Think way, way back—to just after the Ice Age—and imagine a stormy night when some very primitive, human-like creature was out in the woods. Imagine a fierce lightning strike in the forest that caused trees to burst into flames. All the animals (including the human-like beings) probably ran in terror from this event—except for one, which looked at this moment differently. Surely the creature was scared, but it realized that the warmth felt good. You can imagine some rudimentary experiments that eventually led to the preservation of that fire.
Well, once this creature had fire and could keep the fire lit, three things happened. For one thing, the creature could stay warm. That was nice. Second, the fire kept the wilder animals away. They were conditioned to fear fire. Third, it brought groups of human beings together. Under the shelter of caves, they would build fires; and instead of being scattered, humans started to live in groups. The tribe was born.
The ability to create and control fire was a massive innovation. It was the beginning of human civilization, really. It transformed human beings into social creatures. And this probably happened—as most innovations do—because one individual chose to look at a problem differently than everyone else.
I was fortunate enough to witness a bold stroke of innovative thinking early in my career. In 1959, I received my Ph.D., which I wrote on the physics of transistors. I spent my entire graduate career learning about transistors; how they worked and how you could make them better. At that time, almost all of us were charging down the path of trying to make better transistors.
That same year, I met Bob Noyce, the man who would later start Intel with Gordon Moore. Bob and some other engineers, including Gordon, had just started a little company called Fairchild Semiconductor. While the whole herd was stampeding in one direction, Bob went off in an entirely different direction—he thought about how to connect transistors, and he invented the integrated circuit.
I was dumbstruck. I knew I was witness to one of the great discoveries of our age, perhaps The Great Discovery of our age. Yet it had nothing to do with transistors. Nothing. It had to do with how you connect transistors. It made perfect sense once Bob Noyce showed his discovery to the world. It was an exciting time. Anybody who could spell "semiconductor" could start a company and get rich—it was just like Internet time is now.
I've always tried to apply innovative thinking like Bob Noyce's to my own research. After his discovery, I continued to think about ways to make transistors smaller. In a day when transistors were about 10 microns in size (about one-tenth the diameter of a human hair ), my calculations demonstrated that transistors could theoretically be made at .15 microns (about one-quarter the wavelength of visible light). I gave a lecture at a conference to explain my findings, and was laughed out of the room by the other attendees
Over the past 30 years, many talented people have struggled to make ever-smaller transistors, and to connect them in ever more complex and clever ways. Today, the transistor and the integrated circuit are at the heart of everything we use in technology. Just this year, though, chips are finally being produced in volume with transistors at .15 microns.
The information technology we have today is a direct result of the research of pioneering innovators. We who work in technology, and particularly those of us who identify ourselves with the innovation process, are fortunate to be at the leading edge of human evolution. Instead of running away from the lightning and the fire, we try to be the ones who say, "That's interesting.
It's scary, but it's interesting. Let's go there."
Carver Mead is a professor of Engineering and Applied Science at the California Institute of Technology, where he has taught for over 40 years. For his pioneering efforts in semiconductor design, Dr. Mead recently received the $500,000 Lemelson-MIT Prize, the world's largest single award for invention and innovation.
Start
Founders' Note
Dateline
Dispatches about the interaction
of culture and technology.
Through a lens
People use cameras to answer
a question.
Backlash
Killthedot.com
Translator
Software interprets the classics
Send-up
Satire and ridicule.
Features
Silicon Valley
The Enigmatic Craig McCaw
Finish
Fiction
"Cyber-sized"
History of...
the typewriter.
The Watch
Reviews and commentary
Wind-up
Physicist Carver Mead explains why innovation requires courage and luck.
Alarm Clock Communications is dedicated to providing a platform for opinion, and here is our promise: ANY editorial submission that is consistent with our editorial mission and that meets our editorial guidelines will be published. And the best of what we receive will be printed in alarm:clock magazine.So let us know what you think.
brian@thealarmclock.com
andrew@thealarmclock.com
