Ross Knox Bassett. To the Digital Age: Research Labs, Start-up Companies, and the Rise of MOS Technology. Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002. xii + 421 pp. ISBN 0-8018-6809-2, $44.95.

Ross Knox Bassett. Tb the Digital Age: Research Labs, Start-up Companies, and the Rise of MOS Technology. Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002. xii + 421 pp. ISBN 0-8018-6809-2, $44.95.

This is a remarkably detailed narrative of the development of MOS (metal-oxide-semiconductor) technology. A singularly important technical and commercial breakthrough, the MOS transistor replaced (Ross Bassett goes so far as to say overthrew) the bipolar transistor invented by William Shockley in 1948. Bassett's account of the development of MOS has important implications for understanding the relationships among science, commerce, new product development, and research and development (R&D).

As Bassett explains, the significance of MOS is that it is scalable. That is, it makes possible putting extremely complex circuitry in an extremely small space by etching electronic pathways on tiny and inexpensively manufactured wafers of silicon. The bipolar transistor was a single device. Each individual transistor, representing the most basic element of an electronic circuit, had to be individually inserted and soldered into a circuit board that connected the transistors to create the complex electronic circuits that perform the basic functions of computing: bytes of memory and rudimentary logic. The MOS technology allows a large number of transistors to be combined in a circuit on...