To be immersed in the challenges of another time is the measure of well-written history. Zygmont engages the reader in great stories of the growth microchip industry: the innovations, the personalities, the visionaries and the unbelievers, and the rapid market shifts.
Zygmont brings alive the time when bonders would stitch around each bad transistor on a chip because the yield was 10 to 25 percent. Circuit designers were professionally dismissive of prefabricated expensive multipurpose circuits where the individual components were inaccessible for testing in an IC. As the chapters move the reader quickly along, the solutions to the problems leave one refreshed and a bit in awe.
Zygmont describes complex concepts in a few clear and precise paragraphs: diffused versus grown junction transistors, Jean Hoerni's planar technology, Frank Wanlass using an electron beam evaporator to vaporize sodium in the MOS process. A Web-hosted reviewer commented, "The depth of the treatments of all of these subjects is just enough to tell you what you need to know about the major events and players, though I have to admit, in many places I would have willingly accepted more detail." Microchip might make a fine gift for a summer intern or a curious family member.
Allow yourself to get past the occasional error introduced by relying on first-hand memories of Shockely's friends. Zygmont clearly goofed when he failed to correctly note Shockley's undergraduate alma mater as Cal Tech. However, wonderfully frank first-hand recollections of early days and the self-effacing comments of Gordon Moore make up for a lack of rigorous precision. Varying corporate cultures, skills at patent writing, and royalty negotiations along with market timing and shifting teams are part of the tale. Fundamental IC tales are told along with the applications that grew the consumer market and allowed fabrication costs to drop. Linder at Motorola developed frequency synthesizers for cellular phones and then John Mitchell sold the technology to the FCC to get the spectrum licensing needed. They took cell phones out of police trunks and put them into everyone's hands. Wang and Kuplow enabled the explosion of office automation. Fosnough, Forestner, and McConnell brought microprocessor controls to the microwave oven and overnight heated up their careers and the home appliance business.
As a business technology writer for Business Week, Inc., and CFO and staff writer for High Technology and Omni, Zygmont covers how early technical leaders had to find whole new segments of consumer acceptance. Sometimes motivated by military research goals and other times enticed by the rewards of mass-market consumption, IC producers are now culture shapers.

Anne O'Neill
SSCS Executive Director
a.oneill@ieee.org