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Electronic Inventions and Discoveries

Electronic Inventions
Electronics from

its

and Discoveries

earliest beginnings

to the present

day

4th revised and expanded edition

W A Dummer

MBE, CEng,

FIEE, FIEEE,

US Medal

of Freedom

(former Supt. Applied Physics, Royal Radar Establishment,

Institute of

Bristol

Physics Publishing

and Philadelphia

UK)

 G W A Dummer

1997

All rights reserved.

No

part of this publication

may

be reproduced, stored

in a retrieval

system

or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or

otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher. Multiple copying

with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing

Agency under

is

permitted

the terms of

in

accordance

its

agreement

with the Committee of Vice-Chancellors and Principals.

First edition

1977 published under the

title

Electronic Inventions 1745-1976

Second edition 1978 {Electronic Inventions and Discoveries)

Third revised edition 1983

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication

catalogue record for this book

ISBN
ISBN

is

Data

available from the British Library

7503 0376 X (hbk)

7503 0493 6 (pbk)

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data are available

Published by Institute of Physics Publishing, wholly

Institute of

US

owned by The

Institute

of Physics, London

Physics Publishing, Dirac House, Temple Back, Bristol BS1 6BE,

Editorial Office: Institute of Physics Publishing,

South Independence Mall West, Philadelphia,

Printed in the

UK

by

W Arrowsmith Ltd,

PA

19106,

Bristol.

UK

The Public Ledger Building,

USA

Suite 1035, 150

Contents

Preface

vii

Acknowledgments

viii

1.

The Beginning of

Electronics

2.

The Expansion of

Electronics

3.

The Development

of

4.

Concise History of Audio and Sound Reproduction

18

5.

Concise History of Radio, Communications and Avionics

23

6.

Concise History of Radar and Sonar

7.

Concise History of Television

40

8.

Concise History of Computers, Robotics, Mechatronics and Information Technology

44

9.

Concise History of Industrial, Automobile, Medical, Educational, Office, Banking,

Components, Tubes, Transistors and Integrated Circuits

Consumer and Security

Electronics

by Subject

10.

List of Inventions

11.

12.

Electronics

13.

List of

Books on Inventions

269

14.

List of

Books on Inventors

273

Index

Concise Description of Each Invention in Date Order

Acronyms and Abbreviations

58

73

259

276

Histories on a Page

Components

Date Chart

1:

Passive

Date Chart

2:

Tubes, Transistors, Diodes and Integrated Circuits

17

Date Chart

3:

Audio and Sound Reproduction

22

Date Chart

4:

Radio and Communications

30

Date Chart

5:

Radar

37

Date Chart

6:

Television

43

Date Chart

7:

Computers

47

16

Preface

As

in previous editions,

it is

not intended that this book should be a learned treatise on a particular aspect of

wide summary of

historical electronics, but rather a

Because no one person can be an authority

wide variety of published sources,

full

first

dates in electronic developments over a very wide

both for interest and for ready reference.

field,

acknowledgment

is

i.e.

in all fields of electronics, the data

made. This present work covers inventions from Europe,

many

a survey such as this cannot be completely accurate because of, in

others, conflicting claims, but gives the opinions of those

where, because of incomplete data, a date

is

knowledgeable

USA

welcomes

summaries of well known inventions, some

little

whom

etc, to

and Japan. Obviously,

cases, the passage of time and, in

There are a few cases

in their fields.

given in the 'History on a Page' but not in the

well aware that conflicting dates are inevitable and

to the

given are extracted from a

books, patents, technical journals, proceedings of societies,

text.

The author

is

factual data to assist future editions. In addition

known

discoveries are included which may, one day,

be important.
In this edition, an attempt has

up

to the present day.

As

been made to trace the development of electronics from

far as the author

knows,

majority of main developments in electronics.

components, tubes,

transistors,

it is

The book

integrated circuits,

the only

book

in the

its

earliest

beginnings

world to describe concisely the

describes, in nine chapters, developments in electronic

audio and sound reproduction,

radio,

communication,

avionics, radar, sonar, television, computers, robotics, mechatronics and information technology, in addition
to industrial,

How

automobile, medical, educational, office, banking, consumer and security electronics.

does one define an electronic invention?

and operation of the

book

first

laboratory lash-up, the

the author has decided to use the

made on

'first

One can

first

consider the

prototype, the

first

'first

recorded use' as far as

it

idea or concept, the construction

in service' or the patent date.

is

In this

possible and the selection has been

the basis of simple language and explanation.

Throughout the book, the author has used the American term

The process of invention has changed from

which have the advantage of funds and

USA made

'tube' in place of the English

cross-fertilization of ideas.

Certainly the Bell Laboratories in the

the greatest contributions to semiconductor technology, not only by inventing a

but by producing materials (Si, Ge) of a purity previously unknown.

has created entirely

new

industries.

physicists, mathematicians, engineers,

term 'valve'.

the individual inventor to that of the large research laboratories

The complexity of modern

and others as the

fields

working

transistor,

This work, basic to microelectronics,

electronics has brought together chemists,

of development widen. Research, development,

and production are now more closely integrated.

Looking back
page

5.

They

are

at the history

three fundamental inventions on

induction from which the

today!); second,
third, the Bell
In
at

of electronics, there seem to be two periods of creativity

between 1800-1900 (100 years) and 1950-1980 (30

which others depend. They

dynamo was developed

to

are:

first,

shown by

the chart on

years). In the author's opinion there are

Faraday's discovery of electromagnetic

generate electricity (imagine a world without electricity

Lee de Forest's thermionic tube, opening up the

fields

of communications and computers; and

Laboratories transistor, because the modern 'chip', in fact, consists of multiple transistors.

the production of electronics,

reasonable cost:

the

two inventions stand out

printed circuit

as enabling devices to be

mass produced

with dip soldering and the planar photo-masking techniques for

microelectronics 'chip' production.

In preparing this book,

one major impression has emerged, instanced by chapters

to

how deep

the

become

penetration of electronics has

this

book, together with over

ever increasing tempo,

is

into every part of

modern

life

whilst

550 inventions described

the

in

100 additional references, form a background to electronics progress which, with

now changing

which we

the world in

live.

W A Dummer

Malvern Wells

UK

Acknowledgments

In this
in

book

chapter

Chapter

the author has attempted to

been

his task has

1,
1

has only been

that

made

Full

acknowledgment

is

made

for their permission to quote

help.

Where

'source'
in

is

from Science at

War

Acknowledgment

is

each case

their publications

is

made

to

is

many

The author would

all

are

due

many

to the

to 10 whilst,

Many books and

those detailed in

title

page.

authors and publishers

and also to the Patent Office and many

London, and the

libraries for their

Institute

of Electrical
Extracts

Her Majesty's Stationery Office.

The Book of Inventions and Discoveries (Associate Editor. Valerie-Anne Giscard

Acknowledgment

Paris) for permission to reproduce extracts.

New

Scientist.

Also

to

is

Van

York, for the use of data from one of their published books.

like to record his appreciation

Museum, London,

York, for permission to use material from their published journals.

