Julius Blank

Julius Blank (June 2, 1925 – September 17, 2011) was an American semiconductor pioneer. A member of the traitorous eight, he left Nobel-winning physicist William Shockley's company to form Fairchild Semiconductor.

Early life and education Blank was born and raised in Manhattan's Lower East Side, the youngest of three children of Jewish immigrants Charles and Gussie Blank. His father made musical-instrument cases and luggage, and also worked as a Russian translator. His first job, in a factory, motivated him to learn more, and he attended a trade school as well.

“I decided I needed to get a little bit more knowledge about practical matters and I wanted to become a machinist. While I was going to school I went to another school at night at Brooklyn Tech where I learned how to operate lathes, machines, read blueprints, and that kind of stuff. I got a job as a machinist after that." In April 1944, he was sent overseas, making large steam boilers for the power industry. Blank indicated that he personally had not had problems with Shockley, but that Shockley's treatment of others was disturbing.

Julius Blank found the company's first home, a 14,000 square foot building at 844 Charleston Road, between Palo Alto and Mountain View. Little more than a shell, it lacked both plumbing and electricity. Kleiner and Blank were in charge of transforming the empty building into usable spaces for production, research and offices.

"We built new R&D facilities, we built new fabs in Mountain View, and then we had one in San Rafael, and we added one in Portland, and eventually had one in Toronto, but it wasn't a fab, it was just an assembly facility. And then we did Hong Kong because of the assembly action, and then Korea and then I used to travel a lot to Europe ... they were building facilities outside of Milan [Italy]. They were building them in England and Sweden and France and West Germany. So, we were busy for a while. We had a facility in Australia as well and two in Mexico, one in Tijuana and one in Mexico City." Julius Blank, 2008. The incubator of Silicon Valley, Fairchild was directly or indirectly involved in the creation of dozens of corporations such as AMD and Intel.

Consultancy In 1969, Blank decided to leave Fairchild and become a consultant to new startup companies. The company's NOVRAM computer chip, a type of non-volatile memory, was designed so that systems could retain and save data in the event of power failure. In 2004, Xicor was acquired by Intersil Corp. for approximately US$529 million.

Awards In May, 2011, the California Historical Society in San Francisco gave the Legends of California Award to Blank, 85, and other founders of Fairchild Semiconductor.

Later life In 2011, Blank lived in a retirement center across the street from the old Fairchild headquarters at 844 Charleston Road in Palo Alto, where he used to have his office. The site is now a California Historical Landmark. His wife, Ethel, an art curator, had died previously in 2008 after nearly 60 years of marriage. He was survived by two sons, Jeffrey and David, and two grandsons.