Andrew Grove(born 1936): Leader in modelling semiconductor devices

ANDREW GROVE was born on September 2, 1936, in Budapest, Hungary. Even as a student, he had zeal for writing and wrote articles for a youth newspaper. He was then 13 and contributed on topics such as ``what I did on my summer vacation.'' The Communist Government stopped printing his small articles, which made him turn from journalism to Chemistry.

Grove was in his second year at the University of Budapest when the Hungarian revolution broke out. On account of the political turmoil, he decided to leave his country and simply walked across the border into Austria, which would not have been easy before the revolution. From Austria, he eventually made his way to the U.S.

Education in U.S.

When Grove arrived in New York, he had to face real-world difficulties in continuing his education. His grasp of English language was meagre: though he could read and speak, he could not understand anything!

The teaching methods were entirely different. Whereas he was used to oral examinations in Budapest, he had to relearn how to attend classes and take closed book tests. He failed in the first test, which shook his confidence.

On completing his degree course in chemical engineering at City College, New York, he moved to the University of California, Berkley for his Ph.D (1963). He did research work in the field of fluid dynamics. With his specialisation, the common route in the US job market was either positions in universities or in space and defence organisations.

These routes did not fascinate him: so he applied for jobs in the semiconductor industry to work in solid-state physics. This offered prospects to apply some of the mathematics he had learnt in fluid mechanics.

The nascent semiconductor industry was still rooted in bipolar devices. As his thesis had no direct bearing to this field, Grove received few offers for his efforts. But Gordon Moore, director of research at Fairchild Semiconductor - then a leading manufacturers of bipolar devices, was more receptive to his doctoral research work.

Grove got the job and Moore assigned him the project of studying the silicon/silicon-oxide interface of the MOS devices being developed by the Fairchild laboratory. Though these devices were made under the most stringent conditions, their characteristics drifted during short periods of time.

Grove and his team discovered that ``sodium impurities from the filaments used to evaporate aluminium were being inadvertently introduced into the device during manufacture, shifting its threshold voltage and altering the conduction.'' As a result, the manufacturing process was suitably modified in order to eliminate the sodium.

From Grove's work in the short span of five years, 35 fundamental papers on the properties of silicon and silicon oxide came out in a steady stream.

When Moore left Fairchild in September 1968 to found a new enterprise Intel (shortened from integrated electronics), Grove followed his mentor and became director of operations. As Intel grew, Grove occupied responsible positions in the company and retired in 1998 as chairman of the board.

Superb managerial ability

Grove's managerial talent and capacity for taking the right decision came to the fore in the mid 1980s, when Intel was in dire straits. They lost the dynamic random access memory (RAM) business and faced closure. ``Our head was handed to us on a silver platter, primarily by the Japanese semiconductor companies,'' ruefully observed the company.

Grove's advice dismissing escapist solution prevailed: the company should get out of this line and instead concentrate on microprocessor business. That proved to be a turning point in Intel's history. IBM selected in 1981 the 80,286 microprocessor to run the first PCs; ever since, Intel has dominated the personal computer market.

Besides his effective managerial acumen, Grove developed an enjoyment for teaching, where his ability to organise thoughts logically and reduce a large set of confused facts into basic technology was prominent. The variety of courses he taught at Fairchild and University of Berkley culminated in his first book ``Physics and Technology of Semiconductor Devices'' (John Wiley 1967).

For his leadership in the semiconductor industry, the Institution of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, USA decorated him: Engineering Leadership Award (1987) and 2000 IEEE Medal of Honor.

Grove's own bout with prostrate cancer in 1994 led him to promote research in this area. He worked to raise money to fund prostrate cancer research at Cancer Centre, Berkley.

In his engineering career, Grove evolved the motto ``No problem is so complicated that you cannot make it more complicated.'' - (Source: IEEE Spectrum, June 2000)

R. Parthasarathy

Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Section  : Science & Tech
Previous : Question corner
Next     : Get set for a new ICE age!