1969
World's First CMOS LSI Application Product
*** Industry Trends ***
The MOS transistor, invented in 1960[1], was immediately integrated into ICs. MOS transistors come in P-channel (PMOS) and N-channel (NMOS) types, and in 1963, CMOS was invented by combining both [2]. IC development starting in the 1960s began with the already widely used bipolar transistor, IC development using MOS transistors proceeded in parallel. In 1968, CMOS ICs were invented by RCA [3]. This CMOS IC featured low power consumption and was applied in some computers for the U.S. Air Force. However, CMOS ICs at that time were slow, limiting their application in electronic devices until the development of high-speed CMOS in the late 1970s [4]. Consequently, the mainstream of MOS IC technology shifted from PMOS ICs in the 1960s to NMOS ICs in the 1970s, and then to CMOS ICs starting from the 1980s. Nevertheless, it was consumer electronics for personal use that first applied CMOS ICs to the commercial market, leveraging this low-power characteristic. The pioneer was Seiko's Astron quartz wristwatch, released in 1969[5]. Seiko manufactured its own low-power CMOS ICs in the 1970s, developed jointly with Intersil [6]. By the late 1970s, production of electronic wristwatches surpassed that of Swiss wristwatches. Subsequently, in 1972, CMOS single-chip LSIs were applied to the popular LSI calculators [7], expanding into the calculator market. It is noteworthy that the demand for low-power high-speed computing in the 1980s, which led to the full-scale adoption of CMOS LSI technology, was preceded by needs in the personal consumer electronics.
【References】
- Semiconductor History Museum of Japan, Discrete Devices, "1960: Invention of the MOSFET"
https://www.shmj.or.jp/english/pdf/dis/exhibi337E.pdf - Semiconductor History Museum of Japan, Integrated Circuits, "1963: Invention of CMOS"
https://www.shmj.or.jp/english/pdf/dis/exhibi307E.pdf - Semiconductor History Museum of Japan, Integrated Circuits, "1968: CMOS general-purpose logic ICs appear"
https://www.shmj.or.jp/english/pdf/ic/exhibi747E.pdf - Semiconductor History Museum of Japan, Integrated Circuits, "1978: Double-well fast CMOS SRAM"
https://www.shmj.or.jp/english/pdf/ic/exhibi727E.pdf - Semiconductor History Museum of Japan, Integrated Circuits, "1969: World’s first electronic quartz wristwatch Astron"
https://www.shmj.or.jp/english/appproducts/app60s.html
Ver.001: 2026/2/1