too low or too high for the planar process, designers often had to resort to the use of external nichrome thin film resistors. The resulting hybrid ICs performed poorly and were prohibitively expensive. In response, Fairchild's R&D chief Gordon Moore directed the company to favor digital integrated circuits, which were simpler and also promised high production volumes. Widlar opposed this strategy and held digital electronics in low esteem: "every idiot can count to one". Talbert shared Widlar's belief and became his closest ally in the company. Widlar was a hard person to work with, but the few men and women who could, like Talbert and Jack Gifford, joined his inner circle for life. Widlar and Talbert closely guarded their trade secrets and kept unwanted co-workers out of the loop. Gifford, one of those accepted by Widlar and Talbert, said that Widlar "would almost talk to nobody and he would only talk to me on, you know, if I could get him in the right mood. And he was still secretive as hell". Talbert pushed Widlar's experimental orders through his plant at top speed, saving his partner four weeks on every batch at the expense of other orders. Former Fairchild photographer Richard Steinheimer said in 1995: "Talbert handling the fabrication and Widlar handling the design, they ruled the world and led the world in linear integrated circuits for a couple of decades." Fairchild executive Don Valentine said in 2004: "This was a phenomenal duo of highly eccentric – or whatever the word is beyond eccentric – individuals". μA702 and μA709 Widlar soon grasped the benefits and drawbacks of the planar process: It provided matched components at all temperatures, but these components possessed parasitic capacitance not present in discrete parts, and the process imposed severe constraints on the practical values of resistors and capacitors. He summarised these design rules in a maxim: "Do not attempt to replicate discrete designs in integrated circuit form". Armed with this strategy and Hung-Chang Lin's theory of compensated devices, he designed the industry's first true linear integrated circuit, and the first monolithic operational amplifier, the μA702. Widlar dispensed with hybrid technology, and used only diffused resistors formed within the silicon die. Each of the nine NPN transistors was sized and shaped according to its function, contrary to an earlier, arbitrary practice of employing standard minimal-area patterns. Widlar introduced three innovations: Interfacing a long-tail with a single-ended stage