Compagne DOUZE,

New

authors.

indebted to

IPC Magazines, London, for permission to publish extracts from

Nostrand/Rheinhold,

Science

to

chapters

of the extract and not that of the

that

Thanks

to all the authors quoted.

are used with the permission of the Controller of

d'Estaing, published by

made

New

in

quoted, the words and opinions are exactly those of the

Full credit is given to the Institution of Electrical Engineers,

and Electronics Engineers,

also

from

development of electronics

which are relevent and the author

The page number given

authors of the extracts.

the

possible because of the cooperation of so

technical journals have provided extracts

the 'source' following each abstract.

summarize

of a compiler rather than an author.

in

of the help given on

particular Dr B P Bowers,

K E Geddes

this

and previous editions by the

and Dr Denys Vaughn, and also the

following for their advice and assistance on the development of electronics in the various

W Bardsley, G Bayley, W Bowes,

Baxendall,

den Brinker, E Chowietz,

TA

Everist,

fields:

Hilsum.

Amos.
Jones.

H G Manfield, A L McCracken, T P McLean, J L Powell, E H Putley, D Sargent, K Thrower, D H Tomlin,

N Walter, P L Waters and Professor Dr Jun-ichi Nishizawa, Tohoku University, Japan. The author would like
to record the special help

to

John

given to him by Eryl Davies, acting as a consultant on the contents of the book;

R Guest and John K Oakley

for help

on the chapters on radio and computers;

Burns for help on the chapter on radar; to Mark Williams for data on
semiconductor data;
proofreading the
It is

hoped

Charles P

Dr P R Morris

for help

on

Sandbank for help on the chapter on television; and to Robert Winton for

final draft chapters.

that the data patiently collected for this

development from

Geoffrey

to

satellites; to

to Professor Russell

its

earliest

W A Dummer

book

will be

found useful, both as a review of electronics

beginning to the present day and as a source of reference on electronic inventions.

Chapter

The Beginning of

For hundreds of years, two phenomena have been

remained unexplained

known

Electronics

to exist:

static electricity

1700s when many practical experiments

until the early

and magnetism.

commenced on both

These

electrostatics

and magnetism. By the early 1800s, work by Galvani, Oersted and Faraday on galvanism, electromagnetism
and electromagnetic induction opened up a new

field

of experimental work which ultimately paved the

way

to

present-day electronics.

Electrostatics

1.1

Static electricity

had been known for many centuries as some substances, when rubbed together, produced

static

charges which could generate sparks and, in other cases, could attract small pieces of paper and other materials.

The Greeks knew

amber was

for

on amber material by

that friction

word

'electron', although the

discovered the electron as

we know

fur

gave

rise to these attractive forces

was not

'electron'

really

many

Early in the 18th century, static electricity was being studied by

rubbing could be of two kinds

positive

In

when

apart

a charge

Thomson

J J

and negative. The

was applied

to

When

it.

experimenters. In 1729, Stephen Gray

1730, Charles Fry discovered that electricity induced by

earliest

the gold-leaf electroscope, invented in 1787 by Bennet.

moved

and the Greek word

1897 when

until after

today.

it

distinguished between conductors and insulators.

was

used

method of measurement of

This consisted of two

a rod of ebonite

static electricity

strips

of gold leaf which

was rubbed with

a piece of fur, the

ebonite would have a negative charge and the fur a positive charge. Glass rubbed with silk exhibited a similar

phenomenon. Many ingenious methods of generating

experiments, showed the distribution of
the charges continuously.

The Kelvin

most important device of

the

this

static

replenisher

was developed

static

were developed. Faraday,

Many

first

capacitor

the

Leyden

in

jar

in his early

made

attempts were

as a rotary device to build

time was the Wimshurst machine, built later

problem of storing the energy was solved by the

produced

static electricity

charges in hollow conductors.

to collect

up the charges, but

1882 (see figure

invented

in

1.1).

1745.

charges and calculated the potential voltages available (these could be quite high

The

Having

Wimshurst

machines were used for working x-ray tubes), measurement was now becoming important and electrometers
of various types based on the earlier gold-leaf electroscope were developed, resulting

now

Electrostatics could

voltmeters.

and attention was focused on the other phenomena

1.2

also been

known

for centuries.

Asia Minor and termed 'magnetite'.

the material
that

when

In this
first

magnetism.

Magnetism

Magnetism has
in

in the first electrostatic

be generated and stored for short periods, but could not be further used

was suspended by

its

It

It

was exhibited

centre from a thread of

stroked along a piece of steel, the steel also

way

it

became

in lodestone,

found

in the vicinity

has the property of attracting fragments of iron and

magnet and aligned

itself

silk,

it

aligned itself north and south.

became magnetised and

north and south

a knitting needle

when suspended, becoming

of Magnetia

when
It

a bar

of

was found

magnetised

the basis of the

compass.

The Beginning of Electronics

Figure

1.1.

Wimshurst machine (The Science Museum/ Science

About 1780, Galvani of

nervous excitability

The problem of

was

storage

Society Picture Library).

and when performing experiments on

electricity

he saw that violent muscle contractions could be observed

in frogs,

were touched with metal instruments carrying

the frogs

and the Leyden Jar was limited

pile'

began experiments on animal

Italy

&

still

unsolved.

The Wimshurst machine could generate

in its storage capacity, but in

1800 Volta invented the

consisted of copper and zinc discs separated by a moistened cloth electrolyte.

paper discs,

to consist of

was soon followed by

was now

tin

the

one

first

side,

manganese dioxide on

the

lumbar nerves of

but not store electricity

electric battery.

The

pile

was

later

"Volta's

improved

the other, stacked to produce 0.75 volt.

accumulator or rechargeable battery

ripe for the integration of electricity

if

electrical charges.

and magnetism and,

1803 by Ritter

in

in

in

This

Germany. The time

1820, Oersted in Denmark, reported the

discovery of electromagnetism and led him to develop the Galvanometer, allowing accurate measurements of
currents and voltages to be made, and from this our present range of
In 1831, the

two

iron ring with

ammeters and voltmeters was developed.

most important discovery was made by Faraday of electromagnetic induction. He wound an

coils,

one connected

to a battery, the other to a

galvanometer.

On

connecting and reconnecting

the battery, a reading was obtained on the galvanometer, although there was no direct connection. The

was

application of this discovery

magnetic

to rotate in a

The

coil.

field

the static transformer and

current changed in direction as the coil turned,

The generation of

but the current

is

electric

power now became

through two right angles and an alternating current

a

commutator

possible.

An

to reverse

electric

passed through the armature, the force generated causing

time of great progress in invention.

put forward his atomic theory that

Infra-red and ultra-violet radiation

all

it

motor

one half of the alternating

is

to rotate.

similar in construction,

The

early 1800s

were discovered and,

in

was

1808, Dalton

chemical elements were composed of minute particles of matter called

atoms. Thermoelectricity, electrolysis and the photovoltaic effect were

low-pressure discharge tubes, glow discharges,

next 20 years.

first

a coil of wire (an armature)

so as to cut the lines of magnetic force, an 'induced' current was produced in the

was produced. Direct current could be produced by using

current.

dynamo. By causing

new

all

discovered before 1840.

Work on

types of battery and the early microphone took place in the

1873 James Clerk Maxwell was the

fields together

and

formulated his equations from which he predicted electromagnetic radiation on purely theoretical grounds.

