Industry: Beyond the Transistor

Science keeps discovering new worlds and industry keeps conquering them—sometimes absorbing a few casualties in the process. After the transistor was invented, it caused trouble for many vacuum-tube producers, later suffered itself from overproduction and slashed prices. The transistor went on to spur the growth of the U.S. electronics industry to a record $16 billion. But now it has a rival—the microcircuit, a tiny device that represents a bigger advance over the transistor than the transistor did over the bulky vacuum tube. Last year some $20 million worth of microcircuits (mostly as missile components) were sold by a dozen companies, but the rush of firms to get into the business is so great that by 1967 sales are expected to reach $300 million, and to top $1 billion in another five years.

Split-Pea Circuit. The transistor took the complicated network of wires in a vacuum tube and condensed it into a simple, solid piece of silicon or germanium; the microcircuit reduces an entire electronic circuit composed of dozens of transistors and other components to a tiny latticework of thin metal conductors mounted on a base of such material as glass or silicon. At Texas Instruments, which shares leadership in the microcircuitry field with Motorola and Fairchild Camera, engineers have developed a piece of silicon the size of a split pea into which they have fused the equivalent of 38 transistors, five capacitors and 26 resistors—a complete circuit one-thousandth the size of a similar vacuum-tube circuit and one-hundredth that of a transistorized one.

The greatest promise offered by microcircuitry, apart from smallness, is reliability. Using 1,243 microcircuits, Sperry Rand has compressed a big Univac computer into a 6-in. box; it is expected to run continuously for two years. Since microcircuits are so tiny, several backup circuits can be installed to take over automatically when one fails, thus extending the life of electronic equipment almost indefinitely. Best of all, the microcircuits will eventually be cheaper than conventional circuits because they will combine the production of a welter of separate components into a single manufacturing process, are easier to install and can be produced entirely by automation.

Wrist Radio. So far, most microcircuitry goes into space-age uses, but it raises vast possibilities for new products. Tiny microcircuit radios have been built that can report back medical information from inside a patient’s stomach. In industry, the most widespread use will be to make computers faster and more compact. No consumer products have been turned out yet, but in the labs the entire circuitry of a TV set has been reduced to the size of a soda cracker; this may eventually lead to the long-heralded TV set that hangs on the wall like a picture. Scientists have also contained the workings of a hearing aid within the bows of an ordinary pair of eyeglasses, and now talk seriously of making Dick Tracy’s two-way wrist radio a common reality.

Along with the new products may come some more jolts for the electronics industry. Already, such large companies as Philco and Sylvania have quietly cut back their transistor operations in favor of developing the new art. Mastering microcircuitry costs millions, and many small companies will not be able to make the shift. Moreover, the rush of electronics firms to produce the exotic midgets could result in a price war that would jar big firms as well as little. Some companies, such as Los Angeles’ Litton Industries, are deliberately holding off developing their own microcircuit production because they figure that before long they will be able to buy microcircuits more cheaply than they can make them.

One consolation for the electronics industry, the nation’s fourth largest industry, is that the demand for its products continues to grow so fast that even the vacuum-tube producers that survived are selling more than ever before.