Semiconductor History

  In 1965 the joint venture between Hughes Aircraft and EMI in the UK was named EMIHUS. EMIHUS manufactured a wide range of electronic components in Glenrothes, Fife including semiconductors, passives and connectors. They also performed subcontract manufacturing, including for calculators. In 1975 the name was changed to Hughes Microelectronics. Shown above is an analog ASIC designed in the UK for the company Pye TMC. Telephone Manufacturing Company (TMC) was acquired by Pye Ltd in the 1960s and produced various equipment for the GPO, including telephones. The ASIC function is likely to be a DTMF dialler chip, designed in the 1980s, but still in production in 1990. Hughes in the UK manufactured diodes and transistors starting in 1960. They transitioned to MOS in 1967, and to CMOS sometime later. Amongst its many achievements was the production of the first non volatile memories, invented in Hughes Newport Beach by Eli Harari.

The Unijunction Transistor was developed at General Electric in the early 1950s, and became a widely used semiconductor device. It was a three terminal device with one emitter and two base contacts, originally using a germanium grown 'bar' with two diffused base regions. Before the development of the first timer IC it was used in a range of timing circuits. It was also used in sensing circuits, phase control and SCR trigger applications. It was the latter which benefitted GE the most. GE produced the first Silicon Controlled Rectifiers in the late 50s which drove their pre-eminence in power electronics.  

Western Electric opened a small office in London in 1883. In 1925 the International Western Electric Company was bought by the International Telephone and Telegraph Company (ITT) and later became Standard Telephones and Cables Ltd (STC). STC used the brand name “STANDARD” for their valves/tubes, and from 1934 “BRIMAR”. The Brimar valve and cathode ray tube division was sold to Thorn Electrical Industries Ltd in 1960, and in 1961 there was a JV created between Thorn and Associated Electrical Industries (AEI) for the development and sale of valves, CRTs and semiconductors. According to the CV list, Thorn-AEI manufactured at Footscray, Kent, which became a large IC development and manufacturing site for STC up until its closure in 1993. However for Thorn-AEI (Brimar) it mentions manufacture at Rochester, Kent. So manufacturing could have taken place there as well.  Germanium pnp, very high Gain=212, Vf=149mV

    GEC first developed transistor devices at their research facility in Wembley, then transferred production to the GEC Radio Works in Coventry, where a point contact diode line had been established.  In 1956 GEC established a dedicated semiconductor manufacturing facility at School St, Hazel Grove (Greater Manchester). In 1962 GEC merged their semiconductor business with Mullard into a business called ASM (Associated Semiconductor Manufacturers), creating the UK's dominant semiconductor company of the 1960s. Mullard (Philips) owned 2/3 of the company. GEC devices were subsequently marketed as Mullard. GEC sold most of their share in 1968. Nexperia, formerly NXP (and Philips) still have an operating semiconductor facility in Hazel Grove. Decent gain and germanium, hfe=70, Vf=120mV  

Raytheon (Light from the Gods) started in the 1920s and quickly became a major player in tube (valve) based early electronics. By 1938 they were producing miniature and sub-miniature tubes, including for early hearing aids. They subsequently became an early adopter of semiconductors, including the first commercially available transistor in 1948 (CK703). A very early licensee of Bell Labs' point contact transistor, and very quick off the mark. Raytheon continued to produce tubes for many years.  This is a low noise sub-miniature triode, introduced in 1962 that can be used as a microphone input amplifier. It looks to be designed for avionics applications, given its focus on reliability.  

The Siemens brothers were industrialists from the mid 19th century, Siemens & Halske being one arm of several. At some point post WWII, the remaining entities merged into Siemens AG.  The patent shown in the image was filed in Germany in 1956 and in the US one year later. At the time the dominant transistor manufacturing technology was alloy junction. The method described in the patent was an early adoption of diffusion for creating the process layers with masking and etching, similar to the mesa transistor structure which emerged a little later in the US. Depositing metal instead of attaching gold wires, embedding the diffused layers and a protective layer on the surface would be the basis of the planar process subsequently invented by Fairchild.  Siemens first established transistor manufacturing in their electron tube facility in Munich in 1952.

Telefunken in Germany had been producing semiconductor rectifiers for a number of years before they developed transistors for mass production. Launched in 1953, the OC601 and OC602 were alloy junction germanium pnp transistors. Telefunken also developed S (special) versions which had attached copper heatsinks. These work but are low gain.  hfe=26, Vf=97mV. hfe=18, Vf=100mV.

Small changes having a big impact. Introduced in 1960, Philco had by then improved their etching process to create the thin base layer of their germanium alloy junction transistors. They then replaced the indium electrodes making the emitter and collector junctions with cadmium, giving better thermal dissipation. Due to its speed and thermal performance, it became widely used in computers of the time. These were manufactured by Philco (later Philco-Ford) at their factory in Spring City, PA. One AI processor chip now has more transistors than the first 25 years at least of the semiconductor industry!  It works, hfe (gain) is 96, Vf=273mV (so germanium).

Inside the Boss HA-5 headphone guitar amplifier from 1983. It had built in chorus and delay effects. The chorus came from the Boss CE-3 guitar pedal and used the Matsushita/Panasonic MN3207 Bucket Brigade Device and the accompanying MN3102 clock generator chip. The NEC IC on the left is an analog compander device i.e. it compresses and expands the input audio signal. The Bucket Brigade concept, developed by Philips Research Labs, had a series of on-chip capacitors between which charges moved in sequence, based on an external clock cycle. It was a precursor to the Charge Coupled Device (CCD) that was developed as the first significant semiconductor image sensor.