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INTRODUCTION

When we think of today’s computer systems, we take many things for granted. No longer are computers the size of rooms, cost several hundred thousands of dollars, or weigh several thousand pounds. Instead we expect computers to only weigh a couple of pounds, have a reasonable price and for some to have the capability to fit in our briefcase, carry-on or pocket. Just the ability to have modern conveniences such as cell phones requires tiny microchips embedded inside the phone for it even to work. For these things to have come about, dedicated men and women from around the world sought tirelessly to improve on what many thought at the time, to be an oddity or a waste.

HISTORY
One of these dedicated individuals was named Robert Noyce. Born on December 12th, 1927 in Burlington, Iowa, (Noyce Wiki, 2007) Robert Noyce was born 17 years before the first computer, the Mark I, designed in 1944 (Mark I Wiki, 2007). Noyce was the son of a preacher, and ever since Noyce was a child, showed fascination in tinkering and figuring out how things worked (IEEEVM, 2007). Noyce enrolled at Grinnell College as a physics major. While there, Noyce always exhibited a high level of confidence, he was always the center of attention (PBS, 2007). Faculty at Grinnell quickly realized Noyce’s intellect, and offered Noyce a job to be a lab assistant, a position traditionally reserved for graduate students (Berlin, 2005). He soon was teaching a few classes, grading papers and explaining experiments to other students, all while he was still a freshman (Berlin, 2005). There was a famous story of Noyce stealing a pig from a local farmer for a college luau. This prank nearly got him expelled from college, however when Noyce personally confessed and offered to pay the farmer for the pig, the charges were dropped (PBS, 2007). While at Grinnell College, one of his professors showed Noyce two of the very first transistors ever to come out (Ideafinder, 2007). Noyce was immediately addicted and spent hours learning how transistors were made and used. Robert Noyce graduated top of his class at Grinnell College and continued to pursue his education. Later, when Noyce went to MIT for his Ph.D. in 1948, Noyce found that he knew more about transistors than many of his professors (PBS, 2007).

EARLY CAREER
Noyce then went on to marry Elizabeth Bottomley in 1953 upon receiving his Ph.D. (ecommerce, 2007). He began work for Philco, an electronic firm, producing transistors. This though, was soon to end. Noyce decided to work at Shockley Semiconductor, so in a single day in 1956, Noyce flew his family to California, bought a house, and went to talk to Shockley, a Nobel prizewinning physicist, to ask for a job (Ideafinder, 2007). Shockley agreed, and Robert Noyce began working with roughly twenty other young men. Most of the people that Shockley had hired were less than 30 years of age and had either just received their doctorates, or had worked exclusively for academic or government labs (Berlin, 2005). Almost no one there had ever worked with semiconductors, which was still considered to be extremely complex and restricted knowledge.

In mid-April, while Noyce was still moving his family’s belongings into their new house in California, Shockley arranged a welcoming party for all the new employees. Noyce was still in Philadelphia, but was determined to make it to the party, so with his car fully loaded, Noyce drove across country in pouring rain, only stopping for gas, and made it to the party only a few hours late. This impressed a fellow recruit so much that later, when he was asked about the incident, he said:

“He hadn’t shaved, he looked like he’d been living in his suit for a week – and he was thirsty. There was a big goddamn bowl of martinis on the table there. Noyce picks up the goddamn bowl, and starts drinking [from] it. Then he passes out. I said to myself, ‘This is going to be a whole lot of fun’ (Berlin, 2005).”

Working for Shockley though proved to be a disappointment. Shockley had a difficult personality and his strict adherence to ideas frustrated Noyce and several of the workers. So in 1957, Noyce and seven other employees, sometimes known as the Traitorous Eight, left Shockley Semiconductor and created their own company, Fairchild Semiconductor in Mountain View, California (IEEEVM, 2007).

Making silicon transistors was a painstakingly slow process as each processor had to be wired together by hand. Noyce and Fairchild’s co-founder Gordon Moore began to look for new ways to connect transistors. They came up with a way to combine transistors in a solid block of silicon, which is referred to now as an integrated circuit. Noyce and Moore however share this invention with another inventor, Jack Kilby, due to the fact that Kilby came up with the invention at virtually the same time (IEEEVM, 2007). The integrated circuit was one of Noyce’s steps to revolutionizing the semiconductor industry.

INTEL
In 1968, eleven years after founding Fairchild Semiconductor, Noyce and Moore left the company to found another company that specialized in developing integrated circuits solely for the computer industry. Thus, he and Moore founded Integrated Electronics or as it was later shortened, Intel. During the initial creation of the company, Noyce was the primary recruiter for the company. He looked for talent at Stanford as well as his network of associates and friends. One of his old friends from MIT and Philco, Jim Angell, who now taught at MIT in the engineering department, suggested that Noyce take a look at one of his postdoctoral students. This young man, Angell swore, was so gifted with computers, that he could tell a program was running properly just by the rhythm of the lights on the display (Berlin, 2005). This young man’s name was Ted Hoff, who soon would further revolutionize the computer industry in the coming years.

It was this student who launched Intel into the forefront of the computing world. Within a couple years, Ted Hoff, under Noyce’s leadership, created the first memory chip as well as the first microprocessor. The microchip that Intel’s engineers developed had the ability to store computer language which was hailed as the first, true CPU. Intel also created the first random access computer memory chip, otherwise known as RAM (IEEEVM, 2007). By 1974, Intel was so successful, that Noyce no longer managed day-to-day management and instead focused on industry wide concerns such as staving off foreign competition (Golden, 1999). Noyce had learned from Shockley’s mistakes, and gave all of Intel’s employee’s room to foster creative innovations and development. It was this style of management that helped shape Silicon Valley’s working style (PBS, 2007).

