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Trilogy Systems
Trilogy Systems Corporation was a computer systems company started in 1980. Originally called ACSYS, the company was founded by Gene Amdahl, his son Carl Amdahl and Clifford Madden. Flush with the success of his previous company, Amdahl Corporation, Gene Amdahl was able to raise $230 million for his new venture. Trilogy was the most well-funded start-up company up till that point in Silicon Valley history. It had corporate support from Groupe Bull, Digital Equipment Corporation, Unisys, Sperry Rand and others. The plan was to use extremely advanced semiconductor manufacturing techniques to build an IBM compatible mainframe computer that was both cheaper and more powerful than existing systems from IBM and Amdahl Corporation. Amdahl leaves Amdahl Large computers of the 1960s and 70s were physically constructed using small circuit boards populated with individual transistors or small scale integrated circuits. Using many separate boards allowed them to remove malfunctioning circuits ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Elxsi
Elxsi Corporation was a minicomputer manufacturing company established in the late 1970s in Silicon Valley, US, along with a host of competitors ( Trilogy Systems, Sequent, Convex Computer). The Elxsi processor was an Emitter Coupled Logic (ECL) design that featured a 50-nanosecond clock, a 25-nanosecond back panel bus, IEEE floating-point arithmetic and a 64-bit architecture. It allowed multiple processors to communicate over a common bus called the Gigabus, believed to be the first company to do so. The operating system was a message-based operating system called EMBOS. The Elxsi CPU was a microcoded design, allowing custom instructions to be coded into microcode. History Elxsi was founded in 1979 by Joe Rizzi (previously a manager at Intersil) and Thampy Thomas (who would go on to found NexGen Microsystems). It is believed that Elxsi was the first startup founded by an Indian in Silicon Valley. Much of the architecture of the Elxsi machine was designed by former Stanford U ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Semiconductor Fabrication
Semiconductor device fabrication is the process used to manufacture semiconductor devices, typically integrated circuits (ICs) such as microprocessors, microcontrollers, and memories (such as RAM and flash memory). It is a multiple-step photolithographic and physico-chemical process (with steps such as thermal oxidation, thin-film deposition, ion-implantation, etching) during which electronic circuits are gradually created on a wafer, typically made of pure single-crystal semiconducting material. Silicon is almost always used, but various compound semiconductors are used for specialized applications. This article focuses on the manufacture of integrated circuits, however steps such as etching and photolithography can be used to manufacture other devices such as LCD and OLED displays. The fabrication process is performed in highly specialized semiconductor fabrication plants, also called foundries or "fabs", with the central part being the " clean room". In more advanced semi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
VAX 9000
The VAX 9000 is a discontinued family of mainframes developed and manufactured by Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) using custom ECL-based processors implementing the VAX instruction set architecture (ISA). Equipped with optional vector processors, they were marketed into the supercomputer space as well. As with other VAX systems, they were sold with either the VMS or Ultrix operating systems. The systems trace their history to DEC's 1984 licensing of several technologies from Trilogy Systems, who had introduced a new way to densely pack ECL chips into complex modules. Development of the 9000 design began in 1986, intended as a replacement for the VAX 8800 family, at that time the high-end VAX offering. The initial plans called for two general models, the high-performance ''Aquarius'' using water cooling as seen on IBM systems, and the midrange-performance ''Aridus'' systems using air cooling. During development, engineers so improved the air cooling system that Aquarius w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Initial Public Offering
An initial public offering (IPO) or stock launch is a public offering in which shares of a company are sold to institutional investors and usually also to retail (individual) investors. An IPO is typically underwritten by one or more investment banks, who also arrange for the shares to be listed on one or more stock exchanges. Through this process, colloquially known as ''floating'', or ''going public'', a privately held company is transformed into a public company. Initial public offerings can be used to raise new equity capital for companies, to monetize the investments of private shareholders such as company founders or private equity investors, and to enable easy trading of existing holdings or future capital raising by becoming publicly traded. After the IPO, shares are traded freely in the open market at what is known as the free float. Stock exchanges stipulate a minimum free float both in absolute terms (the total value as determined by the share price multiplied ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Soldering
Soldering (; ) is a process of joining two metal surfaces together using a filler metal called solder. The soldering process involves heating the surfaces to be joined and melting the solder, which is then allowed to cool and solidify, creating a strong and durable joint. Soldering is commonly used in the electronics industry for the manufacture and repair of Printed circuit board, printed circuit boards (PCBs) and other electronic components. It is also used in plumbing and Metalworking, metalwork, as well as in the manufacture of jewelry and other decorative items. The solder used in the process can vary in composition, with different alloys used for different applications. Common solder alloys include tin-lead, tin-silver, and tin-copper, among others. Lead-free solder has also become more widely used in recent years due to health and environmental concerns associated with the use of lead. In addition to the type of solder used, the temperature and method of heating also p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Polyimide
