Fairchild Camera and Instrument Corporation was a company founded by Sherman Fairchild. It was based on the East Coast of the United States, and provided research and development for flash

photography Photography is the art, application, and practice of creating durable images by recording light, either electronically by means of an image sensor, or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film. It is employe ...

equipment. The technology was primarily used for DOD spy satellites. The firm was later known for its manufacture of semiconductors.

History

;Fairchild Aviation Corporation Fairchild Camera and Instrument was incorporated in

Delaware Delaware ( ) is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States, bordering Maryland to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and New Jersey and the Atlantic Ocean to its east. The state takes its name from the adjacent Del ...

in 1927 as the Fairchild Aviation Corporation (also see Fairchild Aircraft), which comprised seven aircraft businesses that were the outgrowth of Fairchild Aerial Camera Corporation, which was incorporated in 1920. The merger made Fairchild Aviation the second-largest manufacturer of commercial airplanes and the fourth-largest aviation organization in the United States. Fairchild Aerial Camera manufactured aerial cameras for military and commercial aerial mapping that were used in

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-eig ...

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populou ...

, and throughout

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere at the northern tip of the continent. It can also be described as the sout ...

. They were the official cameras of the

United States Army The United States Army (USA) is the land warfare, land military branch, service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight Uniformed services of the United States, U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army o ...

and

Navy A navy, naval force, or maritime force is the branch of a nation's armed forces principally designated for naval and amphibious warfare; namely, lake-borne, riverine, littoral, or ocean-borne combat operations and related functions. It in ...

Air Services. ;Fairchild Camera and Instrument Corporation In 1944, Fairchild changed the company name from Fairchild Aviation to Fairchild Camera and Instrument Corporation. Its product portfolio expanded during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

from aerial photography equipment to include

machine gun A machine gun is a fully automatic, rifled autoloading firearm designed for sustained direct fire with rifle cartridges. Other automatic firearms such as automatic shotguns and automatic rifles (including assault rifles and battle rifles) ar ...

cameras,

x-ray An X-ray, or, much less commonly, X-radiation, is a penetrating form of high-energy electromagnetic radiation. Most X-rays have a wavelength ranging from 10 picometers to 10 nanometers, corresponding to frequencies in the range 30&nb ...

cameras,

radar Radar is a detection system that uses radio waves to determine the distance ('' ranging''), angle, and radial velocity of objects relative to the site. It can be used to detect aircraft, ships, spacecraft, guided missiles, motor vehicles, we ...

cameras, gun synchronizers, and radio compasses. After the war, military sales still represented a large portion of Fairchild's revenue. The company won a

U.S. Air Force The United States Air Force (USAF) is the air service branch of the United States Armed Forces, and is one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Originally created on 1 August 1907, as a part of the United States Army Sign ...

contract for the

C-82 Packet The C-82 Packet is a twin-engine, twin-boom cargo aircraft designed and built by Fairchild Aircraft. It was used briefly by the United States Army Air Forces and the successor United States Air Force following World War II. Design and developm ...

cargo and troop-carrying airplanes and spare parts. The company then began to develop products for the commercial sector such as manufacturing x-ray equipment. In 1948, the company introduced the Fairchild Lithotype for the newspaper and publishing industry. It was described as "a revolutionary machine that types standard printers' type in a great variety of faces and sizes." During the 1950s, Fairchild invested heavily in research and development, and introduced new products that ranged from devices combining radar and photography for training pilots to automatic corrected color engraving machines. In 1958 it developed high-speed processing equipment for motion pictures that could develop 500 feet of film almost instantly. The Fairchild Company in America introduced in the early 1960s a range of Cinephonic cameras. They used pre-striped Standard 8 film. The amplifier was transistorised and the sound separation was 56 frames. The entire system was run by a rechargeable 12-volt nickel-cadmium battery that was reputed to shoot and record 800 ft of film without being recharged. The camera took 8mm film in 100 ft reels which gave five and a half minutes shooting at a speed of 24 fps. ;Fairchild Semiconductor In 1957, the company was approached by members of the " traitorous eight" to rescue the group from the authoritarian regime of

William Shockley William Bradford Shockley Jr. (February 13, 1910 – August 12, 1989) was an American physicist and inventor. He was the manager of a research group at Bell Labs that included John Bardeen and Walter Brattain. The three scientists were jointl ...

