In approximately 1969, William Regitz of Honeywell was looking for a semiconductor company to share in the development of a novel DRAM cell developed by himself or one of his coworkers. Intel was very interested in the technology and started a development program that initially produced the i1102, and although working parts were produced there were problems with the 1102. Based on work Ted Hoff had done looking at possible 3 transistor DRAM cell topologies, and the idea of a buried contact, probably by Ted Rowe, a schematic for an alternative part was developed by Leslie Vadasz and Joel Karp and the chip design was assigned to Bob Abbott. The resulting product was the i1103 and was introduced to the market in October 1970. The part originally had yield issues and John Reed, the product engineer had to make several revisions to the part before "good" yields and performance were achieved. The i1103 was manufactured on a 6 mask silicon gate PMOS process with 8µm minimum features. The resulting product had a 2,400µm2 memory cell size, a die size just under 10mm2 and sold for around $21.
1970 - IBM replaces magnetic memory with transistor based memory [1]
The IBM System/370 Model 145 introduced all transistor memory.
1970 - 2.25 inch silicon wafers introduced [24]
1971 - UVEPROM invented [11]
Shortly after joining Intel in 1969 and after the 1kbit DRAM was released, Dov Frohman invented UVEPROM an electrically programmable memory that holds the programmed values until erased by intense ultraviolet light. Frohman invented, developed, designed and fabricated the first UVEPROM.
1971 - Microprocessor invented [10],[8],[11]
By 1969 the concept of a programmable processor (microprocessor) had been around the industry for some time, but no one had the ability to fabricate anything sufficiently complex. Intel had recently developed a silicon gate process that offered the ability to fabricate more complex circuits than other manufacturers had at the time. Japanese calculator company Busicom asked Intel to produce a 12 chip set for desktop calculators, and although Intel was focused on memory at the time they were struggling enough to consider the project. Ted Hoff at Intel felt that the design 12 chip design was too complex and decided to look at a programmable solution. The combination of the Busicom application and the new Intel process capability came together and Intel management decided to support the project accepting a contract for $60,000. Hoff designed a simple instruction set that could be implemented in relatively few transistors. For 6 months the project languished until 1970 when Federico Faggin joined Intel and was assigned the task of designing the chip. On his first day of work Faggin was confronted by Masatoshi Shima, a Busicom representative disappointed with the lack of progress of the project over the last six months. After some negotiations Busicom agreed to continue the project and after 8 months of 12 to 16 hour days the first silicon came out - non-functional. The problem was simple manufacturing error and by 1971 the 4004 the first 4-bit microprocessor was in production. The 4004 was a 3 chip set with a 2kbit ROM chip, a 320bit RAM chip and the 4bit processor each housed in a 16 pin DIP package. The 4004 processor required roughly 2,300 transistors to implement, used a silicon gate PMOS process with 10µm linewidths, had a 108KHz clock speed and a die size of 13.5mm2. Ironically Intel didn't own the design and it wasn't until Busicom asked for a price reduction that Intel received rights to the technology. By 1972 Faggin working with Shima, who had now joined Intel, developed the 8008 an 8-bit successor to the 4004. In 1974 Intel introduced the 8080, the first commercially successful microprocessor.
1972 - Digital Signal Processor invented
John Murtha, et.al., of Westinghouse filed for a patent on a "Programmable Digital Signal Processor". The patent not only discloses the DSP but also describes saturation arithmetic, a key concept to prevent overflow that is ubiquitous in DSPs today. In 1974 U.S. Patent # 3,812,470 was issued to Murtha, et.al., and assigned to Westinghouse.
