IEEE S.F. Bay Area Council e-GRID's
BayAreaTech

THURSDAY September 27, 2012
SCV Components, Packaging and Manufacturing Technology Chapter
Speaker: Paul Wesling, IEEE SF Bay Area Council Communications Director
Time: Lunch at 11:45 AM; Presentation at 12:15 PM
Cost: $15 for lunch ($5 for students, unemployed)
Place: Biltmore Hotel, 2151 Laurelwood Rd, Santa Clara
RSVP: from website
Web: www.cpmt.org/scv

Why did Silicon Valley come into being? The story goes back to local Hams (amateur radio operators) trying to break RCA’s tube patents, the sinking of the Titanic, Naval ship communications requirements, Fred Terman and Stanford University, local invention of high-power tubes (klystron, magnatron), WW II and radar, William Shockley’s mother living in Palo Alto, Hetch Hetchy water, and the SF Bay Area infrastructure that developed — these factors pretty much determined that the semiconductor and IC industries would be located in the Santa Clara Valley. And since semiconductor device development and production were centered here, it made sense that Charles (Bud) Eldon of H-P would be asked by his management to start an IRE Group on Component Parts in Palo Alto, to serve our local engineers (which grew into today’s CPMT Society).
Paul Wesling, a CPMT Society Distinguished Lecturer, will give an exciting and colorful history of device technology development and innovation that began in San Francisco, moved down the Peninsula (seeking lower costs and better housing), and ended up in the Santa Clara Valley during and following World War II. You’ll meet some of the colorful characters — Lee DeForest, Bill Eitel, Charles Litton, David Packard, Bill Hewlett and others — who came to define the semiconductor and IC industries through their inventions and process development.