C. Lester Hogan, a pioneer in the electronics industry whose departure in 1968 from his job as a top executive at Motorola to one at Fairchild, taking along seven senior members of Motorola's semiconductor team, led to a celebrated lawsuit, died Tuesday in Atherton. He was 88.

The cause was complications of Alzheimer's disease, said Benjamin Bilbro, a funeral counselor at Roller Hapgood & Tinney Funeral Home in Palo Alto.

Hogan exemplified the generation of brilliant scientists who emerged after World War II and applied their imaginations to the discoveries that became the computer revolution. At Bell Labs and at Harvard's physics department, he specialized in devices that amplify microwaves and in ferrites, the magnetic materials that made early computer memories work.

But his celebrity came from his success in leading Motorola's drive to become the most profitable semiconductor producer. That, in turn, led the Fairchild Camera and Instrument, also a semiconductor powerhouse, to recruit Hogan to be its president. After turning the job down several times, he accepted.

Marketing focus

His value to both companies lay in his combination of scientific intelligence with a fierce commitment to marketing, unusual in a theoretical physicist. His ability to make brisk decisions in the belief that even a bad decision was better than no decision proved helpful in a fluid, fast-moving business.

Motorola was outraged at his departure and that he took seven semiconductor experts with him. Even though computer experts often jumped from company to company, Motorola sued for damages resulting from the talent loss. It also charged that its trade secrets had been jeopardized.

The affair was heightened by the 10 percent drop in the price of Motorola's stock immediately after the loss of Hogan, and the simultaneous 19 percent rise in Fairchild's.

Hogan's new compensation package, which included especially attractive stock options, led to a new phrase in the industry, "the Hogan." (An example: "That guy can't be worth more than half a Hogan.")

Motorola lost its lawsuit, but Fairchild lost the battle. In 1973, Judge William Copple, a federal judge in Arizona, ruled that Fairchild's results were so unimpressive that it was impossible to assess damages "under any theory." Hogan was dismissed as president the next year, but remained as vice chairman.

Bell Labs work

Clarence Lester Hogan was born in Great Falls, Mont., where his father worked for the railroad; he hunted rattlesnakes and earned straight A's. He earned a degree in chemical engineering from Montana State University.

He decided to join the Navy, even though he said he could have avoided service by doing military work for an engineering company. He ended up working with Bell Labs' scientists developing an "acoustic torpedo" that found its target by following the sound of a ship.

Though Bell Labs told him he could have a job whenever he wanted it, he chose to go to Lehigh University and complete a doctorate in 1950. He then rejoined Bell Labs, where he invented, during his first three months on the job, the microwave gyrator, a device that allowed electric devices to be made smaller. His salary was doubled.

In 1958, Motorola recruited him to be general manager of its semiconductor operation.

Hogan is survived by his wife, the former Audrey Biery Peters, and his daughter, Cheryl Lea Hogan.