please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page . learn how and when to remove these template messages this article includes a list of references but its sources remain unclear because it has insufficient inline citations . please help to improve this article by introducing more precise citations . august 2016 learn how and when to remove this template message this article possibly contains original research . please improve it by verifying the claims made and adding inline citations . statements consisting only of original research should be removed . august 2016 learn how and when to remove this template message this article needs additional citations for verification . please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources . unsourced material may be challenged and removed . august 2016 learn how and when to remove this template message learn how and when to remove this template message fairchild semiconductor international inc. type public company traded as nasdaq fcs industry semiconductors computer networks lighting circuit protection founded 1 october 1957 founder sherman fairchild arthur rock headquarters 1272 borregas ave sunnyvale california united states area served worldwide key people mark thompson chairman & ceo 1 mark s. frey executive vice president cfo & treasurer 1 products integrated circuits signal processors motor controllers field effect transistors revenue us 1.405 billion 2012 2 operating income us 44.7 million 2012 2 net income us 24.6 million 2012 2 total assets us 1.796 billion 2013 3 us 1.8839 billion 2012 3 total equity us 1.3671 billion 2012 2 number of employees 9000 parent on semiconductor website www.fairchildsemi.com fairchild semiconductor international inc. is an american semiconductor company based in san jose california . originally founded in 1957 as a division of fairchild camera and instrument it became a pioneer in the manufacturing of transistors and of integrated circuits . schlumberger bought the firm in 1979 and sold it to national semiconductor in 1987 ; fairchild was spun off as an independent company again in 1997 . the company has locations in the united states at san jose california ; south portland maine ; west jordan utah ; mountaintop pennsylvania . outside the u.s. it operates locations in singapore ; bucheon south korea ; penang malaysia ; suzhou china ; and cebu philippines ; among others . a design center has been launched in pune india . contents 1 company history 1.1 1950s 1.2 1960s 1.3 1970s 1.4 1980s 1.5 1990s 1.6 2000s 1.7 2010s 2 alumni 3 see also 4 references 5 external links company history edit 1950s edit from left to right gordon moore c. sheldon roberts eugene kleiner robert noyce victor grinich julius blank jean hoerni and jay last . 1960 the historic marker at the fairchild building at which the traitorous eight set up shop and the first commercially practical integrated circuit was invented the building at 844 east charleston road palo alto california where the first commercially practical integrated circuit was invented in 1956 william shockley opened shockley semiconductor laboratory as a division of beckman instruments in mountain view california ; his plan was to develop a new type of 4 layer diode that would work faster and have more uses than then current transistors . at first he attempted to hire some of his former colleagues from bell labs but none were willing to move to the west coast or work with shockley again at that time . shockley then founded the core of the new company with what he considered the best and brightest graduates coming out of american engineering schools . while shockley was effective as a recruiter he was less effective as a manager . a core group of shockley employees later known as the traitorous eight became unhappy with his management of the company . the eight men were julius blank victor grinich jean hoerni eugene kleiner jay last gordon moore robert noyce and sheldon roberts . looking for funding on their own project they turned to sherman fairchild s fairchild camera and instrument an eastern u.s. company with considerable military contracts . 4 in 1957 the fairchild semiconductor division was started with plans to make silicon transistors at a time when germanium was still the most common material for semiconductor use . according to sherman fairchild noyce s impassioned presentation of his vision was the reason sherman fairchild had agreed to create the semiconductor division for the traitorous eight . noyce advocated the use of silicon as substrate since the material costs would consist of sand and a few fine wires the major cost would be in the manufacturing process . noyce also expressed his belief that silicon semiconductors would herald the start of disposable appliances that due to cheap electronic components would not be repaired but merely discarded when worn out . 5 their first transistors were of the silicon mesa variety innovative for their time but with several drawbacks . later fairchild pioneered the planar process developed by jean hoerni in 1958 which was a huge improvement transistors could be made more easily at a lower cost and with higher performance . fairchild s planar process made most other transistor processes obsolete . one casualty of this was philco s transistor division which had just built a 40 million plant to make their now totally obsolete germanium padt process transistors . within a few years every other transistor company copied or licensed the fairchild planar process . their first marketed transistor was the 2n697 1958 initially a mesa transistor 6 and was a huge success . the first batch of 100 was sold to ibm for 150 a piece . the first planar silicon transistor was the 2n1613 developed by jean hoerni . its introduction was a historic event in semiconductor history . only two years later 1960 they had managed to build a circuit with four transistors on a single wafer of silicon thereby creating the first silicon integrated circuit texas instruments jack kilby had developed an integrated circuit made of germanium on september 12 1958 and was awarded a u.s. patent . the company grew from twelve to twelve thousand employees and was soon making 130 million a year . 