Semiconductor History

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

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.