Wikinventia — Atlas of discoveries and inventions · Global Age

CMOS (complementary metal-oxide semiconductor) — Frank Wanlass and Chih-Tang Sah

1963 AD · Transmission: Global
ElectronicsInventionNorth American

In February 1963, Frank Wanlass and Chih-Tang Sah, at Fairchild Semiconductor's R&D laboratory, presented at the International Solid-State Circuits Conference (ISSCC) the concept of CMOS logic circuits: combining p-channel and n-channel MOS transistors in a complementary symmetry configuration. The result was circuits with near-zero static power consumption (orders of magnitude lower than contemporary bipolar technologies). Wanlass patented the idea (U.S. Patent 3,356,858, filed June 1963, granted 1967). CMOS would go on to become the standard fabrication process for virtually all modern VLSI integrated circuits, from microprocessors to memory.

InstitutionFairchild Semiconductor (R&D Laboratory)
Historical regionPalo Alto, California, U.S.A.
Primary sourceSah, C.T.; Wanlass, F.M. — "Nanowatt Logic Using Field-Effect Metal-Oxide Semiconductor Triodes," International Solid-State Circuits Conference Digest of Technical Papers, February 20, 1963, pp. 32-33; Wanlass, F.M. — U.S. Patent 3,356,858, "Low Stand-By Power Complementary Field Effect Circuitry," filed June 18, 1963, granted December 5, 1967.
Secondary sourceComputer History Museum — "The Silicon Engine: 1963 — Complementary MOS Circuit Configuration is Invented"; Wanlass, F.M. — "Wanlass's CMOS circuit" (IEEE retrospective, Proceedings of the IEEE)
Original languageen
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