1960s edit fairchild s noyce and texas instrument s kilby had independently invented the integrated circuit ic based on bipolar technology . in 1960 noyce invented the planar integrated circuit . the industry preferred fairchild s invention over texas instruments because the transistors in planar ics were interconnected by a thin film deposit whereas texas instruments invention required fine wires to connect the individual circuits . noyce s invention was enabled by the planar process developed by jean hoerni . 7 in the early 1960s fairchild r & d began development of mosfet metal oxide semiconductor field effect transistor technology which had been pioneered by rca and bell labs . the experiments led to fairchild s development of mos integrated circuits . however the instability of the technology would not lead to manufacturing production of mos integrated circuits in fairchild . in 1963 fairchild hired robert widlar to design analog operational amplifiers using fairchild s process . since fairchild s processes were optimized for digital circuits widlar collaborated with process engineer dave talbert . the collaboration resulted in two revolutionary products a702 and a709 . hence fairchild dominated the analog integrated circuit market having introduced the first ic operational amplifiers or op amps bob widlar s a702 in 1964 and a709 . in 1968 fairchild introduced david fullagar s a741 which became the most popular ic op amp of all time . by 1965 fairchild s process improvements had brought low cost manufacturing to the semiconductor industry making fairchild nearly the only profitable semiconductor manufacturer in the united states . fairchild dominated the market in dtl op amps and mainframe computer custom circuits . in 1965 fairchild opened a semiconductor assembly plant on a navajo reservation in shiprock new mexico . 8 at its peak the plant employed over a thousand navajos the majority of whom were women . in the shiprock dedication commemorative brochure released by the fairchild company the indian women circuit makers were celebrated as culture workers who produced circuits as part of the reproductive labor of expressing navajo culture rather than merely for wages . this claim was based on the opinion that circuits of the electronic chips had a mere resemblance with the rectangular patterns on the navajo rugs . paul driscoll the shiprock plant manager spoke of the untapped wealth of natural characteristics of the navajo ... the inherent flexibility and dexterity of the indians . although highly successful during its operation the plant was closed in 1975 . 9 fairchild had not initially done well in the digital integrated circuit market . their first line of ics was the micrologic rtl resistor transistor logic line which was used in the apollo guidance computer . it had the advantage of being extremely simple each inverter consisted of just one transistor and two resistors . the logic family had many drawbacks that had made it marginal for commercial purposes and not well suited for military applications the logic could only tolerate about 100 millivolts of noise far too low for comfort . it was a while before fairchild relied on more robust designs such as dtl diode transistor logic which had much better noise margins . sales due to fairchild semiconductor division had doubled each year and by the mid 1960s comprised two thirds of total sales of the parent company . in 1966 fairchild s sales were second to those of texas instruments followed in third place by motorola . noyce was rewarded with the position of corporate vice president and hence became the de facto head of the semiconductor division . however internal trouble at fairchild began to surface with a drop in earnings in 1967 . there was increasing competition from newer start ups . the semiconductor division situated in mountain view and palo alto california was actually managed by executives from syosset new york who visited the california sites once a year even though the semiconductor division earned most of the profits of the company . fairchild s president at that time john carter had used all the profits to fund acquisitions of unprofitable ventures . noyce s position on fairchild s executive staff was consistently compromised by sherman fairchild s faction . charles e. sporck was noyce s operations manager . sporck was reputed to run the tightest operation in the world . sporck pierre lamond and most managers had grown upset and disillusioned with corporate focus on unprofitable ventures at the expense of the semiconductor division . executives at the semiconductor division were allotted substantially fewer stock options compared to other divisions . in march 1967 sporck was hired away by peter j. sprague to national semiconductor . sporck brought with him four other fairchild personnel . 10 actually lamond had previously assembled a team of fairchild managers in preparation to defect to plessey a british company . lamond had recruited sporck to be his own boss . when negotiations with plessey broke down over stock options lamond and sporck succumbed to widlar s and talbert s who were already employed at national semiconductor suggestion that they look to national semiconductor . 11 widlar and talbert had earlier left fairchild to join molectro which was later acquired by national semiconductor . 12 in the fall of 1967 fairchild suffered a loss for the first time since 1958 and announced write offs of 4 million due to excess capacity which contributed to a total loss of 7.6 million . profits had sunk to 0.50 a share compared to 3 a share the previous year while the value of the stock dropped in half . in december 1967 the board ordered carter to sell off all of fairchild s unprofitable ventures . carter responded to the order by resigning abruptly . furthermore fairchild s dtl technology was being