Principles of Plasma Discharges and Materials Processing Book

From start to finish, "The Chip" was a markedly insightful, thorough, broad-sweeping, and satisfying account of the inception of the micro-processor revolution . The author-- T.R. Reid, a journalist and technical writer-- provides an intriguing account of the seminal steps taken by the technology industry of the mid-20th century that brought humanity from relying on vacuum tubes as the core component of electronics (radios, computers, etc.) to semi-conductor "chips" comprised of billions of transistors that govern our daily habits and way of life far more than we might realize. The book's primary focus is on the solid-state physics and engineering advancements that predicated the solution to the Tyranny of Numbers problem faced by engineers trying to build more complex circuits out of the revolutionary new electronic component: the transistor; two engineers, Jack Kilby and Robert Noyce, astoundingly conceived of a solution to the problem within 6 months of one another, approaching the problem from two different perspectives and almost simultaneously settling on "The Monolithic Idea".

All throughout, Reid does not hesitate to provide the reader with sufficient descriptions of the underlying technologies at each stage of humanity's technological progression towards microchips as they exist today. Perhaps not for the technology averse reader, this book is a wonderful chronicle of potentially the most important series of scientific and engineering advancements of the 20th century-- Advancements that led to the ubiquity of such devices as the smart phone, the personal computer, and all of micro-electronics that now permeate the fabric of society in the 21st century.

It all started with the vacuum tube, and De Forest's insight into the fact that the "Edison Effect" (i.e. thermionic emission- the transmission of electric current through a vacuum, from filament to conductor) could be intricately leveraged such that an alternating current through a filament could induce a direct current in a nearby metal plate; With the insertion of a positively or negatively charged "grid" (or "screen") placed between the filament and the metal plate, De Forest showed that small variances in the charge applied to the grid could produce large variances in the current induced in the metal plate. Thus, the first vacuum tube amplifier was born, laying the foundations for radio sets and televisions that proliferated through American living rooms during the early and mid 20th century. Perhaps an equally important discovery was the fact that the current induced in the metal plate could be "switched" on or off thousands of times per second; this property of vacuum tubes provided the foundation for building the world's first computers (such as the ENIAC). Albeit state of the art at the time, the rather crude technology had many drawbacks: The large, power hungry, vacuum tubes had filaments that frequently burned out, and often generated a large amount of residual heat, making maintenance of contraptions based on the technology quite unwieldy.

Luckily for the world, William Shockley invented the transistor in 1947 at Bell Labs, using the semiconductor silicon-dioxide, to provide such an electronic switching and amplifying device that improved upon the vacuum tube in virtually every way: it generated orders of magnitude less heat, provided the same current amplification, could switch on and off much more quickly (billions of time per second!), and was the size of a pencil eraser (orders of magnitude smaller than existing vacuum tubes!). Subsequently, construction of far more complex circuits was enabled, and within a few years after the invention of the transistor, the industry had almost all but abandoned the vacuum tubes that were so recently the foundation of electronics at the time. It seemed like the industry had found its way out of the technological rut of the time, and for the next 5 years or so made quick strides in the miniaturization of most existing electronic circuit components; However, as much as the transistor served as the critical component of these smaller, more energy efficient electronic circuits, there was another problem electronics engineers would come to face just several years following the ubiquity of the semiconductor transistor. Pleasingly, the author goes into sufficient detail regarding the solid-state physics that begot such a silicon transistor; I greatly appreciated the explanations of the utility of semi-conductors in conjunction with the Boron/Arsenic doping process to allow for such current switching and electronic signal amplification.

As engineers attempted to build the complex circuits they could conceive, they quickly ran into the seemingly insurmountable problem of manually wiring together the electronic components (transistors, resistors, capacitors, etc.) of their increasingly complex circuit designs. Although the transistor theoretically permitted more complex and reliable circuit construction, the way in which the components had to be tediously wired together (by hand!) brought the industry advancements that fell out of the invention of the transistor to a stand-still. In the late 1950's, a solution to the Tyranny of Numbers was the prime directive of many great minds (and electronics companies) at the time, and the one to find such a solution would reap the benefits of a several-years head start on the production of circuit with the degree of complexity which the industry desired. As it turned out, two engineers, Jack Kilby at Texas Instruments (TI), and Robert Noyce of Fairchild Semiconductor, almost simultaneously happened upon an ingenious solution (in fact, the same solution) to the numerical tyranny that plagued the industry: The Monolithic Idea.

