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Oral History – Jack Haenichen
(Continued)
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We came
across a patent (an abandoned case) that Texas Instruments had, by an
inventor named Gerald Broussard. It turned out the structure he had looked
very similar, but it wasn’t aimed at the same purpose. We got into a very
protracted and expensive litigation with Texas Instruments, and we
prevailed. A patent becomes extremely valuable, when it withstands
litigation.
The
real value in patents is in cross-licensing. For example, everybody in the
early days was paying to AT&T, because they had the basic transistor
patent. What you tried to do was get a portfolio of your own that your
competitors, including AT&T, had to use. You tried to get a portfolio
that had a value and then you went and “horse-traded” with other
companies. At the end of the day, depending on the strength of your
portfolio compared to the other guy’s, either you’ll end up paying
royalties to him or he’ll end up paying royalties to you. We had a very
important set of patents. It was more than one patent, because we had
methods patents and structure patents in Motorola’s portfolio.
11) I’ve seen
references to the Motorola “STAR” geometry applied to transistors. What is
that?
That was also an idea of
mine. I realized that the current in the emitter came from the
metalization on the structure.
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Oral History – Jack Haenichen
(Continued)
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The idea
behind the STAR transistor (you’ll notice that it is tapered) is that it
allows you to have a more compact geometry and not suffer any significant
loss in power handling capability. We employed this with the annular
technology, but it was a stand-alone idea.
12) As you know, it was
the STAR technology, (defined as annular, epitaxial, planar transistors
with the STAR geometry) that was announced by Motorola at the 1962 IRE
Convention. This technology, especially the 2N2222 transistor, has
continued to be a major sales success, even today.
That
makes me proud. Although the patents have long ago run out, everybody is
still using that idea – it doesn’t cost anything to do. Motorola was
extremely kind to me about that idea. I have the greatest respect for
Motorola. They treated me very, very fairly, with stock options and other
“perks”.
Go
To Haenichen Oral History, Page 12
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