Doctoral Dissertation Research: The MOS Transitor

20世纪70年代初，使用MOS(金属氧化物半导体)晶体管的大规模集成的出现使半导体电子进入了全新的领域--用于计算机、电子表和廉价电子计算器的半导体存储器，从而产生了微处理器。但当1960年贝尔实验室的Kahng和Atalla首次描述MOS晶体管时，它几乎没有引起人们的注意，显然是因为它违反了晶体管结范例的一些原则，威廉·肖克利的双极结晶体管就是其中的杰出例子。在马奥尼教授的指导下，巴西特正在研究MOS晶体管是如何在20世纪70年代初占据半导体电子产品的中心地位的，他将集中讨论三个主题。首先是MOS晶体管和占主导地位的双极型晶体管之间的关系。虽然MOS晶体管与双极晶体管有很大的不同，足以让工程师和科学家以新的方式思考什么是晶体管，以及如何制造它们，但与此同时，MOS晶体管与双极晶体管足够近，能够利用围绕它发展起来的大量知识和技能基础。此外，MOS晶体管将被用来研究二战后美国的技术知识和技能的性质以及它们是如何传播的。最后，这项研究将考察参与MOS晶体管开发的机构--大公司及其工业研究实验室、初创公司、大学和军方--并展示它们在塑造这项新技术的发展中所发挥的作用。

In the early 1970s the advent of large scale integration using the MOS (metal-oxidesemiconductor) transistor made possible the entry of semiconductor electronics into whole new fields--semiconductor memories for computers, electronic watches, and inexpensive electronic calculators which led to the microprocessor. But when the MOS transistor was first described in 1960 by Kahng and Atalla of Bell Labs, it had attracted little attention, apparently because it violated a number of tenets of the junction paradigm for transistors, of which William Shockley's bipolar junction transistor was the outstanding example. Mr. Bassett, under the direction of Professor Mahoney, is examining how the MOS transistor came to occupy a central place in semiconductor electronics by the early 1970s will concentrate on three themes. The first is the relation between the MOS transistor and the dominant bipolar transistor. While the MOS transistor was different enough from the bipolar transistor to make engineers and scientists think in new ways about what transistors were and how they were to be fabricated, at the same time the MOS transistor was close enough to the bipolar transistor to be able to take advantage of the large knowledge and skill base that had developed around it. Furthermore, the MOS transistor will be used as a way to study the nature of technical knowledge and skills in post-World War II America and how they were diffused. Finally this study will examine the institutions involved in the development of the MOS transistor--large corporations and their industrial research laboratories, startup companies, universities, and the military--and show what role each of them played in shaping the development of this new technology.