Semiconductor History

2N609 : hfe=80, Vf=233mV. 2N60 : hfe=55, Vf=243mV Westinghouse created a US semiconductor group in the early 1950s to develop high power transistors. In 1956 they established a manufacturing facility in Youngwood PA and research groups in Wilkinson and Churchill Borough.    Westinghouse only produced low power transistors for a few years up until the early 1960s. The devices shown are the 2N60 from 1960 and 2N609 from 1963, and are gold finished. The Youngwood facility still exists as Powerex, a JV from 1986 between the power semiconductor divisions of Westinghouse and GE. Westinghouse Brake & Signal Company also had a UK facility which developed the first commercial rectifier in the 1920s. It became Westcode Semiconductors and is still in operation as IXYS.

Ferranti ZS72 200V silicon diodes and STC CV7476 600V Avalanche diodes The Ferranti semiconductor division in Oldham, Greater Manchester was a prominent UK semiconductor supplier in the 1960s and 1970s, and produced the world's first programmable logic arrays. Ferranti eventually became Zetex Semiconductors, until acquired by Diodes Incorporated in 2008.       STC were the first manufacturer of point contact transistors in the UK, developed at STC in Ilminster, Somerset. STC moved valve (tube) manufacturing from Woolwich to the remote Ilminster in 1940. Volume semiconductor manufacturing was established in 1956 at the Brimar valve site in Footscray, Kent, eventually becoming part of Nortel before manufacturing ceased in 1993, when IC design was transferred to Nortel in Harlow.