Inside Intel: Andy Grove and the Rise of the World's Most Powerful Chip Company

If you want to know how Intel started and how they became so big, read this book. You won't believe some of the things Intel has pulled on employees and outsiders.

A great book. It seems like it just happened even though it covers 1970-95. I grew up during this time, so it is really meaning full when I read it. Author is a very good writer. He does a nice job of describing what cutthroat, innovative and game changing/lots of money business looks like.

unlike most books on corporate america or stories about how exceptional american, against all odds, achieved exceptional things, this book did not do the typical left wing liberal spin to curse corporate america or give the same old same old "capitalism is evil" speech. the narratives detailed how a group of americans, in particular Noyce, Moore and Grove, took risk and boldly "go out and do something" (to quote Noyce) which eventually created wealth for himself/herself, for the employees and for many many people around the world (intel's employees and investors locate all over the world). these are people who in Anthony Robbins' definition as people who made positive difference in a lot of peoples' life. great book, extremely motivating. five star.

This book offers a great insight into how Intel came to be.The balance between the human and technological aspects is good.Its a good book if you want to learn about the history of Intel and it's well written.

A must read book to understand where it all began in silicon industry, what kind of challenges they faced and how did they resolve them. Very well written book, and one of the rare books that actually has insight into people management / relationships / politics.

Haven't finished reading it yet, I am about 60% thorough the book.

Wonderful book on the inner workings of Intel. The author is knowledable and writes very clearly. A great read for someone who was in the industry during that time period.

It was a pleasure to read about a very talented group working together to make significant improvements in computers. Jackson's book starts somewhere in the middle of Intel's 'Pentium crisis' in which the chips had been found to give incorrect answers in some complex analyses, the media was complaining, and IBM had suspended their use. Intel's board then met and agreed to replace all Pentiums - at a cost of nearly one-half billion dollars. Jackson then returns to a chronological documentation of Intel's founding and growth.Intel was founded by Robert Noyce and Gordon Moore. It came to life when 'big iron' dominated computers, and their memory was comprised of thousands of handmade iron cores, wrapped in thin wire. Intel's first product, in 1969, was a 64-bit static random-access memory, followed in 1971 by the first commercially available microprocessor (4004) in 1971. For the first few years, Intel's business was dominated by DRAM chips, but Japanese competition (more automation, chip manufacturers made their own equipment, helped create better 'preventative' quality - 6X, lower costs) quickly reduced their profitability by 1983. Soon afterward, that competition, combined with the growing success of IBM's PC (used an Intel microprocessor), led Intel to leave memory production for microprocessors.Early engineers were found by Noyce asking university EE departments for their best research scientists. Those picked, especially from other semiconductor firms, had to accept an offer of the same (or less) salary and possible demotion, in return for rolling stock-options (spread over 3 years).Another significant early Intel step was ending the practice of 'second sourcing' - it had used AMD for the 386 chip. This was stopped, even though Intel lost the subsequent lawsuit.Every engineer had considerable authority (up to $100K?) to buy equipment.Orange Crush: Intel's 8080 8-bit microprocessor launched May, 1974 and became hugely successful - Gates wrote Basic for it; its preceding 4004 and 8008 were not commercial successes. Then came Intel's 16-bit 8086. Motorola's 68000 (32-bit) was #1 in sales, Zilog's Z8000 #2, and Intel's 8086 #3.The key semiconductor market share is the one maintained when the market is mature. To accomplish that, a firm must convince sufficient numbers of customers to 'design in' (integrate) your chip into their products. Intel's task force established a very high goal - 2,000 'design wins' by the end of 1980, based on every salesman getting one win/month; it was the way to 'crush the competition.'It was decided to divide customers into three groups - hardware-oriented, software-oriented firms wanting to use Intel software, and software-oriented companies wanting to write their own software. Intel's problem lay within the third group. Everyone on the task force agreed that Motorola and Zilog had better devices - Intel's advantages were being a technology leader, better performance at the system level, and Motorola's difficulty making its chips work in customer products.An effort was launched to get customers to write about their experiences using the 8086 - more than 50 articles were published. A catalog of future products was prepared - within 90 days. Twenty-five major customer seminars around the world were conducted the first 90 day, followed by nearly 50 full-day seminars for the general public. IBM was won over - probably because of the availability of software for the Intel product line. Progress was monitored every two weeks.Delivering the first 4-chip calculator microprocessor (4004) to Nippon Calculating Machine Corporation customer required working 12-16 hours/day for weeks. The Japanese envisioned 12 customer chips for its Busicom, Intel engineers suggested just four, including one that could be programmed for a variety of products - dramatically altering the course of electronics. The size of a fingernail, it delivered the same computing power as the first electronic computer (ENIAC - 18,000 tubes) built in 1946, which filled an entire room. It was produced on 2" wafers; the processor held 2,300 transistors, circuit line width was 10,000 nanometers, about one-tenth the average human hair. Clock speed was 740 kHz.Only 20,000 mainframes had been sold worldwide in 1971 - a 10% market share wouldn't justify a serious R&D budget. However, early adopters sprung up like weeds, with innumerable new uses.Grove's hearing problem required him to wear an ungainly hearing aid in his early years at Intel. When a meeting speaker ran over his allotted time or strayed from the point, Grove would take the hearing aid off and thump it down on the table to indicate he would listen no further. Grove was regularly in conflict with Intel's Bob Graham, head of marketing - but Noyce and Moore needed a really tough manager to axe projects, raises, and engineers, as well as marshal troops in tough situations. Grove stayed, Graham left.

Excellent livre qui retrace bien cette époque qui a vu la naissance de la technologie CMOS et des microprocesseurs. L'histoire d'Intel et des ses compétiteurs (Fairchild, AMD, Motorola, ...) y est décrite de façon relativement simple et précise et on y retrouve bien l'atmosphère de l'évolution de l'intégration a grande échelle des circuits intégrés (sur le plan technologique, mais aussi légal, ...) Un livre qui montre bien la compagnie sous son angle combatif et paranoïaque ("Only the paranoid survive") ainsi que son utilisation systématique de procédures légales (contre les produits et les personnes) ... Ce livre reste néanmoins accessible avec des chapitres courts et des descriptions techniques simples ...

Interesting take on how Intel was formed.