Shockley Transistor Corporation
Originally Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory, the company was founded by William Shockley in 1955 in Mountain View, California, eventually considered the birthplace of Silicon Valley. Shockley was a pioneer in the semiconductor industry and although his company was developing transistors, he was often secretly involved in his own diode project. In addition, his difficult management style upset many in the company.
The Traitorous Eight
In 1957, eight employees, including Gordon Moore and Robert Noyce, co-founders of Intel a decade later, left the company to found Fairchild Semiconductor. Without achieving commercial success, Shockley was sold to Clevite Corporation in 1960. ITT acquired Clevite in 1968, and Shockley's diodes were renamed "4-Layer diode Thyristors."
A Spawning Ground
Shockley's company was indeed a spawning ground for Silicon Valley. Over the next couple of decades, more than 60 new companies could trace their origins to Shockley. See Fairchild Semiconductor.
Nobel Prize Winners
John Bardeen, William Shockley (center) and Walter Brattain won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1956 for their invention of the transistor at AT&T Bell Labs.