Doctoral Dissertation Research: The MOS Transitor

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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.