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In a single nook stood the defending champion, Texas Devices. Within the different stood the challenger, Fairchild Semiconductor. The referee, choose, promoter, and solely spectator was Polaroid. In competition was the contract for the electronics of Polaroid’s secret undertaking—a pioneering product launched in 1972 because the SX-70, a digital camera finally bought by thousands and thousands of individuals.Because the embodiment of actually automated prompt pictures, the SX-70 fulfilled a long-held dream of Edwin Land, founding father of Polaroid Corp., Cambridge, Mass. Important to this “level and shoot” functionality was a brand new movie—one that may develop whereas uncovered to mild and so remove the tear-away covers of earlier Polaroid movies. Additionally important have been refined electronics to manage all single lens reflex (SLR) digital camera capabilities, together with flashbulb choice, publicity management, mirror positioning, begin of print growth, and ejection of print. These circuits have been divided into three modules, one every for motor, publicity and logic, and flash management. On the remaining rely, some 400 transistors have been used.This text was first revealed as “The battle for the SX-70.” It appeared within the Could 1989 problem of IEEE Spectrum. A PDF model is on the market on IEEE Xplore. The diagrams and images appeared within the unique print model.But this difficult system had to slot in a package deal the dimensions of Land’s jacket pocket, he decreed—a constraint that meant using ICs. However as Polaroid couldn’t fabricate ICs, the success of its SX-70 undertaking lay within the fingers of outsiders.The flash management contract was given to Common Electrical Co. Then in 1971, when GE dropped out of the IC enterprise, it was issued to Sprague Electrical Corp., in addition to to Fairchild Semiconductor Corp. of Palo Alto, Calif., and Texas Devices Inc. of Dallas, Texas. Solely Fairchild and Sprague ended up producing flash controllers.Unbiased contracts to develop the motor and publicity management modules went to Fairchild and TI. The motor management module contained a linear management IC, an NPN motor drive transistor, and a discrete PNP dynamic braking transistor, and gave the designers little bother. The publicity management module was a unique story.The grand challengeIncluded within the publicity management have been three ICs (early Fairchild variations had 4). The publicity timer used the present output of a silicon photodiode to manage how lengthy the shutter blades remained open. The delay-timing circuit generated 4 intervals: a delay of 40 milliseconds earlier than the shutter opened; the time the shutter remained open earlier than the flash was fired; the period of the flash; and the utmost publicity time given sure ambient lighting. The ability management IC drove the solenoids and motor management unit. And this all needed to match on a board that match right into a 27-by-95-by-2-millimeter area, minus a central gap for the digital camera lens.Electrical noise was a serious stumbling block. The photocell, for example, working with as little as 15 picoamperes, needed to preserve its state in an setting through which the motor, the solenoids, and the firing of the flash lamps drew amperes of present. Designers have been to take steps like inserting a delay between the discharge of the solenoids and the beginning of the photocell-timed publicity; redesigning circuitry on the facility provide line to reject noise from the motor; rising the voltage distinction between logic highs and lows, so noise spikes would not masquerade as bits; and together with a low-pass filter.Because it was 1969, there have been no semicustom ICs, gate array know-how was in its infancy, and solely primitive packaging was accessible—commonplace twin in-line packages (DIPs) have been at the least 0.125 inch thick—whereas logic and energy transistors couldn’t but share the identical piece of silicon. And Polaroid wished to purchase this publicity controller for US $5.75.What buddies are forPolaroid chairman Land and TI chairman Patrick Haggerty have been previous buddies. On a weekend journey a long time earlier than the SX-70 undertaking, they’d mentioned how electronics may someday make a really one-step digital camera doable. The thought was to work on this dream collectively as quickly because the know-how arrived. So it got here as no shock when TI was charged with creating the digital camera’s publicity management board. Land was relying on TI for a fail-safe design, primarily based on analog circuitry and confirmed know-how and due to this fact dependable, moderately priced, and able to being produced on schedule.Polaroid additionally requested Fairchild, which it seen because the nation’s chief in IC know-how, to sort out a design that may push the cutting-edge. Fairchild’s model was to be digital and extremely built-in, even to combining energy transistors with logic on one chip. To Polaroid the