Fairchild Semiconductor was founded in 1957 as only the third company in what later became Silicon Valley. The company manufactured high performance power, electronics, analog, and optoelectronics products including transistors and integrated circuits.
In 1959, Fairchild researchers led by Robert Noyce invented the integrated circuit, which was the first whole circuit that could be made on a single chip using silicon. On April 25th, 1961, the US patent office awarded Noyce with the first patent for an integrated circuit, spurring Fairchild to grow from 12 employees to 12,000 employees within a couple of years.
Many of Fairchild's founders went on to establish other companies, helping Silicon Valley to become what it is today.
After Robert Noyce and Gordon Moore left in 1968 and founded Intel, Fairchild faded away from the forefront of the semiconductor industry for several decades. The company returned to relevancy in 1997 after going through a leveraged buyout, as they began acquiring other tech companies and developing new products.
In September of 2016, Fairchild Semiconductor was acquired by ON Semiconductor. The integration of the two companies was completed on October 30th, 2017.
Timeline
People
Aditya Agrawal
Employee
Albert Markowski
Employee
Ali Husain
Employee
Allan Schiffman
Employee
Andrew Cohen
Employee
Andrew Moore
Employee
Anindita Bhattacharya
Employee
Arvind Ravishunkar
Employee
Bennett Brooks
Employee
Bernadet Quiles
Employee
Bijan (Seyed) Javadi
Employee
Bo Peng
Employee
Brian McMinn
Employee
Candice Brown Elliott
Employee
Caroline Lee
Employee
Charles Poulin
Employee
Cydney Runions
Employee
Daniel Pruessner
Employee
Darren Larsen
Employee
David McIntyre
Employee
Dean Putney
Employee
Dean Raby
Employee
Dibyendu Rana
Employee
Dixie Dunn
Employee
Elle Lorrie Marfia
Employee
Further reading
Robert Noyce and Fairchild Semiconductor
Leslie R Berlin