Intel Trinity,The

March 24, 2014
The manufacturer of the micro-processors that power Windows computers and other electronic gadgetry acquires quasi-divine status in this awestruck corporate history. Journalist Malone (The Future Arrived Yesterday) peppers countless superlatives—even the “Intel Inside” ad blitz constituted “a historic achievement”—throughout his engaging, but disorganized, over-padded, yet sometimes cursory account of the company’s technological breakthroughs and business-strategy coups. The book succeeds in its portrayal of the hair-raising travails of longtime CEO Andy Grove (“the greatest businessman of the age”), who grew up Jewish in Nazi-occupied Hungary and then fled communism. Meanwhile, a lavish chronicle of Robert Noyce’s uneventful middle-American backstory is a less-than-gripping part of the author’s attempt to resurrect the Intel co-founder as a Silicon Valley titan. This is a serviceable account of the digital revolution’s hardware side, but Malone inflates Intel into the semi-conductor equivalent of the triune godhead, styling Noyce as “the beloved and charismatic father,” Grove as “the brilliant but truculent son in a perpetual Oedipal battle,” and co-founder Gordon Moore as the “Holy Spirit of the digital age,” his celebrated Moore’s Law—integrated circuits double their performance every year or two—propelling mankind towards the “singularity” when humans and computers become one. Less bombast and myth-making might have yielded a more substantive saga. 8-page b&w photo insert. Agent: Jim Levine, Levine Greenberg.

Starred review from June 15, 2014
Richly detailed, swiftly moving work of modern business history, recounting a truly world-changing technology and the people who made it possible.It began with an invention, then a revolt. The invention owes to three physicists, who, just after World War II, developed a replacement for the vacuum tube. "Neolithic-looking in its first incarnation," the semiconductor had countless uses, and it immediately made fortunes for all concerned-except for those three physicists. Writes longtime Silicon Valley watcher Malone (The Guardian of All Things: The Epic Story of Human Memory, 2012, etc.), one of them, William Shockley, resenting that fact, set up his own manufacturing firm. The trouble was, no one who had ever encountered him wanted to work with him, forcing him to recruit far outside the usual Caltech/Bell Labs fold. That introduction of new blood was certainly good. It was also bad, however, since Shockley-later to become infamous for his inflammatory pronouncements on race-really and truly was detestable. This all set the innovative trio of Noyce, Moore and Grove on the way to establishing Intel. Noyce got things going as founding CEO of Fairchild Semiconductor; his confidence, Malone writes, "would play a key role in making Fairchild, and later Intel, look far bigger than it really was." It didn't hurt to have Moore, the far-seeing technologist and coiner of Moore's law-which Malone invokes like a mantra perhaps one too many times-and Grove, another shrewd master of the market, along for the ride. Malone has his technological history down cold, though sometimes it can be a little daunting, as when he discusses the fraught business of developing the silicon gate, bootstrapping "each gate atop its partner transistor, something heretofore considered impossible." Fortunately, the author discusses that complex technology within the context of commerce, broadening its appeal to the business audience as well.Essential for aspiring entrepreneurs, to say nothing of those looking for a view of how the modern, speed-of-light world came to be.

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August 1, 2014

Journalist Malone (The Future Arrived Yesterday) presents a comprehensive history of Intel Corporation. He chronicles the business from its inception as a start-up in the late 1960s and early 1970s to its work with memory chips and continued success as the technological innovator that created the microprocessor--which forever changed the history of computers. Malone describes the founding and success of Intel by tracing the lives of its three founders. One of them, Andy Grove, is a chemical engineer and an instinctively shrewd businessman. Another was physicist Robert Noyce (1927-90), who provided the science for the development of the microchip. The trio was rounded out by Gordon Moore, who developed Moore's law, which observed the exponential growth of transistors on a chip. One of the accomplishments Malone credits to Intel is its reputation as the most innovative semiconductor company in electronics. VERDICT Owing to its excellent original research, Tom Jackson's Inside Intel is a better, more comprehensive work on the company, but this book should be of interest to both general readers and specialists.--Claude Ury, San Francisco

Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from June 1, 2014
The modern semiconductor industry grew out of a faction of dissenting employees of Fairchild Semiconductor often called the Traitorous Eight, who left to form Intel Inc. a risky start-up that was transformed into the most successful technology company of the computer age through the invention of the computer on a chip we know as the microprocessor. The story revolves around the three men who founded and led Intel throughout its first four decadesRobert Noyce, Gordon Moore, and Andy Grove, whose canny leadership, impeccable timing, and masterful marketing skills turned a small company with a very unsure future into a global giant. The time line is a familiar one to many technology buffs, but Malone moves past the standard Intel mythology to uncover many aspects of the company's ascendance that have been glossed over or lost to history. Federico Faggin, an Italian American physicist who led the design group of the first commercial microprocessor, is profiled as one of the greatest inventors of the century, one example of how Malone gives long-overdue credit to the unsung heroes and inventors for their contributions.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)