strategy appeared dangerous, however its engineers have been excited by its potentialities. Nonetheless, some inside Polaroid thought the Land-Haggerty relationship made nonsense of utilizing anybody however TI.Within the darkThe R&D contracts have been awarded in 1969, and the rivals went to work, each with the identical handicap: incomplete data. Fearing that Kodak Corp. may enter the moment digital camera enterprise, Polaroid wished no leaks—a lot in order that it talked about neither the brand new movie nor the truth that at one level the digital camera was redesigned as an SLR—and saved the design groups from seeing a prototype of the digital camera. (Though TI’s then government vp, the now-retired Fred Bucy, noticed an illustration of the early, non-SLR SX-70 in 1969, he mentioned nothing about it to the corporate’s engineers.) Mentioned Peter Carcia, an engineer on the SX-70 undertaking and nonetheless with Polaroid: “That they had little or no to work with”—solely stacks of specs.When it contracted with Fairchild and TI to develop the electronics for the SX-70 digital camera, Polaroid Corp. offered this timing diagram together with 30 pages of different design specs, reliability necessities, and take a look at data. It signifies sequences of occasions for the 4 completely different modes of operation a completely automated digital camera required. Desk 1 signifies capabilities for taking pictures in ambient mild, Desk 2 covers flash operation, Desk 3 calls out the sequence of occasions that’s triggered when a brand new movie pack is put in and its protecting cowl have to be ejected, and Desk 4 describes the operations that happen when a pack of movie is used up.Polaroid engineers recall that masses on the electronics have been described merely as inductive, and that particulars of the battery provide have been obscure as a result of a brand new battery was being concurrently designed.“We didn’t inform them whether or not a load on the electronics was from a solenoid or a relay, simply that it was an inductive load,” recollects Seymour Ellin, now a senior technical supervisor at Polaroid.“Since we have been making our personal battery [designed concurrently], we couldn’t inform them what the battery provide could be,” mentioned Carcia. “I’d inform them ‘I need you to design a circuit, however I received’t let you know what the facility supply will probably be,’ and they might take a look at me surprisingly.”Polaroid wished no leaks—a lot in order that it talked about neither the brand new movie nor the truth that at one level the digital camera was redesigned as an SLR.Even worse was the “Y” delay—which Polaroid engineers informed IEEE Spectrum got here from the “why” response given Fairchild and TI engineers every time they questioned one specification: the quick delay earlier than beginning the publicity, after the person pressed the button. This pause was to permit the mirror (which in an SLR digital camera displays the picture seen by means of the lens to the viewfinder) to cease vibrating after it snapped out of the way in which of the movie to be uncovered. However that was greater than Polaroid wished to reveal. The sources of the noise downside have been left obscure, and its extent understated, mentioned Clark Williams, then a TI design engineer. “That motor pulled 3 amps of present and put out a wealthy spectrum of noise that performed havoc with our circuits,” he mentioned. (He’s now a design supervisor at Dallas Semiconductor Corp. in Dallas, Texas.)The TI crew, unable to base a breadboard on Polaroid’s diagrams alone, despatched two engineers and a number of other technicians to Cambridge to work in a little bit non-public room there. Every time they wanted to check their breadboard, they’d hand it over to Polaroid engineers, who would carry it to a different room and finally report again that, say, a sure sign wanted adjustment or a sure part didn’t operate. The TI engineers would make a couple of changes, then the breadboard was carried off for one more take a look at. This to-and-fro-ing went on for six months, whereas, mentioned Michael Callahan, a senior TI design engineer who’s presently government vp of engineering at Crystal Semiconductors Corp. in Austin, Texas: “We might have performed the work in two weeks if they’d allow us to signal nondisclosure agreements.”Designing in DallasA preliminary spherical had disillusioned each IC groups. In 1969, earlier than Polaroid had firmed up many SX-70 particulars, it began each TI and Fairchild creating easy publicity management chips. This early effort, mentioned Polaroid engineers, was additionally used to develop and take a look at their working relationship with Fairchild. However the SX-70 undertaking modified a lot, significantly with its redefinition as an SLR digital camera, that Polaroid determined to begin over. Callahan and Ken Buss, now a senior member of the technical workers at TI, recall a gathering in Dallas at which the TI engineers proudly demonstrated the working circuits—solely to have Polaroid ignore them and announce its new necessities.