Digital Collections

Oral history interview with Carver A. Mead

  • 2004-Sep-30
  • 2004-Dec-08
  • 2005-Aug-15

Carver A. Mead begins with a review of his family history and his childhood near a power plant in Kernville, California. He discusses his early interest in electronics, which included getting his ham radio license and working for local radio stations during high school. Mead studied electrical engineering at the California Institute of Technology and was invited to teach during graduate school, where he took up solid state electronics. In 1959 Gordon Moore contacted Mead, beginning an informal technical exchange while Moore was at Fairchild Semiconductor and Intel Corporation. Mead conducted transistor research, and also pioneered automated design methodologies for VLSI devices. While consulting with Intel Corporation, Mead came to know its internal business culture and management style as well as the economics of the silicon manufacture. Mead discusses his long history of entrepreneurial activity, which continues to the present day.

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PDF — 117 KB
mead_ca_0294_SUPPL.pdf