Apollo Guidance Computer Integrated Circuit

The apollo guidance computer agc provided guidance navigation and control onboard the apollo flights to the moon. In 1962 ti won a contract from the autonetics division of north american aviation to design 22 custom circuits for the minuteman ii missile guidance system.

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The circuits were designed by the fairchild semiconductor corporation of mountain view california and manufactured by phbilco at their landsdale pennsylvania plant.

Apollo guidance computer integrated circuit. Although the apollo guidance computer led and motivated integrated circuit technology it was the minuteman missile that forced it into mass production. The procedure for the testing screening and lot rejection of integrated circuits for the apollo guidance and navigation computer is described. Eldon halls journey to the moon recounts this decision in detail and presented here are supplementary materials to that explanation.

It was only as recently as september 1958 that the first ic was invented by jack kilby of texas instruments. The integrated circuit technology development was led by the apollo guidance computer while the minuteman missile bolstered it into mass production. This historic computer was one of the first to use integrated circuits containing just two types of ics.

This short article discusses the integrated circuits in the apollo manned lunar landing program. Clevite and westinghouse also developed circuits for the minuteman project which by 1965 overtook nasas apollo procurement as the largest single consumer of ics. Flatpack silicon integrated circuits in the apollo guidance computer the agc was designed at the mit instrumentation laboratory under charles stark draper with hardware design led by eldon c.

The procedure based on a knowledge of failure modes failure mechanisms and contributing causes to failures in the manufacturing of devices attempts to increase the reliability of integrated circuits. This is a pre production silicon integrated circuit of the type used in the apollo guidance block ii computers installed on the apoll command and lunar modules. The minuteman missile program and various other united states navy programs accounted for the total 4 million integrated circuit market in 1962 and by 1968 us.

The purchases of almost all of the available integrated circuits from 1960 through 1963 were from these aerospace programs and basically provided the demand that funded the production improvements. Integrated circuits in the apollo guidance computer the decision in 1962 to build the agc using integrated circuits was critical to its success and a key moment in the history of computing. A 3 input nor gate for the logic circuitry and a sense amplifier ic for the memory.

Microscopic view of dual three element nor gate the inside of a silicon chip used in apollo. It was tested successfully during the apollo 10 mission but it was never needed. Government spending on space and defense still accounted for 37 of the 312 million total production.

The apollo program played an integral part in helping establish the world market for ics. Like the apollo guidance computer it also used integrated circuits.

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