He

predicted

succeeded

He

also

first

It

wave propagation with

in

a finite velocity,

first

to consider

which he showed

producing electromagnetic waves experimentally

added

a loop of wire

in

magnetic and electric

to be the velocity of light. Heinrich Hertz

1877 and confirming Maxwell's predictions.

and increased the distance over which sparks could be transmitted, becoming the

radio communication.
It

would be

true to say that the majority of basic physical

phenomena were discovered

in the

75 years

Magnetism
between 1800 and 1875, culminating

in the practical applications

of the telephone, phonograph, microphones

and loudspeakers. Towards the end of the century, wireless telegraphy, magnetic recording and the cathode-ray
oscillograph were

all

developed.

In 1911 Rutherford proposed the general

model of the atom consisting of

a nucleus of protons

and neutrons,

about which electrons rotated in orbits. In 1913, Bohr proposed that various stable orbits corresponded to various
permissible energy levels

The

early 1900s also

valve opened the

way

The advent of
field

saw

the beginnings of

to radio broadcasting

the

of applications.

many

present-day electronic technologies.

191418 war changed the pace of development and

'electronics'

New

for

radio tubes and

new

circuits

were developed

war, radio astronomy, xerography, early radar, and computer techniques, were

during the

93945 war. Under

in electronics research,

MASERS, LASERS,

the pressure of this second war, radar and

and both governments and private industry

silicon.

The

stage

was now

set for the next

invented by the Bell Laboratories in 1948, enabling

process invented in 1959 enabled

(known

as the 'chip')

set

solar batteries and, in particular, in the 1950s,

such as germanium and

was born.

many

The

three-electrode

and Campbell-Swinton put forward his theory of television.

transistors to

all

now covered

communications and

all

wider

ready to be further developed

computer work led

up large

after the

laboratories.

to a great increase

From

these

came

methods of perfecting ultra-pure materials,

major advance

in electronics

the transistor,

electronics equipment to be miniaturised.

The

planar

be manufactured simultaneously and the integrated circuit

Chapter 2

The Expansion

The

industrial revolution of the Victorian

heavy machinery,

etc.

of Electronics

age created large industries

Today, these industries are

later technologies, e.g.

electronics, has presented

of electronic inventions

now

in decline

steel,

ship building, textiles, railways,

and the changeover to

light industries

based on

re-employment and re-training problems. The exploitation

creates wealth for those nations

which take up the challenge, such as the USA,

New

Europe, Japan and, more recently, other Far Eastern countries.

up

electronic industries are being built

employing large numbers of people, as instanced by the world's semiconductor industry, now accounting for

4%

of the world economy and already larger than any other manufacturing industry.

many of

Whilst

the basic electrical and electronic inventions were

2.1), the early 1960s

saw

made

in the last

two centuries (see

figure

the greatest expansion of electronics technology, and the integrated circuit, together

with the computer, laid the foundation for the present-day world-wide expansion of electronic applications,

of which typical examples

tape recorders,

are:

world-wide communications,

microwave ovens,

satellites, television, interactive

and

educational electronics, industrial electronics, electronic cameras, medical electronics, robotics and

Two examples

virtual

TV,

calculators, microprocessors, data-processing systems, automotive electronics,

many

others.

and aeroplane bookings.

By

using electronics techniques and merely passing a bar-coded object over a detection device, a detailed

bill

of the present electronics age are the check-out counter

can be produced by an electronic computer

in a

matter of seconds.

till

The number of

seats in the 170 airlines

throughout the world, flying to different destinations, must run into millions, yet any particular seat in any
particular aeroplane
office,

due

from any destination

to electronics

to

any other destination, can be booked from any

Microprocessors and minicomputers have applications

machine

tool

control,

airline

booking

communications and computers.

and record keeping

filing

(in

in

accounting, banking, chemical process control,

police

hospitals,

and business firms), data analysis,

instrumentation, automatic testing, automatic justifying or printing, and countless others.

In addition, the field of

telecommunications and radar, both commercial and military, used

tanks, ships, missiles, satellites, etc,

these applications,

The

list

making integrated

of applications

is

being exploited. Certainly, the

is

very large.

circuits,

hybrids and

many

specialised devices.

ever-widening as new applications

field

in aircraft,

There are also the component manufacturers who supply

such

as the multimedia and Internet

of electronics will continue to expand into both

home and

business

are

life,

with interactive and television presentations, combined with data-processing systems, becoming more and more

widely adopted.

brief

summary of

the growth of electronics over the years

the possible effect of the 'brain drain' after the 1939/45 war.

is

given

in figure 2.1,

while figure 2.2 shows

The Expansion of Electronics

1996 Inter-Satellite Communication

1986 Scanning Tunelling Microscope; 1987 Digital Audio Broadcasting

1985

CD/ROM; WINDOWS; TACTILE SCREEN

MS/DOS; 1982 CAMCORDER

1979 COMPACT DISC developed
1981

1975
1971

computer developments

invented

LASER invented; 1977 Magnetic

MICROPROCESSOR developed

Resonance Imaging developed

1965 Electronic Typewriter invented; 1969

INTERNET

started

1961

TAPE CASSETTE

1958

1952

PACEMAKER developed; 1959 I.C. Planar Process developed

FORTRAN Computer Language
MASER invented
INTEGRATED CIRCUIT concept; SPUTNIK Satellite launched

1950

MODEM

1957
1953

developed

>.

20th Century

>

19th Century

>-

18th Century

developed

1943 Printed wiring system patented; 1948

First

TRANSISTOR

1935 Scanning Electron Microscope invented

1934 Liquid Crystals Display developed; 1937 Xerography invented

1931 First Electronic

1929

First

COMPUTER

developed; Cardiograph invented

Colour Television

1926 Electron-microscope invented; 1927

1924

RADAR

First cable

TV

invented

TELEVISION system developed

(SONAR) used; TELEX invented

1919 Electronic
1914 Asdic

1911 Superconductivity discovered

1906 Radio Broadcasting

1898

started;

Three electron tube invented

magnetic recording

First

1897 'Electron' defined

1895 Radio Telegraphy in use; X-rays discovered
1887 Electrocardiograph invented

1876

TELEPHONE

invented; 1897 First Phonograph

1865 Radio wave theory (Maxwell)

1857 Mercury Arc
1855

Glow

Lamp

discovered

discharge tubes developed

1847 Magnetostriction discovered

1

844 Telegraphy using the Morse Code

1843

FAX

machine invented

1839 Microfilming invented; Photovoltaic effect discovered

1831 Electromagnetic Induction; Electricity generated
1821 Thermoelectricity discovered

1820 Electro-magnetism discovered

1808 Atomic Theory (Dalton)
1801 Ultra-violet radiation discovered

1800

First

Dry Battery

(Volta); Infra-red radiation discovered

1787 Electrostatics measured (Gold-leaf electroscope)

1780 Galvanic action discovered

1772 Magnetism used; Navy Compass
1770's Experiments with electrostatic electricity
1

745

1730

Electricity stored;

Two

The Leyden

jar

kinds of electricity discovered; positive and negative

1729 Distinction between conductors and insulators

Figure

2.1.

The growth of

electronics.