This company has grown from its humble beginnings, to one of the leading computer chip manufactures in the world. Intel was outperforming every competitor until 1983, when Japanese semiconductor manufactures had drastically reduced the profitability of Intel. It was then, that Intel decided to steer the company to only make microprocessors, and by the end of the 1980’s, this decision had proven successful and Intel embarked on a 10 year period of unprecedented growth as the most profitable hardware supplier in the PC industry (Intel Wiki, 2007). In 1988, Noyce was put in charge of Sematech, which was a consortium of semiconductor manufactories who worked together along with the U.S. Government to increase U.S. competitiveness in the world marketplace (Bookrags, 2007).

Intel still remains one of the leading chip manufacturers in the world. In 2006, Intel posted $37.32 billion dollars in revenue, with over $18 billion in profit (Yahoo, 2007). Intel currently employees over 48 thousand, and is ranked 49 in Fortune’s 500 magazine. Intel also is considered by Fortune to be one of the Best Companies to Work For in 2007 (CNN, 2007).

FINAL DAYS
As time went on, Robert Noyce began to allow others to run the company that he had helped start. He worked on keeping ahead of the foreign electronics industries through several venues such as his work with Sematech and the U.S. Government. As Noyce began to relinquish control of the company, he found interest in a variety of other activities. He enjoyed hang gliding, scuba diving as well as piloting several of his own private aircraft (Bookrags, 2007). Robert Noyce died at the age of 62 of a heart attack in July of 1990 at his home in Austin, Texas (Ideafinder, 2007).

AWARDS
Robert Noyce has been honored many times throughout the years. He won every major honor in his field, short of the Nobel Prize (ecommerce, 2007). He was awarded numerous medals: In 1974, he was awarded the AEA Medal of Achievement, in 1978, the IEEE Medal of Honor, in 1979 he was awarded the I.E.E. Faraday medal, in 1980, the National Medal of Science and the National Medal of Technology in 1987 (ecommerce, 2007).

In addition to the medals, Noyce was inducted to the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 1983 when Intel’s sales first reached one billion dollars, and in 1989, Noyce was inducted in the U.S. Business Hall of Fame. He was also dubbed the Mayor of Silicon Valley during the 1980’s for his role as a spokesperson as well as scientific contributions. Noyce was also awarded the AFIPS Harry Goode Award for leadership in computer science, the Ballantine Medal of the Franklin Institute, the IEEE Cledo Brunetti Award for the invention of the integrated circuit, and the National Academy of Engineering’s first Charles Stark Draper Prize (ecommerce, 2007).

CONCLUSION
As can be seen, Robert Noyce had a monumental effect on the computer industry. He helped shape what our world is today through his inventions and dedication. Because of his inventions and influence, almost everything that we use electronically today is a result of his work. His management style helped create a framework for many companies today like Google or 3M, where innovation and creativity is highly sought. These highly innovated and creative companies today are in the foreground of technology along with Intel because of their unique view of management and goals. Robert Noyce was always highly regarded by his peers for his technical brilliance and gracious personality (IEEEVM, 2007). He truly help guide us into the era of the Information Renaissance.

WORKS CITED

Berlin, (2007). The Man Behind the Microchip. Retrieved November 6, 2007, from Themanbehindthemicrochip Web site: http://www.themanbehindthemicrochip.com/excerpts.html
Bookrags, (2007). Robert Noyce. Retrieved November 6, 2007, from Bookrags Web site: http://www.bookrags.com/Robert_Noyce
CNN, (2007). Intel. Retrieved November 6, 2007, from CNN Web site: http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune500/snapshots/672.html
ecommerce, (2007). Robert Noyce - Recognition of Achievements. Retrieved November 6, 2007, from ecommerce Web site: http://ecommerce.hostip.info/pages/808/Noyce-Robert-RECOGNITION-ACHIEVEMENTS.html
Golden, (1999). Robert Noyce: Microchip. Retrieved November 6, 2007, from Time Web site: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,990601,00.html?iid=chix-sphere
Ideafinder, (2007). Inventor Robert Noyce Biography. Retrieved November 6, 2007, from Ideafinder Web site: http://www.ideafinder.com/history/inventors/noyce.htm
IEEEEVM, IEEEVM: Robert Noyce. Retrieved November 5, 2007, from IEEE Virtual Museum Web site: http://www.ieee-virtual-museum.org/collection/people.php?id=1234633&lid=1
PBS, (2007). Robert Noyce. Retrieved November 6, 2007, from PBS Web site: http://www.pbs.org/transistor/album1/addlbios/noyce.html
Wikipedia, (2007). Robert Noyce. Retrieved November 5, 2007, from Wikipedia Web site: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Noyce
Wikipedia, (2007). Mark I. Retrieved November 5, 2007, from Wikipedia Web site: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvard_Mark_I
Wikipedia, (2007). Intel. Retrieved November 6, 2007, from Wikipedia Web site: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel
Yahoo, (2007). Key Statistics for Intel. Retrieved November 6, 2007, from Yahoo Finance Web site: http://finance.yahoo.com/q/ks?s=INTC