Fairchild is a legendary company in the histories of integrated circuits, semiconductor electronics and Silicon Valley. The stories of the departure of the "Traitorous 8" from Shockley Labs in the late-1950s, the development of ICs, and the spawning of numerous IC companies in the late 1960s can be read elsewhere.

Presented here is an unusual and rather fascinating document from Fairchild, which the historio-techno-geek may find interesting. Its original target audience was engineers in that it provides considerable technical detail about Fairchild's IC products, though not quite a databook as complete specs are absent. It's not merely a product catalog, as far more information is presented, such as some educational discourse on digital logic forms. Despite the target audience and topic, neither is it merely a dry presentation of technical matters: it has the production, composition and esthetic presentation of a marketing brochure, including artful full-page micro-photographs of IC technology in the pop colours and experimental compositing of the 1960s.

In this combination of characteristics it is a publication very much of its time - it could only have been produced in the 1960s. As the principal developer of IC technology and its precursor silicon planar transistors, in 1966 Fairchild was riding high - at or approaching its zenith. This document was extolling and showing-off Fairchild's eminence in the market while presenting enough technical information to inform and hold the interest of engineers new to IC technology.

Most of the document is detailing digital logic ICs of various families such as RTL, DTL, TTL, CML (ECL), etc. To note in addition:

• An introductory section presents a discourse on the classes of digital-logic IC technology of the day: Current-Sourcing, Current-Sinking, and Current-Mode.
• A section for linear ICs, including the 709 op-amp (see 7709).
• Two MOSFET ICs are presented, both analog-switch selectors.
• A list of patents held by Fairchild relating to ICs. Most of these are the original 1959 patents from Fairchild which introduced the principal ideas and techniques for implementing integrated circuits.

Physically it is 86 standard 8.5" * 11" pages, glue-bound.

Fairchild Semiconductor Integrated Circuits 1966:

• PDF - Medium Resolution - 37 MB
• PDF - High Resolution - 118 MB

Related page:

• Texas Instruments Catalog 1965 - The Introduction of 5400/7400 TTL

Sample Pages

Table of Contents.	Opening blurb.	Page from discourse on current-sinking logic form.
Opening to section of TTL ICs.	Page from TTL section.	Example of the graphics.