EARLY TRANSISTOR
AND DIODE HISTORY
AT BELL LABS
Art Uhlir Jr.
Oral History – (Continued) |
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Photo Courtesy Bob McGarrah |
Art Uhlir’s initial assignment at Bell Labs in
1952 was with the Transistor Development Department with the goal of testing
the newly developed germanium point contact transistors to characterize
performance and establish life tests. Based on the results of this pioneering
work, Art published an article in the August 1958 Bell Labs Record,
“Point-Contact Transistor Action”. The two photos shown above are from that article – the rightmost
shows Art with the test equipment required to characterize point contact
transistor performance. The photo at
the upper left is also from Art’s article and is a drawing illustrating
electron and hole flow as occurs during signal amplification by a point
contact transistor. This was a poorly
understood phenomenon at the time, and Art’s article provides one of the most
lucid explanations yet documented.
The photo to the left shows the “insides” of a Western Electric 2N110
point contact transistor, with the top case removed to show the internal
assembly of the metal point contacts pressed against the germanium die. Point contact transistor technology proved
to be unreliable and difficult to manufacture, and was soon replaced by
germanium junction transistors.
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Go
To Uhlir Oral History, Page 4 |
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