Oral History Uhlir Page9 Bell Labs Germanium Point Contact Transistors Microwave Diodes

EARLY TRANSISTOR AND DIODE HISTORY

AT BELL LABS

Art Uhlir Jr.

Oral History – Art Uhlir Jr.

(Continued)

Oral History – Art Uhlir Jr.

(Continued)

My work ranged from research to production. Throughout I provided sales support, ranging from government contracts to helping customers with problems that we may have caused, even by improving our product. The first years were dedicated to promoting varactors first for parametric amplifiers and soon for harmonic generators.

When the Manager of the Semiconductor Division quit to start a new company, I was made Manager of the Division and a Vice President and Director of the company.

I was the one corporate officer responsible for the missile-site-radar phase shifters for Bell Labs under subcontract from Raytheon, including the high-power PIN diodes and over-all testing at power. We delivered enough phase shifters to populate the prototype radar that Nixon shut down in 1969 as a bargaining chip with the Soviet Union.

I left MA in 1969, when annual sales were about $30 million and the task for Bell was completed. At Computer Metrics I developed innovative ways to solve production microwave measurements, an activity I continued as a consultant for several years after joining Tufts University as Chairman of Electrical Engineering in 1970 and served as Dean of Engineering from 1973 to 1980. I was the adviser for many graduate students: most in the field of microwave measurements. I retired in 1994.

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Go To Uhlir Oral History, Page 11

REFERENCES

1. “Electrolytic Shaping of Germanium and Silicon”, A. Uhlir, Jr., Bell System Technical Journal, Vol 35, March 1956.

2. “The Potential of Semiconductor Diodes in High-Frequency Communication”, A. Uhlir, Jr., Proc. IRE, Vol 46, June 1958.

3. “Shot Noise in P-N Junction Frequency Coverters”, A. Uhlir, Jr., Bell System Technical Journal, Vol 37, July 1958.

4. “Microwave Transients from Avalanching Silicon Diodes”, J.L. Moll, A. Uhlir, B. Senitsky, Proc. IRE, Vol 46, June 1958.

5. “A Silicon Diode Microwave Oscillator”, R.F. Johnson, B.C. De Loach, and B.G. Cohen, Bell System Technical Journal, Vol. 44, 1965.

6. “A Proposed High-Frequency negative Resistance Amplifier”, W.T. Read, Bell System Technical Journal, Vol 37, 1958.

7. “Analysis of Thermal Shot Noise in Pumped Resistive Diodes”, C. Dragone, Bell System Technical Journal, Vol 47, 1968.

8. “Crystal Rectifiers”, Torrey and Whitmer, Chapter 13, McGraw Hill, 1948. (Vol 15 of MIT Rad Lab Series).

Additional Related Articles by Art Uhlir Jr.

9. “Micromachining with Virtual Electrodes”, A. Uhlir, Jr., The Review of Scientific Instruments, Vol 26, Oct 1955.

10. “Two-Terminal P-N Junction Devices for Frequency Conversion and Computation”, A. Uhlir, Jr., Proc. IRE, Vol 44, Sept 1956.

11. “Point-Contact Transistor Action”, A. Uhlir, Jr., Bell Labs Record, Aug 1958.

12. “Junction Diode Amplifiers”, A. Uhlir, Jr., Scientific American, Vol 200, No 6, June 1959.

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