Traitorous Eight - Split

Split

We were all focused on the single goal of producing our first product, a double diffused silicon mesa transistor ... We were all very young (27 to 32), only a few years beyond our school days. We were a very compatible group, and spent a lot of time outside our working hours. Most of the founders were married, busy starting their families and raising small children in addition to all the time and effort they were spending building Fairchild ... I am struck by what a remarkable time it was and what innovative opportunities. – Jay T. Last, 2010

In November 1957, The Eight moved out of Grinich's garage into a new, empty building on the border of Palo Alto and Mountain View. Their starting salaries ranged from $13,800 to $15,600 per year. Hodgson, who headed the board of directors, suggested Noyce as the operational manager of the company, but Noyce refused. Fairchild, knowing the Noyce's personality, also opposed his leadership. Regardless of the will of Fairchild, Noyce and Moore, who were responsible for the research and production, respectively, became the "leaders among equals".

The group immediately set a clear goal to produce an array of silicon diffusion mesa transistors for digital devices, using the research results of Bell Labs and Shockley Labs. Moore, Hoernie and Last led three teams working on three alternative technologies. The technology of Moore resulted in a higher yield of operational n-p-n transistors, and in July–September 1958, they went into mass production. The release of p-n-p transistors of Hoernie was delayed until early 1959. This created the Moore-Hoernie conflict at Fairchild: Moore ignored the contribution of Hoernie, and Hoernie believed that his work was unfairly treated. However, the Moore transistors formed the prestige of Fairchild Semiconductor – for several years, they beat all the competitors.

In 1958, the mesa transistors of Fairchild were considered for the control units of rockets "Minuteman", but did not meet the military standards of reliability. Fairchild already had a solution in the planar technology of Hoernie proposed on December 1, 1957. In the spring of 1958, Hoernie and Last were spending nights on experiments with the first planar transistors. The planar technology later become the second most important event in the history of microelectronics, after the invention of the transistor, but in 1959 it went unnoticed. Fairchild announced the transition from mesa to planar technology in October 1960. However, Moore refused to credit this achievement to Hoerni, and in 1996 even attributing it to unnamed Fairchild engineers.

In 1959, Sherman Fairchild exercised his right to purchase shares of the members of the traitorous eight. Last recalled in 2007 that this event happened too early and turned former partners into ordinary employees, destroying the team spirit. In November 1960, Tom Bay, the Vice President of Marketing at Fairchild, accused Last of squandering money and demanded to terminate Last's project of developing integrated circuits. Moore refused to help Last and Noyes declined to discuss the matter. This conflict was the last straw: on January 31, 1961 Last and Hoernie left Fairchild and headed Amelco, the microelectronics branch of Teledyne. Kleiner and Roberts joined them after a few weeks. Blank, Greenwich, Moore and Noyce stayed with Fairchild. The traitorous eight split into two groups of four.