Doctoral Dissertation Research: The MOS Transitor

20世纪70年代早期，使用MOS（金属氧化物半导体）晶体管的大规模集成技术的出现，使得半导体电子学进入了一个全新的领域——用于计算机的半导体存储器、电子表和导致微处理器出现的廉价电子计算器。但是，当1960年贝尔实验室的kahna和Atalla首次描述MOS晶体管时，它并没有引起多少关注，显然是因为它违反了晶体管结范式的一些原则，其中威廉·肖克利（William Shockley）的双极结晶体管就是一个杰出的例子。在Mahoney教授的指导下，Bassett先生正在研究MOS晶体管如何在20世纪70年代早期占据半导体电子学的中心地位。首先是MOS晶体管与主流双极晶体管之间的关系。虽然MOS晶体管与双极晶体管有很大的不同，这使得工程师和科学家们以新的方式思考晶体管是什么以及如何制造晶体管，但同时，MOS晶体管与双极晶体管又足够接近，从而能够利用围绕它发展起来的大量知识和技能基础。此外，MOS晶体管将被用作研究二战后美国技术知识和技能的本质以及它们是如何传播的一种方式。最后，本研究将考察参与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、大学和军队——并展示他们在塑造这项新技术的发展中所起的作用。

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.