Polyimide (sometimes abbreviated PI) is a monomer containing imide groups belonging to the class of high-performance plastics. With their high heat-resistance, polyimides enjoy diverse applications in roles demanding rugged organic materials, such as high temperature fuel cells, displays, and various military roles. A classic polyimide is Kapton, which is produced by condensation of pyromellitic dianhydride and 4,4'-oxydianiline.Wright, Walter W. and Hallden-Abberton, Michael (2002) "Polyimides" in ''Ullmann's Encyclopedia of Industrial Chemistry'', Wiley-VCH, Weinheim. History The first polyimide was discovered in 1908 by Bogart and Renshaw. They found that 4-amino phthalic anhydride does not melt when heated but does release water upon the formation of a high molecular weight polyimide. The first semialiphatic polyimide was prepared by Edward and Robinson by melt fusion of diamines and tetra acids or diamines and diacids/diester. However, the first polyimide of significant co ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Photolithography
Photolithography (also known as optical lithography) is a process used in the manufacturing of integrated circuits. It involves using light to transfer a pattern onto a substrate, typically a silicon wafer. The process begins with a photosensitive material, called a photoresist, being applied to the substrate. A photomask that contains the desired pattern is then placed over the photoresist. Light is shone through the photomask, exposing the photoresist in certain areas. The exposed areas undergo a chemical change, making them either soluble or insoluble in a developer solution. After development, the pattern is transferred onto the substrate through etching, chemical vapor deposition, or ion implantation processes. Ultraviolet, Ultraviolet (UV) light is typically used. Photolithography processes can be classified according to the type of light used, including ultraviolet lithography, deep ultraviolet lithography, extreme ultraviolet lithography, extreme ultraviolet lithography ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Transistors
A transistor is a semiconductor device used to Electronic amplifier, amplify or electronic switch, switch electrical signals and electric power, power. It is one of the basic building blocks of modern electronics. It is composed of semiconductor material, usually with at least three terminal (electronics), terminals for connection to an electronic circuit. A voltage or Electric current, current applied to one pair of the transistor's terminals controls the current through another pair of terminals. Because the controlled (output) power can be higher than the controlling (input) power, a transistor can amplify a signal. Some transistors are packaged individually, but many more in miniature form are found embedded in integrated circuits. Because transistors are the key active components in practically all modern electronics, many people consider them one of the 20th century's greatest inventions. Physicist Julius Edgar Lilienfeld proposed the concept of a field-effect transisto ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Laser
A laser is a device that emits light through a process of optical amplification based on the stimulated emission of electromagnetic radiation. The word ''laser'' originated as an acronym for light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation. The first laser was built in 1960 by Theodore Maiman at Hughes Research Laboratories, based on theoretical work by Charles H. Townes and Arthur Leonard Schawlow and the optical amplifier patented by Gordon Gould. A laser differs from other sources of light in that it emits light that is coherence (physics), ''coherent''. Spatial coherence allows a laser to be focused to a tight spot, enabling uses such as optical communication, laser cutting, and Photolithography#Light sources, lithography. It also allows a laser beam to stay narrow over great distances (collimated light, collimation), used in laser pointers, lidar, and free-space optical communication. Lasers can also have high temporal coherence, which permits them to emit light ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Functional Unit
In computer engineering, an execution unit (E-unit or EU) is a part of a processing unit that performs the operations and calculations forwarded from the instruction unit. It may have its own internal control sequence unit (not to be confused with a CPU's main control unit), some registers, and other internal units such as an arithmetic logic unit, address generation unit, floating-point unit, load–store unit, branch execution unit or other smaller and more specific components, and can be tailored to support a certain datatype, such as integers or floating-points. It is common for modern processing units to have multiple parallel functional units within its execution units, which is referred to as superscalar A superscalar processor (or multiple-issue processor) is a CPU that implements a form of parallelism called instruction-level parallelism within a single processor. In contrast to a scalar processor, which can execute at most one single in ... design. The si ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wafer Scale Integration
Wafer-scale integration (WSI) is a system of building very-large integrated circuit (commonly called a "chip") networks from an entire silicon wafer to produce a single "super-chip". Combining large size and reduced packaging, WSI was expected to lead to dramatically reduced costs for some systems, notably massively parallel supercomputers but is now being employed for deep learning. The name is taken from the term very-large-scale integration, the state of the art when WSI was being developed. Overview In the normal integrated circuit manufacturing process, a single large cylindrical crystal ( boule) of silicon is produced and then cut into disks known as wafers. The wafers are then cleaned and polished in preparation for the fabrication process. A photographic process is used to pattern the surface where material ought to be deposited on top of the wafer and where not to. The desired material is deposited and the photographic mask is removed for the next layer. From then on the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
