Large Scale Integration (LSI)

About the time I started working in the electronics industry was about the time Large Scale Integration (LSI) was developing enough to create successful automated production lines that could produce it. It carried much more circuitry than small and medium scale integrated circuits. And manufacturing LSI circuits was very difficult. I once worked at a temporary job as a secretary, where one of my duties was to calculate the total percentages of successful production on different days, using variable procedures. At each step of processing, some percentage of the "chips" on a wafer of silicon failed. And at the next step, some other percentage failed. At each step, the total percentage of failures of total chips on the original wafer became bigger and bigger. The total percentage of successful chips fabricated might be around one percent, or less, of the original potential chips on the wafer.

Calculators

After several years in Minnesota, we moved back to California, to the San Francisco Bay area. Again, Don got a job that would pay for our move. I don't remember what he was working on at the time. It was something for a military contract.

What I do remember is that he bought a scientific pocket calculator. Pocket calculators were new on the market, and were expensive. As a scientific calculator, the one Don bought included many more functions than basic arithmetic. It cost about $300, and that was at a discount he got through his job.

Today, calculators are so cheap, they might be giveaways. Or at little cost, they can perform all or many of the operations Don's scientific calculator could. While calculators are not computers, they provide an example of how advanced miniaturization had become. And it continued to advance. Integrated circuits became more and more powerful, with ever more circuits in each one.

Integrated Circuits

I still remember the first time I ever saw an integrated circuit. Don brought one home from work and showed it to me. It was a small, black plastic rectangle, with two rows of metallic "feet." Don told me it contained thousands of tiny transistors and other components. It was equal to a printed-circuit card, with all its attached transistors, diodes, and so on.

I was amazed that such a tiny object could do so much. Integrated circuits were the next step in making electronics technology smaller and smaller. They truly changed the world, just as transistors had done.