This book is about integrated circuits. It is written in simple language and assumes no particular background. Beginning with basic concepts of positive and negative charge and the structure of an atom, it proceeds through IC manufacturing technologies to current (1983) RAM chips and microprocessors. The book concludes with informed speculation about the future.
Covering all this material in one book is difficult; covering it for the nontechnical reader is even more so. Fitting the end product into 150 pages of text (plus a glossary and suggestions for further reading) is a real tour de force. Kerridge is to be commended, both for his courage in the attempt and for the degree to which he succeeded.
The book, however, is not perfect. Its deficiencies result primarily from attempting to do more than can realistically be done. The reader with no technical background will find that the easy beginning gives way rapidly to tougher going. The information density can be staggering. Sentences such as “A series of N+ diffusions or ion implantations are then made for the N-channel MOST device’s source and drain regions, and then a series of P+ end regions are similarly made for the P-channel MOST device,” or “The 68000 VLSI microprocessor chip is manufactured using high-density short-channel MOS (HMOS) technology, and a recent version, the 68020, uses ‘HCMOS’--a mixture of (mainly) NMOS and PMOS” will boggle the mind of anyone who had to be told, a few dozen pages earlier, that “Currents always flow along wires.” Conversely, a person who wants the more indepth knowledge will be put off by the introductory chapters, and may feel that the chatty writing style talks down to the reader.
Who, then, is this book for? The Foreword unfortunately doesn’t say. It could be read by an application programmer with some interest in hardware. By a microcomputer user who wants to find out what’s inside the box. By a technically curious lay person who doesn’t mind some hard mental effort at times. Or by several others along those lines. Perhaps the best fit would be with an intelligent, technically-minded teenager. Each of these people will find parts of the book to ignore and parts to read twice. Yet each might also be better served by a book with a clearer focus on a single target audience. In trying to serve many groups of readers, this book falls short of what any one of those groups needs.
One final comment: this book was written by an Englishman. He has done an admirable job of making its content truly international. Financial discussions give equal billing to pounds, dollars, Swiss francs, Deutchmarks, and yen. Lengths and temperatures are given in both English and metric units. An example of a distance is given as “Oxford-London, New York-Bridgeport (Conn.), or Tokyo-Mito.” There are occasional lapses--how many North American or Asian readers will know how long a cricket pitch is?--but they are negligible. This book should be required reading for all other writers about computers, especially in the United States, just so they will learn how not to be parochial.
