Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory, the primary lab of the Shockley Transistor Company, was the first company to work on silicon semiconductor devices in what came to be known as Silicon Valley. It was purchased by Clevite in 1960, and officially closed shortly after being sold to ITT in 1968. Engineers leaving the company stayed in the area; engineers leaving these companies did the same, and soon an entire industry built up in the San Francisco ...
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Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory, the primary lab of the Shockley Transistor Company, was the first company to work on silicon semiconductor devices in what came to be known as Silicon Valley. It was purchased by Clevite in 1960, and officially closed shortly after being sold to ITT in 1968. Engineers leaving the company stayed in the area; engineers leaving these companies did the same, and soon an entire industry built up in the San Francisco Bay Area.
William Shockley had studied his undergraduate degree at Caltech and moved east to complete his PhD at MIT. He graduated in 1936 and immediately started work at Bell Labs. Through the 1930s and 40s he worked on electron devices, and increasingly with semiconductor materials. This led to the 1947 creation of the first transistor, in partnership with John Bardeen, Walter Brattain and others. Through the early 1950s a series of events led to Shockley becoming increasingly upset with Bell's management, and especially what he saw as a...
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