The Expansion of Electronics

European

American
2000
1990
1980
19/0 =====

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^~

1960
1950
1940
1980

WX)

^^=

1910
1900
1890
1880

1870
1860
1850
1840
1830
1820

1810
1800
1790
1780
1770
1760
1750
1740
1730

1720

i>

Number of
Figure

2.2.

brief

summary of

the

USA

Number

inventions

brain drain' from Europe to the

growth of electronics over the years (showing the possible

in the 1960s).

of inventions

effect of the

Chapter 3

The Development of Components, T\ibes, Transistors

and Integrated Circuits

All electronic

equipment

is

composed of components

The development of such components

etc.

electronic techniques,

components had

were those developed for the

dry-battery, etc,

all

to

is

resistors, capacitors, tubes, transistors, integrated circuits,

the story of electronics itself as, with each

be developed and manufactured

electrical industry

the

Leyden

The

new

invention in

earliest

components

Jar, the resistor, the transformer, the relay, the

introduced between 1745 and 1900, originating mainly in Europe.

Radio telegraphy using spark transmitters towards the end of the

wave

in quantity.

generators, such as the Alexanderson alternator, but

when

19th century

was followed by continuous

the thermionic tube

was invented

1906

in

continuous oscillation and amplification of radio frequencies became possible. Special tubes, transmitters and
receivers were designed and built with the designer of the equipment constructing

all

the necessary

component

parts.

The 1914-18 war gave

of the three-electrode tube

marked impetus

in quantity,

development of radio communications, and with the advent

to the

components such

as resistors

and capacitors began to assume the form

we knew them up to the 1960s.

The BBC commenced programme broadcasting on 14 November 1922 and from that time, up to about 1930,
many component manufacturers began to specialize in individual components, from which the home constructor

roughly as

used to make radio receivers. Most tubes were made

initially

of glass blowing and vacuum processes were similar.

typical bright-emitter three-electrode tube of the period

lit

many an

is

shown

in figure 3.1.

Bright emitter tubes, in rows,

these were followed by dull emitters,

remember

some of

the early magic

by

electric

lamp manufacturers

as the techniques

enthusiastic amateur's living

seemed

to disappear.

room

and,

when

Amateur constructors may

the pungent smell of ebonite drilled at too high a speed although, with the introduction of the screen-

The

grid tube in 1924, a metal chassis rapidly replaced ebonite panels.

the breadboard to the screened chassis are

shown

in figure 3.2.

It

stages in construction of radio sets from

might be considered that

this

period (the early

1920s) saw the birth of the components industry. Resistors were produced in large quantities and used as grid
leaks,

and

anode loads,

etc,

and consisted of carbon compositions of many kinds compressed into tubular containers

with end caps.

fitted

Paper-dielectric capacitors were mainly tubular types enclosed in plain bakelized

cardboard tubes, with bitumen or similar material sealing the ends. Bakelite enclosed stacked-mica capacitors,
fitted

with screw terminals and with the bottom of the case sealed with bitumen, were also in

common

use.

Rectangular metal-cased and plastic-cased types were also used. Electrolytic capacitors were mainly wet types
in tubular

metal cases. Cracked-carbon film-type resistors were introduced from

by 1934 were being manufactured

in quantity in the

Germany

in

about 1928 and

United Kingdom.

Figure 3.3 shows a front and rear view of the tuner and detector-amplifier circuits of a four-tube receiver
built in 1923.

Point to point wiring

was used between

used with sharp right-angle bends to make

all

the components. Square section wires

to

round wires and the home constructor

construction of sets diminished and

many component manufacturers and

in quantities improved, and many

of some modern multi-layer printed wiring boards. This soon gave

grew remarkably adept

at

From 1930 onwards

radio-set

were sometimes

the wiring horizontal or vertical, reminiscent of the wiring patterns

way

wiring up simple radio receivers.

the

home

makers worked together. Techniques

for

component manufacture

millions of radio sets were in use throughout the world in 1939.

As

the standard to

which components were

The Development of Components, Tubes, Transistors and Integrated Circuits

a?S3gEWT -~~|"S-T

Figure

3.1. Early bright-emitter three-electrode tube (courtesy

BREADBOARD PLUS CONTROL PANEL

BREADBOARD

EARLY

Mullard Radio Valve Co. Ltd).

-1

^- ->

kJP^ b^l

0^)r

r -w

w-'

\1

V
V

V--

I
1

EARLY METAL CHASSIS

(SCREENED GRID VALVE)

METAL CHASSIS
COMPLETE SCREENING

EARLY COMPONENT LAYOUTS

Figure 3.2. Early contributions

breadboard

to metal chassis.

The Development of Components, Tubes, Transistors and Integrated Circuits

Figure

made were

3.3. Four-tube receiver built in

1923 (courtesy Science Museum, London

those of domestic radio, pan-climatic protection

of the radio tube

made wide

electrical engineering applications, telephone

military,

was unnecessary and

tolerances and poor stability generally acceptable.

&

Bumdept

Ltd).

the self-compensating action

With the exception of certain

companies, a few sections of the instrument industry and the

no very high standard was required of the component manufacturer.

The advent of the 1939-45 war had

in all climates of the

equipment had

to be

tremendous effect on components because now operation of equipment

world was essential.

The spread of

the

war from Europe

designed to withstand tropical climates, whereas the war

in

to the Far East

meant

that

Russia required equipment to

operate in arctic conditions, and the North African desert war exposed equipment to excessive heat and rapid

temperature cycling. The war

at

sea and

combined operations made

resistance to salt and sea spray necessary.

Vibration, rough handling and shock impact affected the mounting of

was the

effect of tropical conditions

due

to the

component

parts.

Particularly

damaging

high humidity which rusted metals, lowered insulation resistance

of plastics, grew fungus and swelled some moving parts, making them useless.
Directly due to
to

war requirements, many changes and developments were necessary

meet these arduous conditions. These changes are

Standardization
Miniaturization

briefly listed below:

increased production of fewer types

submarines, manpack
needed mobile
for

sets, for aircraft,

too
and
component
needed,
quick
replacement
by

Transport hazards
shocks and rough handling
Reliability

failures

Maintainability

costly

disastrous

often

transport

unskilled personnel

radios, etc

to

produce equipment

The Development of Components, Tubes, Transistors and Integrated Circuits

impact of
parachute

tanks and
components
equipment,
Storage long periods before
Low temperature use
conditions
conditions
High temperature use
Humidity use
conditions
High

Combined environments humidity/high temperature/vibration,

High powers increase range of
and radar
EM
withstand nuclear environment
Mechanical shocks
Vibration

landing, etc

shells,

ships affecting

in aircraft,

use,

particularly missiles

all

in arctic

in desert

in tropical

high-flying aircraft (arc-over, etc)

altitude

etc

radio

to

radiation resistance

to

These stringent environmental and operational requirements, due

in

major improvements

to

were replaced by metal-cased tubular types with rubber end

directly to the

Waxed

component design and manufacture.

seals.

1939^5

war, resulted

tubular paper-dielectric capacitors

Metalled paper-dielectric capacitors were

developed. Improved control of the temperature coefficient of ceramic-dielectric capacitors was introduced by

manufacturers and

new

types were

made

Many

high-permittivity ceramic mixes developed.

Work on

introduced into resistor production and testing.

manufacturing improvements were

was sponsored and many

sealed variable resistors

available. Transformers operating at higher temperatures, oil-filled

were developed and also

resin 'potted' transformers.

and sealed

in

metal cans,

Sealed relays and indicating meters were also designed

and produced to withstand the tropical conditions.