. Sherman Fairchild agreed to provide the

venture capital Venture capital (often abbreviated as VC) is a form of private equity financing that is provided by venture capital firms or funds to start-up company, startups, early-stage, and emerging companies that have been deemed to have high growth poten ...

to launch a division of Fairchild called Fairchild Semiconductor, from which would spawn dozens of semiconductors and

Silicon Valley Silicon Valley is a region in Northern California that serves as a global center for high technology and innovation. Located in the southern part of the San Francisco Bay Area, it corresponds roughly to the geographical areas San Mateo Coun ...

. In 1960, two years after

Emerson Radio Emerson Radio Corporation is one of the United States' largest volume consumer electronics distributors and has a recognized trademark in continuous use since 1912. The company designs, markets, and licenses many product lines worldwide, inc ...

had acquired DuMont's TV manufacturing division (in 1958), Fairchild acquired the remnants of Allen B. DuMont Laboratories (oscillograph & cathode-ray tube manufacturing), as well as large interest in Società Generale Semiconduttori, an Italian semiconductor producer. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, it acquired several companies in various industries: printing, sensors and magnetic heads, precision optical and photographic equipment, water quality monitoring equipment, and precision molding equipment. Its corporate headquarters were in Syosset, New York, which were later moved to

Mountain View, California Mountain View is a city in Santa Clara County, California, United States. Named for its views of the Santa Cruz Mountains, it has a population of 82,376. Mountain View was integral to the early history and growth of Silicon Valley, and is the ...

when

Lester Hogan Clarence Lester Hogan (February 8, 1920 – August 12, 2008) was an American physicist and a pioneer in microwave and semiconductor technology. He grew up as a brother to three sisters in Great Falls, Montana, where his father worked for the Grea ...

assumed control of Fairchild Semiconductor. ;Fairchild Systems In 1979, Fairchild Camera and Instrument (including Fairchild Semiconductor) became a subsidiary of Schlumberger. Schlumberger sold Fairchild Semiconductor to

National Semiconductor National Semiconductor was an American semiconductor manufacturer which specialized in analog devices and subsystems, formerly with headquarters in Santa Clara, California. The company produced power management integrated circuits, display dr ...

in 1987; National Semiconductor was then acquired by

Texas Instruments Texas Instruments Incorporated (TI) is an American technology company headquartered in Dallas, Texas, that designs and manufactures semiconductors and various integrated circuits, which it sells to electronics designers and manufacturers globa ...

in 2011. The rest of Fairchild was renamed Fairchild Weston Systems in 1982, which was bought by

Loral Corporation Loral Corporation was a defense contractor founded in 1948 in New York by William Lorenz and Leon Alpert as Loral Electronics Corporation. The company's name was taken from the first letters of each founder's surname. History Loral Corporation or ...

in 1989. The company was then renamed as the Loral Fairchild Systems division of Loral Corp. In 1996, Lockheed Martin completed the acquisition of Loral Corporation's defense electronics and system integration businesses, which included Fairchild, for $9.1 billion. The company became Lockheed Fairchild Systems. In 2000, Lockheed Martin grouped Fairchild with Sanders Associates and Lockheed Martin Space Electronics & Communications under the Lockheed Martin Aerospace Electronic Systems division. BAE Systems agreed to acquire the division in July 2000 and completed its acquisition on in November.Fairchild Imaging – History
/ref> ;Fairchild Imaging In 2001, the

Carlyle Group The Carlyle Group is a multinational private equity, alternative asset management and financial services corporation based in the United States with $376 billion of assets under management. It specializes in private equity, real assets, and ...

reached an agreement with BAE to spin out Fairchild's imaging sensors division as an independent private company called Fairchild Imaging. In 2011, BAE Systems purchased Fairchild Imaging from the Carlyle Group. It is based in

Milpitas, California Milpitas ( Spanish for "little milpas") is a city in Santa Clara County, California, in Silicon Valley. As of the 2020 census, the city population was 80,273. The city's origins lie in Rancho Milpitas, granted to Californio ranchero José Mar� ...

, about twelve miles away from the site where Fairchild Semiconductor was founded.

References

External links

www.fairchildimaging.com
nbsp;— Fairchild Imaging site
"Flying Photographers Aid Engineers" ''Popular Mechanics'', December 1930

Harvard Business School. * ttp://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/011453245 Fairchild Camera and Instrument Corporation Annual Reports – HathiTrust {{Authority control 1927 establishments in New York (state) 1979 disestablishments in California Aerial cameras Companies based in Mountain View, California Defense companies of the United States Electronics companies established in 1927 Electronics companies of the United States Manufacturing companies based in New York (state) Defunct technology companies based in California Technology companies established in 1927