Shockley, a madman in Silicon Valley _ 1200 words

When the time goes back to the thirties and forties of the last century, the electronic technology at that time had not yet gone out of the "vacuum tube" stage, and the so-called creation of a real electronic industry was just a beautiful dream of those daring scientists. As the cradle of technology, Silicon Valley was just an ordinary technology research park of Stanford University at that time. Except for Hewlett-Packard, a garage company that only invested more than 500 dollars, it was almost empty. It is the emergence of "transistor" technology that shocked the whole technical world when its inventor William? ; Shockley is at AT & amp； After T's Bell experiment announced the birth of a new technology that can replace the "vacuum tube" electronic signal amplifier, electronic technology finally found an industrialized golden road. Silicon, the raw material used to produce chips, has become a symbol of new technology, hence the name Silicon Valley, and has soared since then. Today, the semiconductor chip industry has formed a scale of hundreds of billions of dollars every year. Therefore, shockley has become the biggest contributor to Silicon Valley and the "father of Silicon Valley" in the spiritual sense. He was not only named "one of the greatest scientists in the 20th century" by Time magazine, but also won the 1956 Nobel Prize in Physics for inventing the transistor.

However, the maverick shockley left a rather complicated impression. On the one hand, he is a technical leader and the most respected scientist in the industry. On the other hand, he is an arrogant, arrogant and even arrogant troublemaker. Many people who have worked with him will almost complain, "He is a difficult person to get along with." Many geniuses, including Moore and Noyce (another founder of Intel), were employed by him and they all left him. Nevertheless, shockley, with mixed evaluation, still occupies the highest position in the technical field. As Moore commented, "He invented the transistor, which made Silicon Valley famous and started a great industry. We are all beneficiaries. "

Like many technical geniuses, shockley chose to pursue a doctorate at MIT after graduation. At that time, he was already well-known in academic circles, and some of his technical papers were frequently seen in newspapers. After receiving his doctorate, he went directly to Bell Laboratories. At that time, when World War II broke out, he participated in the initial nuclear weapons research in the United States and cooperated with others to develop the world's first nuclear reactor. Because of a series of contributions in military technology, he also won a national medal and became the highest-ranking scientist in history. After World War II, he successfully became the head of Bell Laboratories and shifted his research focus to the field of electronic technology.

At that time, "vacuum tube" was a very popular electronic signal amplifier, but its application was limited by its large volume, high temperature and short life. Shockley decided to study a new solid component to replace the "vacuum tube". Soon, he found two experts in this field. After several failures, they finally found the best substitute-point contact transistor at the end of 1947+0 1, and officially announced the birth of "transistor" on 12+06. All the media called this invention "miracle", and more and more people began to pay attention to transistor technology. 1948, his R&D team applied for the patent of transistor technology, 1949, and he put forward the concept of sandwich transistor, which is a smaller and easier heat dissipation silicon wafer material. A year later, the junction transistor was successfully developed, and an electronic technology revolution broke out.

1955, the technology of high-precision silicon wafer is quite mature, and transistor radio came out at that time. After seeing the huge commercial potential hidden behind the silicon wafer, shockley resigned from Bell Laboratories and established Shockley Semiconductor Laboratories in Silicon Valley, specializing in the production of silicon wafer transistors. He recruited technical geniuses like Moore and Noyce to teach them how to produce high-precision silicon chips and apply them to electronic products. However, due to his lack of management experience and unrealistic ideas, he finally lost market opportunities. Two years later, those technical geniuses left him and started their own company with the technology they learned from him.

With more and more companies around transistor technology, Silicon Valley has gradually become the birthplace of technology entrepreneurship, but shockley has been unable to dominate the technology market. 1963, he sold his company and returned to teach at Stanford University, completely ending his business career. Unfortunately, shockley suffered from cancer and died in August 1989. "He has made immeasurable contributions to this great electronic industry," Moore wrote in an article in Time magazine. "No matter how famous he is, as long as he thinks his wisdom permeates everything from supercomputers to ordinary phone cards, there is no doubt that he will always be a respected mentor in the technical field."