“That made our chips immediately out of date,” Buss mentioned. At Fairchild, too, enthusiasm flagged. Coincidentally, each corporations quickly after underwent a company restructuring, however whereas the modifications at Fairchild benefited its SX-70 crew, these at TI practically value it every little thing.The TI designers, as an alternative of working immediately with Polaroid, have been informed to report back to the Assembled Features Group. Missing both chip growth or manufacturing services of its personal, the Group contracted with the IC designers’ division to develop three chips—a photocell amplifier to find out the proper publicity, a chip to manage the motor and deal with dynamic braking, and a chip to deal with timing, rely the movie used, and serve different capabilities—and with one other division to fabricate the chips. The association additional filtered the already restricted data from Polaroid.Three completely different designs for the SX-70 publicity management electronics have been produced. Fairchild Semiconductor Corp.’s model (prime) went into cameras in 1972 and 1973—discover the polyimide movie used to connect the ICs to the board. Texas Devices Inc. produced its ceramic board (heart) throughout 1972, then redesigned, and received the manufacturing contract away from Fairchild with a circuit board that used miniDIP IC packaging (backside).That left the Group itself with the job of designing the circuitry that may tie the ICs collectively. Its engineers used 13 discrete transistors, 17 laser-trimmed thick-film resistors, and a photodiode, meaning to mount them on a printed-circuit board. Administration as an alternative mandated a ceramic substrate primarily as a result of, mentioned one TI design engineer, the Group reported to the identical supervisor as TI’s Hybrid Thick-Movie Group, which had extra capability.“We knew we couldn’t meet the price objectives with a ceramic substrate,” he mentioned. The ceramic, the dear metallic conductors, and the labor all value an excessive amount of for the substrate to function something greater than a prototype “to allow us to get all of the circuitry in a small space.” And when the design grew from 3/4 sq. inch to 4 or 5 sq. inches (from 5 to 25 or 32 sq. centimeters), the engineer recalled, he and the opposite designers predicted main manufacturing issues and urged doing a extra digital redesign with a printed-circuit board. However administration “wouldn’t hear,” he mentioned.TI’s ceramic-based design did, nonetheless, carry out to Polaroid’s specs, and it went into manufacturing in late 1972. Nevertheless it was certainly a nightmare. First, at $100 a unit, it was nowhere close to the $5.75 value purpose. And manufacturing issues have been super, particularly with the big and due to this fact fragile ceramic substrate. For example, mentioned TI design engineer Norm Culp: “We needed to take a chip, alloy it to a Kapton movie provider [a high temperature plastic foil], then wire bond the chip to the Kapton provider, then encapsulate the chip. The Kapton movie carriers have been then examined individually, then reflowed onto the ceramic substrate.”Yield was about 1 %, and that one in 100 typically cracked on its strategy to Polaroid.Furthermore, mentioned Culp, reflow-soldering chip carriers to the substrate brought about microcracks within the ceramic, and for some time TI inspected each half for the issues. Then one engineer realized that heating your entire substrate as an alternative of simply the half to be reflow-soldered would scale back the microcracks, which, nonetheless, confirmed up in different components of the method. Yield was about 1 %, and that one in 100 typically cracked on its strategy to Polaroid.Polaroid did order a number of hundred of those ceramic modules to get the SX-70 to market. Nevertheless it wasn’t in any respect proud of them. Mentioned Ellin, “TI, primarily, failed to fulfill the price goal.”Competing in CaliforniaMeanwhile, engineers at Fairchild have been additionally operating into difficulties, however technical ones solely. Early within the design course of, Fairchild’s company restructuring moved the R&D engineers out of their remoted laboratory into working divisions, making for higher communication with manufacturing, which “resolved a number of issues,” mentioned Howard Murphy, a senior member of the Fairchild analysis workers and the undertaking director for the SX-70 electronics.”We designed a die that had round 20 flip-flops on it, in all probability a brand new excessive in IC complexity at the moment.”