Niobium capacitor
The development of solid electrolyte tantalum capacitors began in the early 1950s as a miniaturized, more reliable low-voltage support capacitor to complement the newly invented transistor. The solution found by R. L. Taylor and H. E. Haring of the Bell Labs was based on experience with ceramics. They ground down tantalum to a powder, pressed this powder into a cylindrical form and then sintered the powder particles into a pellet (“slug”) at high temperatures, between 1500 and 2000 °C, under vacuum conditions. These first sintered tantalum capacitors used a non-solid electrolyte not consistent with the concept of solid state electronics. 1952 a targeted search in the Bell Labs for a solid electrolyte by D. A. McLean and F. S. Power led to the invention of manganese dioxide as a solid electrolyte for a sintered tantalum capacitor.
Intel 1103
In 1969 William Regitz and his colleagues at Honeywell invented a three-transistor dynamic memory cell and began to canvass the semiconductor industry for a producer. The recently founded Intel Corporation responded and developed two very similar 1024-bit chips, the 1102 and 1103, under the lead of Joel Karp, working closely with William Regitz. Ultimately only the 1103 went into production.