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Oral History – D. D. McBride
(Continued)
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very gently replaced the plug
(it was a graphite plug) and proceeded to purge the furnace. But, as it
happened, enough oxygen had gotten into the tube that there was a loud
“Bang!”. Well, around the corner comes Boyd, with Steve Karnavas and Mark
Sheppard not far behind. Steve wanted to know “What the Hell was I
doing?”. I just said that Mark had wanted a really “hot” run of
transistors. Everybody had a big laugh. In the end, it was a good run of
transistors and I got only one small cut on a finger.
Point
Contact Transistors and the
U.S. Space Program
(Author’s Note: According to Ed
Millis, a former TI transistor production engineer and author of the book
“TI, the Transistor and Me”, the last point contact transistor to be built
at TI was built by “Mac” McBride in 1975. Ed was the engineer on the
project and recollects that he had been contacted by some NASA personnel
who had grown germanium crystal in outer space as part of the SkyLab
program, and were interested in determining if a transistor could be made
from the material. Ed contacted “Mac”, who was the only remaining TI
employee who had actually made a point contact transistor. The following is
how “Mac” remembers the story).
TI grew the first germanium
crystal in outer space and they wanted to know if I could build a point
contact transistor for them. I still had the points, but no header. They
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Oral History – D. D. McBride
(Continued)
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told me they could come up
with a header, although it wasn’t designed for a point contact transistor.
There was a NASA Ph.D. involved in this, but I don’t remember his name.
Anyway, I got all my stuff together, took about a week, and “Bingo”, we had
a point contact transistor from material grown in outer space! Now when
they tried to form it and test it, it wouldn’t work. Seems that the
original point contact transistors were made from “N” type germanium and
the NASA stuff was “P” type. So, they did some checking and determined
that the point material was the problem. Someone thought that if we nickel
plated the points, then the transistor would work. Well, my point supply
was getting pretty low by this time, but we got the Plating Dept to plate a
set of my points with nickel, and that took care of the problem. I don’t
know how good the transistor was, but they said it made a transistor. Now,
they told me that my last point contact transistor is now somewhere in a
museum. How about that? This was a very personal experience and a
pleasure.
______________
McBride
Oral History, Page 5
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