—Howard Murphy, FairchildOne design downside was excessive temperature. Murphy recalled that the warmth of the heavy currents drawn by the motors and the solenoids affected the management logic circuitry, which then needed to be redesigned to work at larger temperatures—the specs indicated 40 °C. One other hurdle was the picture circuit. It needed to outing after 20 seconds, in order that photos could possibly be taken in dim mild of about 0.06 candela per sq. foot (0.65 candela per sq. meter), though the circuit design crew wasn’t totally conscious of the rationale for this on the time. The circuit additionally needed to be very small and devour only a few milliamperes. “So we designed a die that had round 20 flip-flops on it, in all probability a brand new excessive in IC complexity at the moment,” Murphy remembered.Frank Perrino, a Fairchild product supervisor, first turned concerned within the SX-70 undertaking in Could 1971, when he oversaw its transfer into manufacturing. He recalled that the designers have been then engaged on 4 chips—a driver for the motor and solenoids, a timing chip, and the photodiode and photodiode amplification chips that later turned one bipolar CMOS IC. The cube have been to be mounted immediately on an irregularly formed 1-by-4-inch ceramic substrate beforehand metalized on either side with state-of-the-art traces and areas.The prices concerned, nonetheless, dominated the strategy out for manufacturing, Perrino informed Spectrum. “The ceramic and chips all needed to be good,” he mentioned, and there was zero “chance of this taking place.”He concluded a printed-circuit board was a should, however find out how to mount the chips to it? Fairchild’s plastic DIPs have been too giant and dear for the job. He had, although, learn a paper by Common Electrical engineers on beam tape packaging (BTP), a forerunner of what’s now referred to as tape automated bonding (TAB). After investigating BTP, he informed Fairchild and Polaroid administration, “If we don’t do it this manner, it’s not value doing.” Each agreed.BTP employed reels of movie with copper traces laminated on it round preexisting holes. Chips with bumps of solder on their pads have been centered underneath the holes and bonded to the overhanging copper lead frames. Particular person die/movie modules have been then encapsulated, examined, clipped off the reel, and soldered to the circuit board.Perrino laid out the double-sided printed-circuit board at house on paper unfold throughout his pool desk. He then visited a number of corporations that made polyimide interconnect movie, contracted with 3M as a provider, and persuaded West-Bond Inc. of Anaheim, Calif., to construct tools for attaching the cube to the reel of laminated movie. The ultimate circuit board held three IC cube and two flip-chip, thick-film, laser-trimmed resistors.Nevertheless, yields weren’t following the anticipated studying curve on two of the three ICs, the facility transistors due to excessive doping ranges and the timing chip as a result of, mentioned Perrino, of design errors. For instance, Jim Feit, one other engineer on the undertaking, recollects a parasitic gadget affecting the flip-flops, which was fastened with the addition of a delay.Nonetheless, although the components weren’t low-cost, costing Fairchild roughly $20 or $30 every, they have been manufacturable.D-dayThe SX-70 was launched in April 1972, along with the corporate’s annual stockholders’ assembly. A yr earlier, Land had teased the stockholders by pulling a prototype SX-70 out of his pocket and waving it within the air. That was a working mannequin, containing one in all TI’s first profitable ceramic circuit boards. However for this assembly, Polaroid wanted 20 cameras, and John Burgarella, now retired from the corporate, needed to make a number of journeys to Texas to hand-carry sufficient working boards again to Cambridge. A few month earlier, Land had introduced Fairchild engineers Perrino, Murphy, and Will Steffe to his Cambridge workplace and demonstrated the digital camera to them. “It was clearly a technological breakthrough,” recalled Perrino, which motivated them “to return and make the factor work.”Edwin Land confirmed the primary working SX-70 digital camera at a stockholders’ assembly in 1971. It was solely a prototype, and contained one of many first working ceramic circuit boards produced by Texas Devices. A TI engineer had put in it the evening earlier than the assembly, working with a digital camera that was shrouded to stop him from studying something extra about it than he already knew.The introduction went off with out a hitch. A few dozen scenes, from a poker recreation to a baby’s celebration, have been enacted in a big warehouse, and well-known photographers have been capturing them with the brand new cameras whereas Polaroid stockholders circulated and examined the images. Polaroid engineers have been additionally circulating, with further cameras of their pockets in case something went fallacious.Resting on their laurelsSo Fairchild received a contract to fabricate the publicity management modules together with the motor circuits and the flash management circuits. The commerce press touted their victory. In line with a January 1973 Digital Information report, for example, this contract, “believed to be the biggest ever issued by a digital camera producer to an electronics provider,” was value $19 million, and was “thought-about by some semiconductor