Robert Noyce and Fairchild Semiconductor, 1957–1968

Leslie R. Berlin

Business History Review, 2001, vol. 75, issue 1, 63-101

Abstract: Robert Noyce's career at Fairchild Semiconductor sheds light on several developments that were central to the growth of Silicon Valley and the semiconductor industry: entrepreneurship, technical leadership, and the management of growth in a high-technology company. Noyce served as Fairchild Semiconductors first head of R&D and as its general manager for the six years of the company's most dramatic growth. His technical orientation, personal interest in new technologies, and hands-off management style helped establish a culture at the firm that welcomed innovations in research, process technology, manufacturing, and marketing. As Fairchild Semiconductor grew into a multidivisional mass producer, Noyce's entrepreneurial leadership proved inadequate. Communication breakdowns between divisions, coupled with a series of poor decisions by the parent company, further contributed to the decline of Fairchild Semiconductor.

Date: 2001
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/ ... type/journal_article link to article abstract page (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cup:buhirw:v:75:y:2001:i:01:p:63-101_07

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Business History Review from Cambridge University Press Cambridge University Press, UPH, Shaftesbury Road, Cambridge CB2 8BS UK.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Kirk Stebbing ().