Sherman Fairchild
More info
- Born
- Died
- Known for
- Fairchild Camera and Instrument
- Nationality
- American
The inventor and IBM's largest shareholder whose money started Fairchild Semiconductor — and with it Silicon Valley.
Sherman Fairchild (1896–1971) inherited a large stake in IBM from his father and became the company's single largest shareholder, but he was also a prolific inventor with some thirty patents, many in aerial photography. His firm Fairchild Camera and Instrument built cameras, aircraft and instruments.
In 1957 the traitorous eight were looking for a backer for their new semiconductor venture. Fairchild put up just over a million dollars and let them form Fairchild Semiconductor as a division — with an option to buy them out, which the parent exercised as early as 1959. Out of that division came Noyce and Moore's Intel, AMD and dozens of other companies — "the Fairchildren" — that turned the valley south of San Francisco into the center of the semiconductor industry.