executives as an omen of appreciable future enterprise.”Fairchild disbanded most of its design crew, happy with their success. However the manufacturing engineers pressed on, since the price of the product needed to be diminished by three-quarters or extra to fulfill Polaroid’s worth goal, and contract negotiations have been to be reopened for 1974. Nevertheless, mentioned Perrino, two of the chips within the publicity management module have been nonetheless in bother.C. Lester Hogan, who had lately left Motorola Inc. to take over the Fairchild presidency, blames Fairchild’s then-outdated manufacturing services. He began a modernization, however he mentioned, “there wasn’t a number of further money,” and it was not full till someday in 1974.Perrino blames the IC designs as effectively. “The design guidelines utilized in these chips have been touch-and-go with the know-how,” he informed Spectrum. Polaroid’s Carcia agreed: ‘‘We have been pushing the basic know-how.” Redesigning the chips was talked about, however administration didn’t mandate it.A matter of prideThe TI design crew was additionally disbanded in 1972. Some left the corporate, some moved on to different tasks. The failure, one design engineer informed Spectrum, was a black mark that harm careers.On the highest stage of TI, nonetheless, the guide was not being closed. TI chairman Haggerty reportedly referred to as his previous good friend Land and mentioned, “We at TI don’t fail.” He assigned the undertaking about $540,000 from his personal funds, and informed his managers to do no matter it might take to succeed. The code identify Venture Alpha emphasised the significance of the recent begin, and Haggerty put government vp Bucy in command of it.The failure, one design engineer [said], was a black mark that harm careers.As the unique TI crew had been disbanded, Bucy deliberate to assemble one other one from the semiconductor division, and to make sure that this one would talk immediately with Polaroid and still have manufacturing duties.Dean Toombs, engineering director of the semiconductor group, held a collection of conferences and developed a proposal for the redesign that was one other break with TI’s first strategy: it relied not on confirmed however on state-of-the-art IC know-how and packaging. A circuit board just one/64 inch thick was to carry as much as 4 digital (not analog) ICs and eight discrete elements at most. The chips could be floor mounted to the board in a miniDIP package deal, a technique of quantity meeting then new and dangerous however low-cost. (It’s now referred to as SOT, which stands for Small Define Transistors.)The plan was authorised by Bucy, and Henri Jarrat (then Eljarrat) chosen to go the hassle. At first Jarrat objected to the task, however gave manner when informed it was TI’s prime precedence. Given carte blanche to assemble a crew from wherever within the group, he saved the group manageably small—solely 18 folks. They rapidly partitioned the circuitry into three ICs and offered a six-month schedule for the redesign to Fred Bucy and Polaroid president William McCune.Expert specmanshipThen Jarrat had his first assembly with Polaroid engineers. He informed them he might solely combine the publicity management operate into three elements in the event that they waived a few of their specs. He started happening his checklist and to every request the Polaroid engineers mentioned no. So Jarrat stood up, threw his papers down, and mentioned, he recalled, “Now I do know why this undertaking goes nowhere. This can by no means work, and I don’t need to have my identify hooked up to a failure.” He charged out of the room. Toombs backed Jarrat’s risk. “We needed to get the shopper underneath management,” he informed Spectrum.The power to barter was partially additionally because of the availability of working cameras to check and the development of a prototype on which to check breadboards of the chips—luxuries denied the primary TI crew.After a short adjournment, the assembly was reconvened and from then on Polaroid negotiated specs. For instance, the 20-second outing, for taking an image in a dimly lit room, had made the sign from the photodiode impossibly low for the primary design groups and this time round was reduce to 10 seconds. “The massive purpose for our success was Jarrat’s success at convincing them to ease the specs,” mentioned Clark Williams, a member of the second crew.The power to barter was partially additionally because of the availability of working cameras to check and the development of a prototype on which to check breadboards of the chips—luxuries denied the primary TI crew. And when the primary group did increase questions out of concern for manufacturability, recalled Buss, the one TI engineer to work on each the design and the redesign efforts, they have been informed, “Properly, your competitors can do that.” And, actually, Fairchild engineers don’t recall that the specs have been problematical.TI started producing the Venture Alpha boards in amount in mid-1973.