Following the war the commercial success of component companies was concerned with the mass production
of components for television receivers and radio
the total

sets.

Military requirements dropped to a smaller proportion of

components output but the lessons learned were valuable

improving the standard and

in

reliability

of

commercial components.
After the war, around 1946, the printed circuit was beginning to be used in conjunction with sub-miniature

many experimental

tubes and

The

circuits

were made using both additive and subtractive printing techniques.

crystal detector, invented in 1906, forerunner of the

The physics of

the invention of the three-electrode tube.

fundamental research was done by physicists

in the 1940s,

modern

transistor,

when

it

was used

for

many

was not understood

crystal detectors

was discovered

years until
until

some

that certain semiconductors,

such as germanium and silicon, contained mobile electrons and 'holes', so that a so-called p-n layer in the
crystal

would pass current

were used
In

in the

1950s as

in

one direction only as

in the

normal crystal detector, and many germanium diodes

rectifiers.

1948, Bell Laboratories' scientists found that amplification could be obtained by

was termed

contact to the normal p-n contacts in germanium. This

resistor'

and the contact points were

means of

Bell Labs

replaced by an alloyed construction junction transistor.

later

a third

a point-contact 'transistor' or 'transferred

then produced the diffused junction type of transistor, also in germanium, which replaced the point contact

Germanium had one drawback

transistor.

much

leakage and silicon, which had a

in that

temperatures higher than 75C caused excessive current

higher operating temperature, began to be used and

is

the standard

material today.
Field effect transistors were introduced in

were known as

MOSTs

which the metal oxide formed

part of the transistor action

and

(Metal Oxide Silicon Transistors), having a simpler construction and being considerably

smaller.

The

transistor

came

into very

volts instead of 250-300),

its

wide use because of

was very high compared with existing

were

first

used in

its

obvious advantages of low-voltage operation (6-12

low current consumption and

tubes,

which had

its

extremely small

a limited life

due

size.

In addition,

its

reliability

to evaporation of the cathode.

They

introduced into deaf aids and then into portable radio receivers; then into computers and were widely

all

electronics until being replaced by the integrated circuit or 'chip',

of transistors,

all

made

in

one operation, described

which

is in

effect a large

number

later.

In the early 1950s, glass-dielectric capacitors, metal-film resistors, castellated metallized paper capacitors

and subminiature relays were beginning

About
first

this

to

be used more widely.

time subminiature components for use in transistor circuits were being developed.

time, as high-tension voltages of

designed to withstand only 6-12

150-300

For the

were not required, components such as capacitors could be

and (with the low currents

at

which

transistors operated) resistors could be

designed for very small power dissipation. This size reduction progressed to the point where handling

difficulties

The Development of Components, Tubes, Transistors and Integrated Circuits

However, about

and soldering problems arose.

components such as

this time,

was

it

volume was

whilst in a plastic-moulded carbon film resistor only l/280th of the total

components led

Other developments affecting components

Machines

or encapsulation techniques.

and thin-film

to the early thick-film

In the case of a

total.

ceramic-dielectric capacitor fitted into a ceramic case only l/225th of the actual working

fabricate simple film

volume of

realized that the actual working

and capacitors was only a very small proportion of the

resistors

volume was

effective

Attempts

effective.

to

circuits.

1950s were automatic assembly techniques and 'potting'

in the

for the automatic insertion of tubular

components

into printed wiring

boards were developed. Axial lead tubular resistors and capacitors were loaded into special feed containers and

machine

in the

were bent over, inserted through holes

their leads

quantities

were rarely

make

sufficient to

up

This period saw the exploitation of the junction transistor and

diodes, both in frequency response and

was being used

made by

was

power

Washington,

made and

output, were being rapidly

in

miniature components into one solid block was

in

Extensions to the range of transistors and

equipment

transistorized

by the mid-1960s. Magnetic core storage using very

also used for computer information storage and retrieval about this time.

The next and most important development

Conference

a day, that production

use with subminiature components on a

its

dip-soldering.

for practically all electronic requirements

small toroidal components

10000 boards

to

use of them.

full

printed-wiring board, with the connections

board and dip-soldered.

in the printed wiring

Unfortunately the capacity of these machines was so high, e.g.

USA, on 6 May

components was

first

the integrated circuit.

in a solid

it

block with no connecting wires. The block

and amplifying materials the

insulating, conducting, rectifying

idea of integrating
at

Components

1952 in which he stated:

'With the advent of the transistor and the work in semiconductors generally,

envisage electronics equipment

The

put forward by the author in a paper read

seems now possible

may

electrical functions being

to

consist of layers of

connected directly by

cutting out areas of the various layers'.

This proposal followed several years work on miniaturization of components done by the author's Division
at the

Royal Radar Establishment, Malvern, UK.

was not possible with

It

author 'solid circuits'. Figure 3.4 (taken in 1957) showed for the
In spite of attempts

circuit.

by

the 'mesa' techniques of the time to

models were made and demonstrated for possible assemblies, termed by the

fabricate production methods, but

Kilby and others,

it

was not

until

first

time the possible size of the integrated

1959 that the invention of the planar process

Noyce and Hoeni enabled mass production of

with aluminium metallization by Fairchild's

circuits, starting the

electronics revolution.
Initially, digital circuits

were developed

were also being developed

circuits

The development of

the integrated circuit

MOSFETs

components now known

MOSFETs

1962 bipolar transistors were replaced by

Although

for use in computers, this being the

maximum

market, but linear

for general purpose amplifiers, etc.

were slower than bipolar

was extremely

as 'chips'

transistors, they

were smaller, cheaper and used

1963, Fairchild introduced a resistor-transistor-logic (RTL) chip,

known

as a flipflop,

An op-amp

less

power.

which contained

channels and buried layers which were forerunners of later chip developments, leading to the
amplifier in 1964.

rapid.

In

(Metal Oxide Semiconductor Field Effect Transistors).

first

In

isolation

operational

could not only add and subtract incoming signals, but could also average,

integrate and otherwise manipulate them, enabling

them

to

be used for control, measurement and computer

systems.
In 1970, the
in

first

Random Access Memory (RAM) was produced by Fairchild (the 256-bit RAM), followed
RAM by the new company INTEL. Also produced in the same year by INTEL, was the
(the 8008). An Intel Pentium microprocessor of 1992 is illustrated in figure 3.5. Progress

1972 by the 1024-bit

first

microprocessor

in chip

design was rapid and, in 1975, the

was produced by INTEL. Also,

were about 0.25

About
In 1981,

RAM.

cm wide

this time,

IBM

in

and 0.5

first

1976, the

cm

4096-bit
first

RAM

in 1976, the

16 384-bit

RAM

long.

chips were being built into personal computers and, in 1977, the

entered the personal computer market with the

In 1987, the

was produced; and,

one-board computer was made by INTEL. All these chips

'PC

and, in 1984,

PC MACKINTOSH and the IBM PERSONAL SYSTEM

inexpensive software systems such as Microsoft

introduced in 1976, were improved each year.

MS-DOS became

In 1978, the

IBM

APPLE

2 was introduced.

developed a one million

bit

2 were introduced. Comprehensive,

available at this time.

CRAY Y-MP

Supercomputers,

was capable of performing 2000

million operations per second.

Present methods of chip assembly include plastic and ceramic sealing and the chips are mounted on printed
circuit

boards or ceramic bases.

