Lionel Kattner

Contributor to the development of the first planar integrated circuit and co-founder of Signetics Corporation, Kattner is recognized as a key figure in early semiconductor history. A graduate of Southwestern University in Georgetown, Texas, he earned degrees in Chemistry, Physics, and Math. Upon graduation he went to work at Hanford Atomic Products Operation in Hanford, Washington, a producer of plutonium, primarily from Uranium 238, for nuclear weapons. He later served as a nuclear officer in the US Navy.

In 1958 Kattner joined Texas Instruments in Dallas and worked as a product engineer on a germanium mesa transistor product line. In 1960 he was recruited into Jay Last's microelectronics group at Fairchild Semiconductor in California, where he contributed to the development of the first planar integrated circuit. By continually developing the basic silicon manufacturing technology developed at Fairchild, the global semiconductor industry produced generations of microchips that grew exponentially more powerful; at the same time, the cost for this performance fell exponentially.

Kattner left Fairchild in 1961 with three other Fairchild employees to co-found Signetics Corporation, where he worked on the development of the first Micrologic IC products. He resigned from Signetics in 1967 and spent two years at Amelco. From 1969 onward, he has been involved in various projects and startups, including real estate development, computers, computerized mapping, microwave communications, and fiber optics.