Today, the DVF troupe went to the Intel Museum in Santa Clara. Dave Libby was our tour guide through the museum, which explores the history of Intel from the company’s beginnings in the 1960’s to the present day. Moore and Noyce were going to name the company after themselves, but the name Moore/Noyce sounded a little too familiar to “More Noise,” which is not a good thing to have in the semi-conductor business!
We had a blast looking at the one-page business plan that Noyce wrote for Intel. I’ve seen business plans for companies that looked like books! Those companies have come and gone in the dot-com bust, but Intel is still going strong, with 3 billion dollars in revenue last year on sales of over 26 billion dollars. Wow.
I had a blast trying on the bunny suit, which is the outfit that the clean room engineers must wear before working in the fab. Sadly, they didn’t have the bunny suit helmet, so I was unable to complete the outfit.
Dave was telling us that there clean room is rated to one particle per million per cubic foot of air. To accomplish this, the floor has holes in it through which particles are blasted by air jets coming from a three-story high circulation system! That’s pretty impressive!
Following the museum, we headed back to Stanford where we had lunch near Tresidder. The school is starting to show signs of life, with more and more students walking around the campus. The freshman arrive on Thursday, and it’s likely going to be a madhouse trying to park, so I’m going to ride my bike. I stopped by Donner (freshman dorm), but Linda the Resident Fellow wasn’t there. I did speak with Hitem, the RCC for Donner for quite some time. His room was right across from my frosh room. Man, it’s been 10 years since I was living in Donner! Kids starting Stanford were introduced to the Internet when they were 8 years old. I was using the Net when I was in high school, but we didn’t have anything near what’s available today: wireless networks, instant messaging, peer-to-peer networks, broadband Internet connections, etc. 10 years!
I also stopped by the Symbolic Systems office and spoke with my advisor, Tom Wasow. In the Main Quad, they’re gearing up for Henessey’s big speech to the incoming freshman at 4:15 pm. It’s going to be hot out there in the Quad tomorrow!
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