Traitorous eight in the context of AMD

⭐ Core Definition: Traitorous eight

The traitorous eight was a group of eight employees who left Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory in 1957 to found Fairchild Semiconductor. William Shockley had in 1956 recruited a group of young Ph.D. graduates with the goal to develop and produce new semiconductor devices. While Shockley had received a Nobel Prize in Physics and was an experienced researcher and teacher, his management of the group was authoritarian and unpopular. This was accentuated by Shockley's research focus not proving fruitful. After the demand for Shockley to be replaced was rebuffed, the eight left to form their own company.

Shockley described their leaving as a "betrayal." The eight who left Shockley Semiconductor were Julius Blank, Victor Grinich, Jean Hoerni, Eugene Kleiner, Jay Last, Gordon Moore, Robert Noyce, and Sheldon Roberts. In August 1957, they reached an agreement with Sherman Fairchild, and on September 18, 1957, they formed Fairchild Semiconductor. The newly founded Fairchild Semiconductor soon grew into a leader in the semiconductor industry. In 1960, it became an incubator of Silicon Valley and was directly or indirectly involved in the creation of dozens of corporations, including Intel and AMD. These many spin-off companies came to be known as "Fairchildren."

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⭐ Core Definition: Traitorous eight
Traitorous eight in the context of Fairchild Semiconductor
Traitorous eight in the context of Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory

Traitorous eight in the context of Fairchild Semiconductor

Fairchild Semiconductor International, Inc. was an American semiconductor company based in San Jose, California. It was founded in 1957 as a division of Fairchild Camera and Instrument by the "traitorous eight" who defected from Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory. It became a pioneer in the manufacturing of transistors and of integrated circuits. Schlumberger bought the firm in 1979 and sold it to National Semiconductor in 1987; Fairchild was spun off as an independent company again in 1997. In September 2016, Fairchild was acquired by ON Semiconductor.

The company had locations in the United States in San Jose, California; San Rafael, California; South Portland, Maine; West Jordan, Utah; and Mountaintop, Pennsylvania. Outside the US, it operated locations in Australia; Singapore; Bucheon, South Korea; Penang, Malaysia; Suzhou, China; and Cebu, Philippines, among others.

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Traitorous eight in the context of Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory

Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory, later known as Shockley Transistor Corporation, was a pioneering semiconductor developer founded by William Shockley, and funded by Beckman Instruments, Inc., in 1955. It was the first high technology company, in what came to be known as Silicon Valley, to work on silicon-based semiconductor devices.

In 1957, the eight leading scientists resigned, and became the core of what would later become Fairchild Semiconductor. Shockley Semiconductor never recovered from this departure;it was purchased by Clevite in 1960, then sold to ITT in 1968, and shortly after, officially closed

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⭐ Core Definition: Traitorous eight

Traitorous eight in the context of Fairchild Semiconductor

Traitorous eight in the context of Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory