Jay T. Last

Jay T. Last begins the interview with a description of his family background and youth during the Great Depression and World War II. He reviews his undergraduate education at the University of Rochester and his graduate work in the von Hippel lab at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. There he completed doctoral research on the structure of barium titanate under an IBM fellowship. He was later invited to join Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory. He soon departed as one of the "Traitorous Eight" to form Fairchild Semiconductor, where he focused on the etching process for the mesa transistor. During this time, Last formed a close friendship with Jean A. Hoerni and began collecting African art. Last then supervised the creation of the integrated circuit. In 1961, he left Fairchild Semiconductor to join Teledyne to create more elaborate circuits. Teledyne mass-produced complex circuits for military, private corporations, and internal use. Last reviews the business climate of Silicon Valley that supported numerous spin-offs and discusses the dynamics of the American and international semiconductor industries. He then recounts his private investments, including that in Intel Corporation, and relates Gordon E. Moore's contributions to Intel Corporation. Last concludes with his personal involvement with the Archeological Conservancy, his African art collection, and publishing.

Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory, Mountain View, California

1956 - 1957 Senior Technical Staff

Fairchild Semiconductor, Palo Alto, California

1957 - 1959 Senior Technical Staff, Cofounder

Fairchild Semiconductor, Palo Alto, California

1959 - 1961 Head of Integrated Circuit Development

Amelco Corporation, Gardenia, California

1961 - 1966 Director of Research and Development Cofounder

Teledyne Technologies, Inc., Gardenia, California

1966 - 1974 Vice President, Research and Development

Sierra Monitor Corporation, Milpitas, California

1980 - Present Director

Archeological Conservancy, Albuquerque, New Mexico

1980 - Present President

Hillcrest Press, Inc., Santa Ana, California

1982 - Present President

Think Outside, Inc., San Jose, California

1998 - Present Member, Board of Directors

David C. Brock

David C. Brock is a senior research fellow with the Center for Contemporary History and Policy at the Chemical Heritage Foundation. As a historian of science and technology, he specializes in the history of semiconductor science, technology, and industry; the history of instrumentation; and oral history. Brock has studied the philosophy, sociology, and history of science at Brown University, the University of Edinburgh, and Princeton University.

In the policy arena Brock recently published Patterning the World: The Rise of Chemically Amplified Photoresists, a white-paper case study for the Center’s Studies in Materials Innovation. With Hyungsub Choi he is preparing an analysis of semiconductor technology roadmapping, having presented preliminary results at the 2009 meeting of the Industry Studies Association.