What do Universities Really owe Industry? The Case of Solid State Electronics at Stanford

Abstract

It is widely argued that, in the United States, the Department of Defense dictated the intellectual contours of academic science and engineering during the Cold War. However, in important ways, American science was also deeply influenced by industry. Between 1955 and 1985, Stanford University embraced three waves of industrial innovation in solid state technology (transistors, integrated circuits, and VLSI systems). As this essay shows, it was these transfers that enabled Stanford engineers to make significant contributions to the expanding fields of microelectronics and computing.