With the redesign, TI quoted Polaroid a worth of about $4.10 a unit—effectively beneath the $5.75 goal. Mentioned former Fairchild president Hogan: “On the time, it value us $10. We actually believed we might get it to $6, however when TI bombed the worth down to 2 thirds of the goal worth, we simply needed to drop out.” As for a redesign, mentioned Hogan, “we didn’t have the cash to take a position that manner—we needed to spend money on the generic fixing of the manufacturing unit.”
TI created a particular digital camera division with Polaroid as its solely buyer. The corporate made about 850 000 items in 1974 and continued to supply the design till the SX-70 and the SX-70 Mannequin 2 have been discontinued in 1977. It additionally spun off a couple of improvements, together with packaging for TI’s watch shows. And the engineers on the Venture Alpha crew have been rewarded with then substantial raises of $100 to $500 a month.
West-Bond and 3M, corporations Fairchild had recruited to fabricate packaging tools and movie tape, continued to profitably produce them for different corporations.
Fairchild used the BTP packaging know-how it developed for the SX-70 on its high-volume plastic DIP merchandise at a number of manufacturing services. It additionally took its digital camera management know-how abroad on a tour of Japanese digital camera producers, however after a number of unsuccessful months gave up and closed down the manufacturing line for the publicity management module. It continued to fabricate flash management modules for Polaroid for one more yr, nonetheless. Inside six months to a yr of shedding the publicity management contract, at the least half the individuals who had labored on the undertaking moved to different corporations, Feit recalled.
Completely satisfied ending
Might the design have gone extra easily? Actually higher communications between Polaroid and the 2 semiconductor corporations and amongst completely different divisions inside TI and Fairchild would have eradicated a few of the tough spots.
From Polaroid’s standpoint, the data it handed out was as full because it could possibly be. In any case, a number of components of the digital camera system have been being developed concurrently, in order that the system specs couldn’t in the meantime be finalized. Additionally, mentioned one Polaroid engineer, unfamiliarity with pictures impaired the IC designers’ comprehension of the info they got.
Within the eyes of the TI and Fairchild engineers, helpful data was withheld, and Polaroid engineers do admit a preoccupation with secrecy.
Nonetheless, within the eyes of the TI and Fairchild engineers, helpful data was withheld, and Polaroid engineers do admit a preoccupation with secrecy on account of concern over competitors from Kodak. Maybe being informed that sure design points had but to be resolved or an in depth rationalization of how an SLR capabilities would have elicited extra artistic engineering from the IC designers.
Be that as it could, the SX-70 was a superb success. Polaroid offered some three million items of the leather-covered Mannequin 1 with its chrome-plated trim and the plastic-bodied Mannequin 2. (Mannequin 3, launched in 1975, was not an SLR.) So whereas the design issues each TI and Fairchild endured triggered tense moments in any respect three corporations, their resolution opened up an enormous new shopper market in electronics.To probe additional
For particulars on the SX-70 circuitry, see “Behind the lens of the SX-70,” by Gerald Lapidus, IEEE Spectrum (December 1973, pp. 76-83).
Each Time and Life magazines featured the SX-70 digital camera on their covers in 1972, and mentioned it in “Polaroid’s Huge Gamble on Small Cameras” (Time, June 26, 1972, pp. 80-82) and “If you’ll be able to state an issue, it may be solved” (Life, October 27, 1972, p. 48). To grasp how the event of the SX-70 match into Polaroid’s Jong historical past, learn The Prompt Picture: Edwin Land and the Polaroid Expertise by Mark Olshaker (Stein & Day, New York, 1978).
Frank Perrino’s model of tape automated bonding is described in U.S. Patent #3,868,724, “Multi-layer connecting buildings for packaging semiconductor units mounted on a versatile provider,” dated Feb. 25, 1975.
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