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Historic Note
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Over a 45 year career at
General Electric (from July 1942 until retirement in 1987) Dr. Robert Hall worked at the Research
Labs in Schenectady, NY, with a brief time away in 1947/48 to earn a PhD in
Physics from Caltech. His contributions to semiconductor research are
numerous, including 43 U.S. patents and literally hundreds of technical
papers. This Oral History, taken in
Sept 2000, concentrates on Dr. Hall’s work in the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s,
which was related to early semiconductor development.
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This is a
photo from the August 1955 issue of Radio and Television News, in an
article entitled “Improved Transistors Announced by GE”. The photo caption
is: ”Dr. Robert N. Hall, left, who has devised a new method of growing the
tiny crystal hearts of transistors from thin wires of silicon, demonstrates
the equipment to R.I. Scace, another GE scientist. The transistors made by
the new “meltback” process can be used in TV, radar, shortwave radio, and
other devices where high frequencies are used….” In the article, Dr. Hall
is identified as the young GE scientist also responsible for the well known
“rate-growing” process for making junction transistors.
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Oral History – Robert Hall
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I started at GE as a test
engineer in July 1942, but left in Jan 1946 to work on a PhD. I returned to GE in 1948, with a newly
earned PhD in Physics from Caltech, just as BTL announced the transistor. As a member of the staff, I was asked to
look into transistor technology and I joined a team already working on
germanium diodes. Reproducibility
was a big problem so I started a purification process to try to clean up
the initial material. After a false
start or two, I developed a purification process based on fractional
crystallization and discovered the alloying method of making junction
diodes, and then used this process to make alloy junction transistors in
cooperation with John Saby at the GE E-Labs in Syracuse. This crystallization process yielded
ingots of intrinsic germanium which had never been achieved before. In the process I measured distribution
coefficients of a number of key impurities. I was also studying the Czochralski method of growing
germanium crystals, made some double-doped transistors and then invented
the “rate-growing” method of making transistors. Rate-grown transistors were manufactured by GE at Syracuse
using this process.
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Go
To Hall Oral History, Page 2
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