1972 - MOSFET Scaling [18]
In 1970, IBM was searching for a technology to lower the cost of RAM to make it competitive on a cost/bit basis with magnetic disks. Dale Critchlow's group at IBM was charged with achieving 1 millicent/bit. Reporting to Critchlow was a group managed by Bob Dennard and including Fritz Gaensslen and Larry Kuhn. Bob Dennard, the inventor of the 1 transistor DRAM cell was a strong proponent of that approach, but realized that a significant shrink of the cell size was required to meet the cost target. Critchlow and Dennard decided to take an existing 5µm technology shrink it to 1µm. Dennard and Gaensslen derived a constant electric field scaling theory and it's limitations. The remarkable result was that if the electric field was kept constant when a MOSFET was shrunk, nearly every other transistor characteristic improved! The group went on to produce devices with 1µm design rules and a paper was presented on the results at IEDM in 1972. The work continued to be refined and at 1974 IEDM Dennard, et.al., presented the classic paper on scaling "Design of Ion-Implanted MOSFET's with Very Small Physical Dimensions". Although it was not generally recognized at the time, scaling theory would eventually end the supremacy of bipolar ICs. Bipolar technology does not scale the way MOSFET technology does and by the early nineties MOSFET technology was the dominant high-end - high-speed technology.
1972 - Intel 8008
The 8008 was the 8 bit successor to the 4004 and was used in the Mark-8 computer, one of the first home computers [22]. Manufactured in the same silicon gate PMOS process with 10µm linewidths, 1 polysilicon layer and 1 metal layer, the 8008 had 3,500 transistors, a 200kHz clock speed and a 15.2mm2 die size.
1973 - Commercial BiCMOS ICs [17]
Polinsky, Schade and Keller of RCA disclose "CMOS-Bipolar Monolithic Integrated Circuit Technology" at IEDM. The metal gate BiCMOS technology is used to make operational amplifiers.
1973 - Projection Printer Invented [13]
Perkin Elmer (now SVG Lithography) introduces the projection printer. The combination of projection printing with positive photoresist revolutionized photolithography in the mid 1970s. Defect rate were dramatically lower without mask-wafer contact and yields improved substantially.
1973 - 3 inch silicon wafers introduced [24]
1974 - First 4Kbit DRAM with 1T Cell [12]
The 4Kbit DRAM introduced the 1 transistor cell and the silicon gate NMOS process. The 3T to 1T memory cell transition is the first major DRAM transition. The silicon gate NMOS process required 6 masks and had 8µm minimum features. The resulting product had a 1,280µm2 memory cell size, a die size of approximately 15mm2 and sold for around $18 at introduction.
1974 - Intel 8080
The 8080 was used in the Altair computer [22]. The 8080 was manufactured in a silicon gate NMOS process with 6µm linewidths, 1 polysilicon layer and 1 metal layer, the 8080 had 6,000 transistors, a 2MHz clock speed and a 20.0mm2 die size.
1975 - 100mm silicon wafers introduced [24]
1976 - 16Kbit DRAM introduced [12]
The 16Kbit DRAM introduced dual polysilicon layers allowing more efficient memory cell layout. The single to dual polysilicon layer transition is the second major DRAM transition. The dual polysilicon NMOS process required 7 masks and had 5µm minimum features. The resulting product had a 500µm2 memory cell size, a die size of approximately 19mm2 and sold for around $33 at introduction.
1978 - Intel 8086/8088
The 8088 was selected by IBM for the IBM PC, the biggest semiconductor design win ever. The 8088/8086 were manufactured in a silicon gate NMOS process with 3µm linewidths, 1 polysilicon layer and 1 metal layer, the 8088/8086 had 29,000 transistors, a 5 to 10MHz clock speed and a 28.6mm2 die size. Both processors were identical 16 bit designs with the 8086 having a 16 bit bus and the 8088 having an 8 bit bus.
1978 - Step and Repeat System invented
GCA introduces the step and repeat system for wafer exposure. Step and repeat revolutionizes photolithography in the eighties increasing resolution and enabling linewidth shrinks [13].
1978 - Semiconductor Industry passes $10-billion. [14]
1979 - 64Kbit DRAM introduced [12]
The 64Kbit DRAM was produced on a dual polysilicon NMOS process requiring 8 to 10 masks and had 3µm minimum features. The resulting product had a 180µm2 memory cell size, a die size of approximately 31mm2 and sold for around $47 at introduction.
