ping
Posted on 05/02/2009 1:18:25 PM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach
In microchip design, as in life, small things sometimes add up to big things. Dream up a clever microcircuit, get it sculpted in a sliver of silicon, and your little creation may unleash a technological revolution. It happened with the Intel 8088 microprocessor. And the Mostek MK4096 4-kilobit DRAM. And the Texas Instruments TMS32010 digital signal processor.
Among the many great chips that have emerged from fabs during the half-century reign of the integrated circuit, a small group stands out. Their designs proved so cutting-edge, so out of the box, so ahead of their time, that we are left groping for more technology clichés to describe them. Suffice it to say that they gave us the technology that made our brief, otherwise tedious existence in this universe worth living.
We’ve compiled here a list of 25 ICs that we think deserve the best spot on the mantelpiece of the house that Jack Kilby and Robert Noyce built. Some have become enduring objects of worship among the chiperati: the Signetics 555 timer, for example. Others, such as the Fairchild 741 operational amplifier, became textbook design examples. Some, like Microchip Technology’s PIC microcontrollers, have sold billions, and are still doing so. A precious few, like Toshiba’s flash memory, created whole new markets. And one, at least, became a geeky reference in popular culture. Question: What processor powers Bender, the alcoholic, chain-smoking, morally reprehensible robot in “Futurama”? Answer: MOS Technology’s 6502.
What these chips have in common is that they’re part of the reason why engineers don’t get out enough.
(Excerpt) Read more at spectrum.ieee.org ...
Helped build the production line for the 805X family. man what a pain in the a$$. Pushed technology to the very edge of it’s ability. Spent 6 weeks chasing down DI water contamination that caused the thin oxide to fry.
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By the same token, 'Woz did it, not Jobs.'
Ahhh...within order, there is chaos...for the uninitiated.
OMG. I havent heard that name since the days when I used to program EPROMS so many eons ago. Signetics...what a blast from the past.
Thank you for tickling my synapses.
“...the monolithic voltage regulator, as exemplified by the 7805 family, should be on the list.”
Excellent point. And I agree.
I learned assembly language on a 6502 (Apple ][). It didn’t do multiplication or division. You had to program your own.
with my beer is out'a sight!!!!
Me too.
I was at Signetics between 1971-73.
Chips und salsa mit bier ist sehr gut meine freunde.
Just stay away from buffalo chips....
Likewise, FRiends! I climbed aboard the Semiconductor roller coaster at Signetics (Sunnyvale) in early 74 (when Corning Glass owned it) and worked there in various aspects of manufacturing for 17 years (through the Philips acquisition). Started out as a electronics tech supporting several fabs, gravitated into ion implantation because of my nuclear physics background, and left as a Sr Process Engr in 1991.
Moved to Silicon Systems in Santa Cruz in 91 when they were owned by TDK (yeah, the Nipponese tape company) and went through their acquisition by TI. Made Sr Principal engr and was elected to TI group Technical Staff.
To me, Shockley, Fairchild, and Signetics acted as incubator and 'university' for most of the key players in the integrated circuit industry - at least from the manufacturing end. A lot of 'graduates' from those three companies went on to form their own companies and make millions. (Sadly, I'm not one of them.)
I was strictly a user,...of mainframes of all of this mysterious stuff...worrying about care and feeding of operating systems for the mainline IBM 360 and followons....
bttt
There’s an 8051 on its way to Pluto right now — the 8051 forms the brain of the UV camera on New Horizons.
Or why not the 8008 or 8080?
Any idea how many 8051 (8031-8751) type processors are actually in the field now?
Probably because the IBM PC used the 8088. And while PC's were around before then, the IBM really made the micocomputer industry take off.
Still some of the others of the era; contemporary "compatibles" used the 8086. And side by side comparisons did show slightly better performance because they used, with the exception of expansion cards, the full 16bit bus.
IBM was just being cheap. And granted, they were taking a chance on the PC so I suppose I can't fault them from a purely business point of view, just a technical one.
They figured it out with the AT (i80286) but then blew it with micro-channel. We used to hack DOS' command.com with a hex editor and change the copyright notice to read "IBM, Ignorant Business Men".
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