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Electronic News was a publication that covered the electronics industry, from semiconductor equipment and materials to military/aerospace electronics to supercomputers. It was originally a weekly trade newspaper, which covered all aspects of the electronics industry, including semiconductors, computers, software, communications, space and even television electronics.
Fairchild Publications started the newspaper in 1957, as a complement to its other trade newspapers, including Women's Wear Daily , Home Furnishing Daily, Supermarket News, among others. At its peak in 1984, Electronic News took in $25 million in revenue with margins above 50%.[ citation needed ] The following year, the newspaper began losing advertising and influence to rival Electronic Engineering Times , beginning a decline that eventually led to the newspaper's demise.[ citation needed ]
In 1971, journalist Don Hoefler published a series of articles entitled "Silicon Valley, USA" in Electronic News. This is thought to be the first published use of the phrase Silicon Valley to describe the area of the southern part of the San Francisco Bay Area in northern California, United States, an area known for its concentration of companies making semiconductors, among them Intel, LSI Logic, and National Semiconductor. [1]
Also in 1971, Electronic News was where Intel first advertised the Intel 4004 microprocessor, considered to be the first single-chip microprocessor. [2]
A decade later, in 1981, when IBM's top-secret Project Acorn emerged as the IBM Personal Computer - the PC - the first reports were published in Electronic News in the weeks before the introduction, much to IBM's consternation.[ citation needed ] Also in 1982, Electronic News communications industry reporter Frank Barbetta broke the story on the Bell System Divestiture which resulted in the break-up of American Telephone & Telegraph Company, and published the first interview with Judge Harold H. Greene.
The paper eventually grew to have a staff of three dozen full-time journalists, working out of headquarters staffed by full-time journalists in New York City and bureaus in Boston, Washington, D.C., Miami, Atlanta, Dallas, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Denver, Chicago, Minneapolis and Tokyo. In addition, stringers reported in from more than 100 locations around the world.
In 1987, the paper's corporate parent, Fairchild Publications was acquired by Capital Cities Broadcasting, which went on to acquire the American Broadcasting Company, now a unit of The Walt Disney Company. The publication was transferred from Fairchild to Chilton, then a division of Capital Cities/ABC, as the result of a reorganization. After barely a year as part of Chilton, the paper was sold in 1991 to the publishing house International Data Group. After a year of losses, IDG sold the paper in 1993 to an independent investor group put together by one-time publisher Zachary Dicker. In 1996 the paper was sold to Reed Business Information. Reed Business Information sold the magazine to Canon Communications in February 2010. In October 2010 Cannon Communications was acquired by United Business Media, now UBM LLC. The final edition of Electronic News to be printed on paper was dated December 2, 2002. It continued online until it was later merged into EDN .
A microprocessor is a computer processor where the data processing logic and control is included on a single integrated circuit (IC), or a small number of ICs. The microprocessor contains the arithmetic, logic, and control circuitry required to perform the functions of a computer's central processing unit (CPU). The IC is capable of interpreting and executing program instructions and performing arithmetic operations. The microprocessor is a multipurpose, clock-driven, register-based, digital integrated circuit that accepts binary data as input, processes it according to instructions stored in its memory, and provides results as output. Microprocessors contain both combinational logic and sequential digital logic, and operate on numbers and symbols represented in the binary number system.
The 6800 is an 8-bit microprocessor designed and first manufactured by Motorola in 1974. The MC6800 microprocessor was part of the M6800 Microcomputer System that also included serial and parallel interface ICs, RAM, ROM and other support chips. A significant design feature was that the M6800 family of ICs required only a single five-volt power supply at a time when most other microprocessors required three voltages. The M6800 Microcomputer System was announced in March 1974 and was in full production by the end of that year.
Robert Norton Noyce, nicknamed "the Mayor of Silicon Valley", was an American physicist and entrepreneur who co-founded Fairchild Semiconductor in 1957 and Intel Corporation in 1968. He was also credited with the realization of the first monolithic integrated circuit or microchip, which fueled the personal computer revolution and gave Silicon Valley its name.
Silicon Valley is a region in Northern California that serves as a global center for high technology and innovation. Located in the southern part of the San Francisco Bay Area, it corresponds roughly to the geographical area of Santa Clara Valley. San Jose is Silicon Valley's largest city, the third-largest in California, and the tenth-largest in the United States; other major Silicon Valley cities include Sunnyvale, Santa Clara, Redwood City, Mountain View, Palo Alto, Menlo Park, and Cupertino. The San Jose Metropolitan Area has the third-highest GDP per capita in the world, according to the Brookings Institution, and, as of June 2021, has the highest percentage of homes valued at $1 million or more in the United States.
Texas Instruments Incorporated (TI) is an American technology company headquartered in Dallas, Texas, that designs and manufactures semiconductors and various integrated circuits, which it sells to electronics designers and manufacturers globally. It is one of the top 10 semiconductor companies worldwide based on sales volume. The company's focus is on developing analog chips and embedded processors, which account for more than 80% of its revenue. TI also produces TI digital light processing technology and education technology products including calculators, microcontrollers, and multi-core processors. The company holds 45,000 patents worldwide as of 2016.
