EARLY TRANSISTOR HISTORY AT MOTOROLA

An Interview with Ralph Greenburg

 Historic Semiconductor Devices and Applications

 

Oral History – Ralph Greenburg

(Continued)

This basic product morphed into the 2N176 when the semiconductor group started selling on the open market.  There were many spin offs with different power gain ranges or higher voltage capability. Higher frequency was also enabled by the use of the ring emitter approach.

 

The TO-3 package also found uses in Rectifiers, Zener Diodes and Thyristors.  May it live forever! 

 

What comments do you have regarding the “Motorola Power Transistor Handbook” ?

 

The Power Transistor Handbook was part of a series of technical publications that upper management believed was one of the best ways to help customers and to keep the Motorola name before their eyes. The handbooks were more comprehensive than the simple Application notes and they could be sold at IEEE and WESCON conventions as well as through our Distributors. Of course a lot were given away. Strangely the power book wasn’t the first rather it was the Zener Diode Handbook. One day Glen Madland, who was the Applications Manager, told me that I was assigned to write a Zener handbook and Alan Snyder our Advertising Manager would help edit it. Since we were both rather busy we agreed that I would write a chapter (which I did at home) and then we would get together on Saturdays and sometimes Sundays.

 

 

Oral History – Ralph Greenburg

(Continued)

It turned out to be quite popular and about a year later the Power Transistor Handbook project was initiated. At this time I was a Section Manager and I wisely enlisted help from other engineers such as Bill Roehr. I formed a small group who came up with the contents. I did some of the writing but mostly I was the Technical Editor, and of course, Alan and crew got to do some final editing to make sure our sentence structures were correct and made sure we didn’t stray from the subject matter.

 

Please provide highlights of the other semiconductor groups at Motorola and the different types of devices you worked with over the years.

 

After the move to 52nd Street improvements continued in small signal and power transistors and soon to follow was a complete line of rectifiers and Zener diodes. When GE developed thyristors we were soon to follow. The final major germanium device was the high frequency Mesa that initially sold for $150 per device,

 

The first silicon transistors were developed in the early 60’s by Jack Haenichen and others. These were all small signal. We were considerably behind the market in introducing Silicon power and when we did these were mainly high frequency triple diffused ones.   These did not work well in audio circuits or regulators as they tended to break into oscillation and had poor “Safe Area”.   

 

Go To Greenburg Oral History, Page 9

 

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