Word: circuit
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Inside the computer is a circuit board. It houses all sorts of microchips, including those for ROM (read-only memory) and RAM (random-access memory...
Mounted on the circuit board is a microprocessor, which is housed in a protective container and connected to rows of gold-plated pins...
Intel, of course, has done much more than survive. Founded in the summer of 1968 by Gordon Moore (one of the great chemists of the century) and Robert Noyce (a co-inventor of the integrated circuit), it has blossomed under Grove's leadership into the world's pre-eminent microprocessor manufacturer. From a standing start in 1981, when IBM introduced the first personal computers, they have populated the planet at an astounding rate. And of the 83 million machines sold this year, nearly 90% get their kick from an Intel chip. So do antilock brakes, Internet servers, cell phones...
...answer, of course, turned out to be what gave Silicon Valley its name. Gordon Moore (who ran Fairchild's research arm and later became Grove's mentor as CEO of Intel) believed you could store those charges with an integrated circuit made by sandwiching metal oxide and silicon into an electrical circuit called an MOS transistor. Unlike trickier semiconductors, silicon is both a wonderful conductor of electrical charges and a nearly bottomless sink for heat, meaning it doesn't melt down as you push electrons under its surface at nearly light speed. Because it is made from refined sand, silicon...
...right before his eyes, an event that occurred on the day in 1963 that four black girls were killed when a church was bombed in Birmingham, Ala. He called the death a defining experience that made him "hungry for justice." Last month he withdrew his nomination to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. Virgil Ware was killed all right, but he was no relation to the judge...