National Semiconductor was an American semiconductor manufacturer which specialized in analog devices and subsystems, formerly with headquarters in Santa Clara, California. The company produced power management integrated circuits, display drivers, audio and operational amplifiers, communication interface products and data conversion solutions. National's key markets included wireless handsets, displays and a variety of broad electronics markets, including medical, automotive, industrial and test and measurement applications.
The Intel 4004 is a 4-bit central processing unit (CPU) released by Intel Corporation in 1971. Sold for US$60, it was the first commercially produced microprocessor, and the first in a long line of Intel CPUs.
Fairchild Semiconductor International, Inc. was an American semiconductor company based in San Jose, California. 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. In September 2016, Fairchild was acquired by ON Semiconductor.
The history of computing hardware starting at 1960 is marked by the conversion from vacuum tube to solid-state devices such as transistors and then integrated circuit (IC) chips. Around 1953 to 1959, discrete transistors started being considered sufficiently reliable and economical that they made further vacuum tube computers uncompetitive. Metal–oxide–semiconductor (MOS) large-scale integration (LSI) technology subsequently led to the development of semiconductor memory in the mid-to-late 1960s and then the microprocessor in the early 1970s. This led to primary computer memory moving away from magnetic-core memory devices to solid-state static and dynamic semiconductor memory, which greatly reduced the cost, size, and power consumption of computers. These advances led to the miniaturized personal computer (PC) in the 1970s, starting with home computers and desktop computers, followed by laptops and then mobile computers over the next several decades.
Federico Faggin is an Italian physicist, engineer, inventor and entrepreneur. He is best known for designing the first commercial microprocessor, the Intel 4004. He led the 4004 (MCS-4) project and the design group during the first five years of Intel's microprocessor effort. Faggin also created, while working at Fairchild Semiconductor in 1968, the self-aligned MOS (metal–oxide–semiconductor) silicon-gate technology (SGT), which made possible MOS semiconductor memory chips, CCD image sensors, and the microprocessor. After the 4004, he led development of the Intel 8008 and 8080, using his SGT methodology for random logic chip design, which was essential to the creation of early Intel microprocessors. He was co-founder and CEO of Zilog, the first company solely dedicated to microprocessors, and led the development of the Zilog Z80 and Z8 processors. He was later the co-founder and CEO of Cygnet Technologies, and then Synaptics.
Donald C. Hoefler was an American journalist, well known for using the term "Silicon Valley" for the first time in print. His friend Ralph Vaerst suggested the name "Silicon Valley" in a series of articles entitled "Silicon Valley, USA" in the weekly trade newspaper Electronic News starting on January 11, 1971.
Fairchild Camera and Instrument Corporation was a company founded by Sherman Fairchild. It was based on the East Coast of the United States, and provided research and development for flash photography equipment. The technology was primarily used for DOD spy satellites. The firm was later known for its manufacture of semiconductors.
Signetics Corporation was an American electronics manufacturer specifically established to make integrated circuits. Founded in 1961, they went on to develop a number of early microprocessors and support chips, as well as the widely used 555 timer chip. The company was bought by Philips in 1975 and incorporated in Philips Semiconductors.
EDN is an electronics industry website and formerly a magazine owned by AspenCore Media, an Arrow Electronics company. The editor-in-chief is Majeed Ahmad. EDN was published monthly until, in April 2013, EDN announced that the print edition would cease publication after the June 2013 issue.
Regis McKenna was a marketer in Silicon Valley and introduced some techniques today commonplace among advertisers. He and his firm helped market the first microprocessor, Apple's first personal computer, the first recombinant DNA genetically engineered product, and the first retail computer store.
Fairchild Systems was a United States defense contractor which is now part of BAE Systems Electronics, Intelligence & Support. A descendant of Fairchild Camera and Instrument, the San Francisco Chronicle described Fairchild Systems as "one of the legendary names of Silicon Valley" and that in "the late 1960s, [its] Bay Area operations were the training ground for the engineers who went on to found Intel and other top semiconductor companies."
This article details the history of electronics engineering. Chambers Twentieth Century Dictionary (1972) defines electronics as "The science and technology of the conduction of electricity in a vacuum, a gas, or a semiconductor, and devices based thereon".
Mohamed M. Atalla was an Egyptian-American engineer, physicist, cryptographer, inventor and entrepreneur. He was a semiconductor pioneer who made important contributions to modern electronics. He is best known for inventing the MOSFET in 1959, which along with Atalla's earlier surface passivation and thermal oxidation processes, revolutionized the electronics industry. He is also known as the founder of the data security company Atalla Corporation, founded in 1972. He received the Stuart Ballantine Medal and was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame for his important contributions to semiconductor technology as well as data security.
The 2N696 and 2N697 were the first silicon transistors manufactured in Silicon Valley, in 1958, by Fairchild Semiconductor. Fairchild introduced itself to the world via its advertisements for these transistors, which were identical except for a post-manufacturing binning on current gain.