress in Semiconductor Electronics. 1996. http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/people/gray/Moore_Law.html

En 1968, Robert Noyce decide abandonar la compañía Fairchild Semiconductor, para poder fundar en 1969, junto a Andrew Grove y Gordon Moore, la compañía Integrated Electronics, conocida como Intel.

En 1970, Intel consiguió almacenar cadenas de ceros y unos, desarrollando la primera memoria RAM.  En 1971, consiguen integrar la memoria RAM en la CPU, con lo que consiguen crear el primer ordenador comercial al alcance del consumidor, el Altair 8800. En 1971, nació el primer microprocesador, denominado 4004, compuesto por 4 chips desarrollados por Ted Hoff y otros 2 chips de memoria. Poco después, Intel comercializó el 8008. En 1981, Intel desarrolló los procesadores de 16 bits 8086 y los de 8 bits 8088. Estos procesadores permitieron a IBM, por primera vez, confeccionar el primer PC. En 1982, Intel desarrolló el 286 capaz de ofrecer compatibilidad con sus predecesores.

En 1985, llegó el 386, un microprocesador de 32 bits. Fue adoptado por Compaq para su computadora personal Compaq Deskpro 386. En 1989 la compañía desarrolló Intel 486 de 1,2 millones de transistores. En 1990, Noyce investigaba acerca de los microchips, hasta que el 3 de junio falleció tras un fallo cardíaco. Después de su muerte, la compañía Intel prosiguió desarrollando los microprocesadores a través de la línea Pentium, consiguiendo que la mayoría de computadoras tengan como cerebro, un Pentium o un Celeron. En el año 2000, Jack Kilby recibe el Premio Nobel de Física, conjuntamente con Robert Noyce, por su trabajo acerca de los microprocesadores

The exemplary technology of this era is the microchip—the computer inscribed on a tiny piece of processed material. More than any other invention, this device epitomizes the overthrow of matter. Consider a parable of the microchip once told by Gordon Moore, chairman of Intel and a founding father of Silicon Valley: “We needed a substrate for our chip. So we looked at the substrate of the earth itself. It was mostly sand. So we used that. “We needed a metal conductor for the wires and switches on the chip. We looked at all the metals in the earth and found alutninum was the most abundant. So we used that. “We needed an insulator and too saw that the silicon in sand mixed with the oxygen in the air to form silicon dioxide—a kind of glass. The perfect insulator to protect the chip. So we used that.” The result was a technology—metal oxide silicon (MOS), made from metal, sand, and air—in which materials costs are less than 1 percent of total expense. Combining millions of components on a single chip, operating in billionths of seconds, these devices transcend most of the previous constraints of matter. The most valuable substance in this, the fundamental product of the era, is the idea for the design.

The overthrow of matter in economics is made possible by the previous overthrow of matter in physics. All the cascading devaluations of matter in the global economy and society originate with the fundamental transfiguration of matter in quantum science. Max Planck, the discoverer of the quantum, offered the key when he asserted that the new science entailed a movement from the “visible and directly controllable to the invisible sphere, from the macrocosm to the microcosm.” The macrocosm may be defined as the visible domain of matter, seen from the outside and ruled by the laws of classical physics. The microcosm is the invisible domain, ruled and revealed by the laws of modem physics.

Microcosm The Quantum Revolution In Economics And Technology .  Pagina 18
Gilder, George