He chose to target much of Fairchild’s R&D not at the military, but at mass market products. Most of the chips used in rockets or satellites must have civilian uses, too, he reasoned. The first integrated circuit produced for commercial markets, used in a Zenith hearing aid, had initially been designed for a NASA satellite. The challenge would be making chips that civilians could afford. The military paid top dollar, but consumers were price sensitive. What remained tantalizing, though, was that the civilian market was far larger than even the bloated budgets of the Cold War Pentagon. “Selling
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