Nationality: Swiss
Early training: Theoretical physisist, University of Geneva; PhD, University of Cambridge
Swiss watch industry: Creator of Intersil, Eurosil, Inventor of the CMOS IC’s for wrist watch calibers
Main achievements: After having worked at the ‘Shockley Semiconductor’ facility in the USA, where the transistor was invented, Hoerni created his own firm ‘Fairchild Semiconductor’ together with other engineers. His main invention in 1959 was the planar process, a protocol which will lead to the reliable industrial production of silicon integrated circuits.
1967 he founds ‘Intersil‘ in California with the main goal of producing integrated circuits for the watch industry. The site of Intersil is currently used by the headquarters of Apple Inc. Unfortunately upon proposing the new technology of CMOS integrated circuits to the Swiss watch industry in 1969, latter declined and therefore Hoerni sold the licence to Seiko, which will use the technology to leap in front of the Swiss for the dominance in global watch distribution, by developing reliable and cheap quartz watches.
In 1971 Hoerni founds Eurosil in Germany, largely co-financed by the Swiss SSIH.
Picture credit: Invent.org
Electric Watch Prototypes 