How, beginning in the mid 1960s, the US semiconductor industry helped shape changes in American science, including a new orientation to the short-term and the commercial. Since the mid 1960s, American science has undergone significant changes in the way it is organized, funded, and practiced. These changes include the decline of basic research by corporations; a new orientation toward the short-term and the commercial, with pressure on universities and government labs to participate in the market; and the promotion of interdisciplinarity. In this book, Cyrus Mody argues that the changes in American science that began in the 1960s co-evolved with and were shaped by the needs of the “civilianized” US semiconductor industry. In 1965, Gordon Moore declared that the most profitable number of circuit components that can be crammed on a single silicon chip doubles every year. Mody views “Moore's Law” less as prediction than as self-fulfilling prophecy, pointing to the enormous investments of capital, people, and institutions the semiconductor industry required—the “long arm” of Moore's Law that helped shape all of science. Mody offers a series of case studies in microelectronics that illustrate the reach of Moore's Law. He describes the pressures on Stanford University's electrical engineers during the Vietnam era, IBM's exploration of alternatives to semiconductor technology, the emergence of consortia to integrate research across disciplines and universities, and the interwoven development of the the molecular electronics community and associated academic institutions as the vision of a molecular computer informed the restructuring of research programs.
Author(s): Cyrus C. M. Mody
Publisher: The MIT Press
Year: 2017
Language: English
Pages: 299
Tags: Moore’s Law, Microelectronics
Contents......Page 8
Preface......Page 10
Introduction......Page 12
Moore’s Law as Social Fact......Page 15
Innovation and Conditional Prophecy......Page 21
Perspective and Evidence......Page 24
Motivation of Chapters and Concepts......Page 29
1 Crisis and Opportunity at Vietnam-Era Stanford......Page 36
MOS and the Optacon......Page 38
Integrating Circuits and Disciplines......Page 43
Tying the Linear Model in Knots......Page 47
University-Industry Linkage in the Crisis Era......Page 49
Solving Society’s Problems, or the University’s, or Industry’s?......Page 53
2 IBM Gives Josephson Computing a Try......Page 58
Theory Made Real......Page 59
From the Ashes......Page 62
The Zig-Zag Model of Innovation......Page 65
Ambivalent Support from Inside, Enthusiastic Interest Outside......Page 68
Extendibility......Page 73
Probation and Production......Page 76
Leveraging Failure......Page 79
Beyond Big Blue......Page 84
3 Molecular Electronics Gains a Reputation......Page 90
Breakthrough!!!......Page 91
Materials and Bandwagons......Page 96
Ultimate Miniaturization......Page 100
Turning Conducting Polymers into Molecular Electronic Devices......Page 106
A Louche Reputation......Page 112
What Might Have Been, and What Was Elsewhere......Page 120
4 New Institutions for Submicron Research......Page 130
Professionalization, Sophistication, Global Competition......Page 131
Three Workshops and a Conference......Page 137
The NRRFSS Competition......Page 141
Stanford, the Dog That Didn’t Bark in the Night......Page 144
Creating an Organizational Field......Page 146
Stumbling out of the Gate......Page 151
Centers Become a Way of Life......Page 154
5 Circuits, Cells, and Networks......Page 160
Consortium Fever......Page 162
Academic Centers and/as Industrial Consortia......Page 165
The Corporate Microelectronics Diaspora......Page 172
From Writing Circuits to Reading Genes......Page 177
Science Policy in the Network Age......Page 187
6 Synthesis at the Center......Page 196
Molecular Electronics Redux Redux......Page 199
From ULTRA to Moletronics......Page 201
Molecular Electronics’ Gilded Age......Page 204
The Reactivity of Small Clusters......Page 209
An Institute Tries to Become a Center......Page 213
“C60, Chapter 2”......Page 215
Center as Networks and as Firms......Page 219
Life after Moletronics......Page 223
Epilogue......Page 232
Introduction......Page 238
Chapter 1......Page 246
Chapter 2......Page 251
Chapter 3......Page 257
Chapter 4......Page 266
Chapter 5......Page 275
Chapter 6......Page 281
Epilogue......Page 289
Index......Page 290
Inside Technology......Page 296