In 1958, both Jack Kilby and Robert Noyce conceived of a solution to the Tyranny of Numbers: if transistors could be made of silicon, then why couldn't other circuit components? Kilby and Noyce both had the idea that resistors, capacitors, and other critical electronic circuit components could be fabricated on silicon wafers too. Without going into the solid-state physics that made such an idea possible, both engineers conceived of such a solution from two different perspectives: Kilby concocted his solution in an ad-hoc, piecemeal fashion, imprecisely (but functionally!) building a single silicon circuit into a single slab of silicon with "flying wires" coming out at all angles. Conversely, Noyce postulated from the perspective of manufacturing tons of transistors on a single silicon wafer (the silicon transistor "fab" process): If a thin layer of silicon-dioxide was lain across the top of the N/P doped silicon "three-layer cake", one could insert wires through the top silicon layer to connect transistors composed of the underlying three layers to other transistors in the same wafer; Furthermore, instead of using external wires as connections, one could print thin copper connections between the components atop the top silicon-dioxide layer as part of the manufacturing process! Though both engineers had the insight to construct other crucial circuit components out of silicon dioxide, Kilby beat Noyce to the punch by about 6 months; However, Noyce conceived of the variant of the idea which necessarily integrated seamlessly into the existing manufacturing process of silicon wafers and the transistor manufacturing process. Thus, the following set of chapters that cover the resulting legal battle over patent awards between TI and Fairchild, speedy advancements in the production of micro-electronics, the influence such a discovery had on the notion of personal computing, and intriguing stories such as Kilby's invention of the pocket-calculator at TI (in the mid 1960's) are all deeply intriguing and captivating.

In the latter part of the book, the author takes liberty to diverge from the purely technological account of history and begins to frame the microprocessor revolution within the context of broader societal issues. For instance, one of the core reasons why micro-electronics development and production took off as quickly as it did was due to the US government's interest in putting a man on the moon; As a result, the US government poured hundreds of millions of dollars into the technology companies that were leading the charge on the silicon chip fabrication processes, and could thus be considered as one of the core reason why such rapid engineering progress was made. Arguably, without the USA's interest in shrinking the size of computers such that one could be launched into orbit and with the computational resources (increasing linearly w/ the shrinking size of the transistor) to guide such a mission, the pervasiveness of micro-electronics could be decades behind where it is today. Reid also goes on a brief tangent into the international competition of the electronics markets, focusing mostly on the effective production and market tactics of Japanese electronics manufacturers and the engineering difficulties inherent in the production of micro-electronics. Though this topic was not the reason I picked up the book, these chapter covering Japan's repeated successful entry into the international micro-electronics markets (starting with radio and television) and seemingly inevitable dominance captured my attention as well as the rest of the book; I found that Reid's coupling of the aforementioned advancements in microchip engineering and manufacturing with characterizations of the international political and economic dynamics at the time allowed me to conceive of such a technological and cultural revolution more clearly.

In my opinion, "The Chip" is a remarkable account of a series of several seminal inventions and advancements in electronics, the star of which being the silicon microchip. With digressions into other foundational concepts that paved the way for the micro-electronics revolution-- such as Shannon's insight into using Boolean Logic to construct circuits that execute computations-- Reid presents an eloquently candid and entertaining account of most relevant scientific and engineering discoveries with sufficient technical depth, keeping the reader stimulated and engaged. Complete with comprehensive explanations of the underlying physics, engineering, computational, and manufacturing concepts and processes that are necessary to viscerally grok the magnitude of the creativity of the ground-breaking discoveries that led to the advent of micro-electronics' penetration into modern society, Reid characterizes the very life-blood of our contemporary society: That is, there is virtually no aspect of modern society that the micro-processor revolution hasn't significantly altered and/or become the foundation of, since it's inception. If there's a book out there that presents the incredible story of the microprocessor revolution of the mid 20th century in such breadth and depth without sacrificing readability, I'd be astounded.