Customer Reviews

The Story of Semiconductors

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Many good "history of science" books have limited insight into the subject matter because the author has not worked actively in that field. In contrast, Orton has worked on semiconductor R&D for many years, and has written many technical papers and technical monographs (two books I am aware of with P. Blood on semiconductor characterization). I am not an expert on the history of semiconductors, but I work in the field and I believe Orton has written a good history of the semiconductors that those who work in the field should find interesting. I would compare it with E.T. Bell's "Men of Mathematics" in terms of insight into the technical areas, although Bell's book has many more interesting accounts of the personal lives of the mathematicians. Bell's book is also very readable for the non-mathematician, whereas Orton's book may be a little too complex in most spots for a non-scientist/engineer. Orton's book is great at giving simplified accounts of a great many complex semiconductor physics and device topics. You will not be able to design a quantum cascade laser after reading his book, but you will in a few minutes get some qualitative (and for many topics even semi-quantitative) idea of what it's all about.