The chips vary

in shape, e.g.

DIL

(Dual-in-Line) Flip-Chip, Leadless chip

12

The Development of Components, Tubes, Transistors and Integrated Circuits

SOLID

INSULATOR

CIRCUITS

Possible future IrcnJs in

CONDUCTOR
DIELECTRIC
RESISTOR
BASE

The model
sjoci.ted

represent* a composite flip

flop transistor with the
surf.ee.
It rm th,

component, deposited on lu

,.

lent of emitter follower output

semi conductor

to

rail)

the

(Rt. R2, Rj. nd R4).

rt.ij

uU

fp6
Hs

Hhrwv
W> ]'

ACTUAL

3.4. Integrated circuit

imiC

An

Intel

Ti
f

J-rHh

'

Uo

SIZE

Figure

Figure 3.5.

mil Utilise. I.r.dnc, of i,, L.i, re,

emitnne ind lollertine parr, of the unit
equivalent circuit shown below.

The

20

30

model shown

40

SO

in 1957.

60

Pentium processer of 1992 (The Science Museum/ Science

70

&

Society Picture Library).

The Development of Components, Tubes, Transistors and Integrated Circuits

carriers,

metal

MCMs

bumps

(Multi-chip Modules),

TAB

usually surface mounted.

all

(usually gold) for connection between chip and base

is

now

VHSIC

13

(Tape Automated Bonding) using

widely used. These closely packed

assemblies use

VLSI

(Very Large Scale Integration) and also

whilst electron

beam

technologies are used to obtain the very high definition and accuracy required for these

assemblies.

(Very High Speed Integrated Circuits),

Close packing brings problems of overheating of individual LSI chips and miniature fans are

sometimes necessary.

A cross-section

illustrating the state-of-the-art

technology in the 1960s

integrated circuit of 1991, with four layers of interconnections,

Aluminum

N-

shown

in figure 3.6 whilst a bipolar

figure 3.7.

Si02 passivation

bonding pads

N+

is

is illustrated in

(emitter)

(base)

type substrate

(collector)

Figure 3.6. Cross-section of a bipolar integrated

Figure 3.7. Cross-section of an integrated

Over

the years

CMOS

technology, although

VHSICs, due

still

circuit

of 1991

technology has become the primary technology for fabricating ICs, whilst bipolar

used, has

become

to their small geometries,

have increased from approximately 20

ASICs (Application

circuit of the 1960s.

a smaller percentage of present day IC manufacture.

can be used

MHz

at

much

higher frequencies, and IC operating frequencies

clock rate in 1975 to approximately 200

Specific Integrated Circuits) and

VHSICs, now behave

like

RF

MHz

circuits

in

1995.

Digital

and need proper

transmission line termination, cross-talk protection and grounding.

The operating voltage

is

being reduced due to both the physical limitations of materials used to manufacture

ICs and the high levels of integration being achieved. The smaller geometries required for state-of-the-art ICs
(i.e.

storage 64

Mb, 256 Mb, and

Gb DRAM)

require lower

power supply

voltages, due to the dielectric

and metallization thickness and the transistor breakdown characteristics. The portable personal computer and
cellular radios are driving the trend towards reduced operating voltage,

from 5

to either 3.0 or 3.3

now,

The Development of Components, Tubes, Transistors and Integrated Circuits

14

and eventually to

However,

1.5

V. This change (5.0 to 3.3. V) will double the battery

as the voltage

reduced, the operating speed (frequency)

is

sensitive to static discharge handling,

Adding

package

to the

become more

and there are smaller noise margins.

style transformation is the rapid increase in the

There has been a dramatic growth

(or pins).

by reducing power dissipation.

life

reduced, the devices

is

in pin

number of

external package leads

count from 68 in 1980 to 512 in 1990. IC packages with

shown

pin counts of

900

in figure 3.8.

Larger package sizes (measured by the number of leads) are required to accommodate large die

to

1000

will

memories), and which make

years

is

in

production by the year 2000. This

is

in the pin

count illustrated

of application specific integrated circuits (ASICs) which are input/output (I/O) intensive (versus

sizes, especially

shown

be

less efficient use of silicon material.

The

size reduction of

DRAM

cells

over the

in figure 3.9.

MCM's

1500

1500

(multi-chip modules)

1200
1

900
Flat

600

200

900

pack

600
Pin grid

300

Circular

200

TQ5

'Si

-^

300

^A
1965

1960

1970

Figure

Generation

3.8. Pin count increase.

4M

1M

2000

1990

1980

1G

256M

64M

16M

0.13/ifTl
Cell Area

Vcc

3011m

35um

IQjim*

2
1

(Cell)

STC

II

(thick electrode)

FIN type

0.2ujt)

0.5(im^

3|im

3.3V

2.5V

cylindrical type multi-layered cylindrical type ferro-electric type

multi-layered FIN type

(rugged-surface pory-Si)

J
planer

stacked-cap.

in

trench type
ED

Figure

3.9.

Trends of

DRAM

cells

The progress of IC technology has been

number of
Over

relentless, with rapid

transistors fitted into a single chip has increased

the period

used to the
transistor,

(reproduced by permission from

full,

began

from about 1900

advances

in

Takeda, Hitachi Ltd).

processing and packaging. The

to several millions.

to the present day, various electronics technologies

and some have declined. Tubes were

to decline.

up

Eiji

at their

peak

in the

have been developed,

1950s but, with the advent of the

Similarly, potted circuits and automatic assembly technologies had peak periods

The Development of Components, Tubes, Transistors and Integrated Circuits

in the 1960s.

We

are

now

microelectronic devices of

The
active

history of

components

at
all

the stage

where TV,

Internet,

ST, Virtual Reality, mini- and microcomputers and

kinds are advancing rapidly.

components shows how the change from passive components

(transistors, integrated circuits) has affected electronics

of integrated circuits

in the

form of VLSI and

VHSIC

(resistors, capacitors, etc,) to

development. The present explosion

has been the most important development

in the history

of electronics.

The growth of

the semiconductor industry has been phenomenal.

It

is

estimated

that,

1995, world

in

semiconductor sales were of the order of 150 billion dollars, thus becoming one of the world's largest
manufacturing industries.

The

future of electronics, therefore, lies in the increasing use of microelectronic devices.

The

of microprocessors and minicomputers using VLSI are becoming wider and wider and

this will

home and business life for everyone in the 1990s and beyond.
A summary of developments in components is given in 'History on

and

'Passive

Components' and Date Chart

2, 'Tubes, Transistors,

a Page', charts

Diodes and Integrated

Circuits'.

2:

applications
affect both

Date Chart

1,

The Development of Components, Tubes, Transistors and Integrated Circuits

16

History on a page
Passive Components

1.

WIRES AND CABLES

Wire conductors (1729)
Cable insulation (1812)

1740

Metal sheathing (1845)

I

sodium cond. (1905)

Ins.

Polythene

ins.

