The 10 most important business developments

The competitive pressure sparked a surge of quality initiatives throughout the U.S. chip industry, all based on statistical process control and the concepts of continuous improvement pioneered by W. Edwards Deming: Six Sigma at Motorola; Copy Exactly at Intel; and Total Quality Management, which was first introduced by the U.S. Department of the Navy. It also provided a jump start for the field of yield management, which turned out to be perfect timing for a pair of companies founded in 1976: KLA and Tencor.