CAPACITORS FIXED

(1933)

Leydenjar (1745)

PTFEins. (1938)

Mica

-1760

capacitors

Paper capacitors

874)

876)

Ceramic capacitors (1900)

Electrolytic capacitors (1922)

Glass tub capacitors

904)

Solid elec. capacitors (1956)

INDUCTORS
Iron dust

magnets (1772)

1780

Solenoid (1825)
Ferrites (1909)

Ferrocart (1932)

Ferroxcube (1955)

YIG

(1956)

1800

BATTERIES
Volta'spile (1800)

Accumulator (1803)

MAGNETIC TAPES

Fuel cell (1839)

Steel wire (1808)

Lead acid (1860)

Dry cell (1868)
Zinc merc-ox. (1884)

Mercury

Moving

(1954)

cell

Videotape (1958)

(1828)

Cassette tape (1963)

Astatic (1828)

TRANSFORMERS

(1957)

Invention (1831)

Sodium sulphur (1972)

Distribution (1885)

batts.

coil

Zinc-air cell (1968)

Lithium

Ferric oxide tape (1930)

Electromag. (1820)

Nickel-cad (1900)
batt.

Plastic tape (1920)

GALVOS

Nickel-iron (1900)
Solar

Steel tape (1898)

1820-

(1973)

Aluminium-air (1986)

-1840-

RELAYS

Power Tx (1885)

PLUGS AND SOCKETS

Telegraph (1837)

Pulse (1942)

Electrical (1840)

Strowger (1900)

Single pole jack (1878)

PO 3000 type

RF single

Polarised (1910)

(1900)

RESISTORS
Thermistor (1850)

Moulded carbon (1885)

Carbon film (1897)

1860

pole jack (1918)

Rect. multipole (1920)

Sealed (1940)

Circular multipole (1940)

Ferreed (1950)

MICROPHONES

Diaphragm microphone (1860)

Moving iron microphone (1876)
Nickel chromium film (1957) Carbon microphone (1877)
Condenser microphone (1917)
Tantalum film (1959)
Crystal microphone (1919)
Moving coil microphone (1922)
Ribbon microphone (1931)
Cracked carbon (1925)
Oxide film (1931)

LOUD SPEAKERS

1880

Earphones (1877)
Electromagnetic (1877)

Moving

VARIOMETERS
Ayrton-Perry (1886)

SWITCHES
1900

Toggle switches (1910)

Rotary switches (1920's)

Co-axial switches (1930)

Full frequency (1957)

WAVEGUIDES
Theory (1893)

Push-button switches (1915)

Micro switches (1920)

(1877)

Stereo (1930's)

~~

Step switches (1889)

coil

Electrostatic (1925)

Construction (1936)
I

CAPACITORS VARIABLE
Marconi (1906)

INSULATORS

General purpose (1914)

Precision type (1920)

Stand-off insulators (1910)

-1920-

Terminal boards (1920)

Trimmer (1920)
Gauged capacitor

METAL RECTIFIERS
(1920's)

Copper oxide (1920)

Selenium (1938)

orig.

Germanium (1952)
Silicon (1955)

817

The Development of Components, Tubes, Transistors and Integrated Circuits

History on a page
2.

Tubes, Transistors, Diodes

and Integrated

Circuits

1900

TUBES
TRANSISTORS

Two electrode
u 1910

(1904)

Crystal pulling (1917)

Three electrode (1906)

Retarded field oscillator (1919)

MOS

Negative resistance oscillator (1922)

Catswhisker diode (1906)

concept (1920)

anode magnetron (1922)

Field effect transistor (1935)

Split

Point contact transistor (1948)

Screen grid (1926)

Unijunction transistor (1950)

Pentode (1928)

Ge junction

transistor (1951)

-1920

Heil oscillator (1935)

Surface barrier transistor (1954)

Beam

Si junction transistor

Klystron (1939)

(1954)

tetrode (1936)

Diffused transistor (1956)

Cavity magnetron (1939)

MESA transistor

Travelling-wave (1943)

JFET

(1956)

Parametric amp. (1950)

(1956)

Carcinotron (1952)

Tunnel diode (1957)

Planar transistor (1959)

1930

MASER
New

Epitaxial transistor (1960)

(1953)

vistor (1956)

CATtriode (1974)

1940

DIODES
Junction diode (1941)

Tunnel diode (1957)

Zener diode (1962)

1950

(Zener effect 1934)

LED

INTEGRATED CIRCUITS

Thryistor (1965)

-I960
Patent (1959)

Planar process (1959)

RTL
TTL

(1961)

VP epitaxy

(1961)

LP epitaxy

MOS

(1962)
(1968)

LSI (1970)

VMOS
HMOS
VHSIC

(1972)
(1977)

(1979)

VLSI (1980)
ASICs (1989)
ULSI (1994)

MCM's

(1994)

(1963)

IMPATTdiode (1964)

Concept (1952)

CMOS

(1960)

GUNN diode

(1960)

(1961)
Si on sapphire (1963)
Coll. diff. iso. (1969)

X-ray

litho (1970)
Electron-beam fab. (1974)

-1970

lp. Chip 'TRW (1984)

0.5u 'IBM' chip (1985)

0.35U. (1994)

0.25u (1995)
0.1 u (Bell) (1996)

1980

-1990

TRAPATT diode
BARR ATT diode

LCD

(1971)

(1967)
(1968)

17

Chapter 4

Concise History of Audio and Sound Reproduction

basic electrical sound system needs a transducer (a microphone) to convert the sound into an electrical

waveform, a means

The

earliest

and a means for reproduction of the sound.

for transmission

microphones consisted of

a loose metal-to-metal contact

a stretched flat

membrane

(Reis used a sausage skin in 1860) actuating

which converted the sound vibrations into

Later microphones

electric currents.

replaced the single loose metal contacts by carbon ones (Edison, 1877) and by carbon granules (Hunnings, 1878).

The

intelligible

first

human speech was

transmitted over wires by Bell, however, in 1876.

developed consisted of a thin iron diaphragm which vibrated

in front

The microphone he

of a magnet with a coil

wound on

it,

thus

inducing an electric current which varied in sympathy with the voice sounds. This current was sent over a pair

of wires to a similar apparatus

other end.

at the

An

early Bell telephone used in 1878

Sound could now be transmitted and received by wire and,

it.

He wrapped

it,

turned a crank to rotate the cylinder and shouted into

was reproduced. Ten years

making many

before

it

Berliner introduced the

later,

About

transmitted, recorded and reproduced.

moving-coil cone loudspeaker, but

first

'Mary had

shown

in figure 4.1.

little

diaphragm

On

lamb'.

first flat-disc

in contact with

cranking the cylinder

record and also a method

shellac copies.

Sound could now be

invented the

it

is

Edison invented a method for recording

a sheet of tinfoil round a cylinder, set a stylus or needle attached to a

again, his voice

for

in 1877,

The

could be exploited.

electrostatic

it

was before

its

time (1877), Siemens in

this

Germany

time and had to wait for other developments

loudspeaker, introduced around

1925, failed to gain wide

commercial acceptance.
In 1924, Chester

Rice and Edward Kellog, both of General Electric, registered a patent for a voice coil

speaker as well as constructing an amplifier capable of providing power of

known

as the Radiola

Model 104 had

Ribbon speakers were invented

a built-in amplifier

in 1925.

which was concertinered and exposed

Boxed-in speakers were introduced

The standard cone was replaced by

magnetic

field.

They were brought

The speaker,

in 1925.

a very fine

aluminium ribbon

USA

out in the

in the

1920's.

about 1958.

in

Following Bell's invention, the

to a

watt for their device.

and came on the market

first

public telephone exchange

January 1878 to twenty-one subscribers. These

was opened

telephones were leased

first

in

New

Haven, Connecticut,

in pairs, the

in

two telephones being

permanently connected together.

1889, Strowger invented the

In

first

automatic switching system to allow one telephone to work with any

other telephone and, in 1919, the improved crossbar selector system was developed in Sweden.
first

experimental electronic exchange was

made by

Bell

Telephone Laboratories and, by 1958,

In 1952, the

fully

automatic

electronic exchanges were in use.

The spread of telephones throughout

the world

was rapid and

there are

now over 400

million telephones in

service.

1898 another method of recording sound was invented by Poulsen

In

found
past

that

it,

the wire

was magnetized

revived

when tube

to twist

and was replaced by a

18

Denmark

to varying degrees, thus recording the sound.

again and could also be wiped off and re-recorded.

tape broke

in

magnetic recording.

He

by feeding the current from a microphone through an electromagnet and drawing a piano wire rapidly

it

was

amplifiers

became
fiat

difficult to join,

This could be played again and

Poulsen's invention of the magnetized piano wire was

available and spools of thinner wire were used; but thin wire

was inclined

metal tape developed by Blattner (the 'Blattnerphone'). However,

and

Farben and

AEG

in

Germany produced paper and

when

the

plastic tapes coated

A Concise

Figure

An

4.1.

Science

early Bell telephone and terminal panel, as used at

Museum/ Science

with iron oxide

in the

&

Cassettes,

Osborne Cottage, 14 January 1878 (The

Germany, about 1940, introduced

a lacquer.

much improved

quality of sound reproduction

radio-frequency bias as in present-day tape recorders.

in./s).

19

Society Picture Library).

form of

with improved tape and a

56 cm/s (22

History of Audio and Sound Reproduction

the 'Magnetophon' tape recorder,

the latter largely

plastic-based ferric-oxide tape

Later open-reel tape recorders usually operate

at

at

1.875

in./s.

to the use of

15 in./s and sub-multiples (7.5, 3.75,

which are now much more popular than open-reel tapes because of

(no tape threading), normally operate

due

was used, running

their

at

etc.,).

low cost and convenience

Recently, cassettes of half-size have been introduced, but

mostly for dictation purposes rather than music. Video recorder tapes can record up to 18 octaves of frequency
for colour television, as against 9 octaves for

Berliner's shellac

rpm

the 78

The

gramophone

disc playing speed

first

sound recording

was reduced
to

normal sound recording.

discs were later replaced by plastic discs running

to

accompany

films ('the talkies')

was produced

disc-recording machine called Vitaphone was synchronized to the film and the

was 'The Jazz Singer'

in

78 rpm, and, about 1948,

at

45 and 33 rpm, and opened the era of the long-playing record.

October 1927, with Al Jolson.

in

1926 by Warner Bros.

first

successful talking picture

Fox Movietone News improved on

this

system by

using a sound-on-film system in which the synchronism was automatic, using a variable-intensity light source
to record the

sound on the film negative. Similar systems are now used

the early

In

1930s Arthur Keller of Bell Labs

in

the

in

modern cinemas.

USA, and Alan Blumlein

of

EMI

in

Britain,

developed stereophonic disc recording systems quite independently. These gave directional and much improved
special

war.
a

effects,

but the business depression of those years prevented commercial

Surprisingly, the

first

Frenchman, Clement Ader,

practical demonstration of stereophonic

in 1881.

He

installed pairs of

exploitation before the

sound reproduction was carried out by

microphones

in the Paris

Opera House, connected

20
by telephone

Concise History of Audio and Sound Reproduction

earphones

lines to pairs of

in the

Exhibition of Electricity held that year in Paris.

when

three-channel system was used by the Bell Laboratories on 27 April 1933,

was reproduced

in

of stereophonic

hi-fi.

Washington with

Quadraphonic or surround sound has been introduced, which aims

present inside an auditorium

more

known

to give the listener the illusion of being

vividly than can be achieved using ordinary two-channel stereo.

typical hi-fi loudspeaker system consists of

smallest ones being

two or three loudspeaker

units of different

as 'tweeters' and the largest ones as 'woofers', with a crossover

band

direct the relevant frequency

each

into

cone

size, the

network to

filter

unit.

necessary to focus attention on the importance of the polar,

It is

the Philadelphia Orchestra

most impressive degree of realism. This may be regarded as the beginning

directional radiation characteristic

i.e.

of loudspeakers and the relationship between the loudspeaker and the acoustics of the listening room.

improvements

becoming of much greater

other parts of the audio chain, these aspects are

in

With

significance.

and electronic musical instruments have been evolved over a period of many decades. The major

Electrical

part of this effort has probably

been devoted to the electronic organ, but other instruments, such as electronic

pianos, have also been produced.

development

of creating sound electronically

in this field

This gives the user an unprecedentedly great ease and versatility

in the creation

is

the synthesizer.

and control of audio waveforms

with regard to harmonic content, envelope shape, repetition rate and random noise characteristics. Musical and
other sound sequences can be built up and controlled from a small keyboard.

The

BBC

Radiophonic Workshop

uses synthesizers and other techniques, and a well-known example of radiophonic music created by them

theme music from

is

the

Who'.

'Dr.

Electronic organs consist of a series of electrical tone generators controlled by keyboard(s) and stops fed to
amplifiers and loudspeakers.

and marketed

An

early

Hammond

and commercially successful organ was designed by Laurens

This employed a large number of synchronous-motor-driven alternators to generate the

in 1935.

many

tones. Since then very

different designs have been evolved, mostly of purely electronic nature.

The

best

of these simulate remarkably well the subtle sounds of a good traditional pipe organ, but the largest sales are of
smaller instruments aimed mainly
tonalities, often

'rhythm box'

popular music

at the

As

field.

well as producing a wide range of organ-stop

of cinema-organ character, these organs usually also provide various percussive effects, and

drum and cymbal sounds

frequently added to give repeated

is

at

Techniques based on the use of microprocessors are being increasingly employed

need for a high degree of performing

skill.

Fax machines, teleprinters or computers, the output

In

transmitted over a telephone line,

it

from an

3.6

by a

bits/s

to

to

converter which

This

is

required.

at

the receiving end. With a

is

As

this

done by

modern computer

cannot be

MODEM
a

modem

For good speech quality about 16

required than for music.

VOCODERS

(or voice coders) are used to reduce this to 2.4 or

Green,

H C

machine

aware of the assumptions made. This produces the Dalek-like speech which
speech-analysis devices and speaking machines,

based on the theory of visible speech, formulated

is

A Kopp

and

is

in turn leads to

Speech synthesis

first

MODEM

Is.
is

by making assumptions about the speech waveform, speech, synthesis. This can be converted back

just recognizable.

far

bandwidth

less

converter

0s and

INTERNET.

can be used to connect up to the

For transmitting speech

form

in binary

is

has to be converted into suitable audio tones. This

(Modulator and Demodulator) with a similar

bits/s

various selectable tempos.

to relieve the player of the

who showed how phenomes

to recognise ten

numbers was

built

in

is

synthetic speech.

i.e.

1948 by the Americans R

Potter,

(vocal sounds) correspond to graphic traces. In 1950, the

by Bell Labs

fewer theoretical problems than speech recognition,

is

in the

used

in

USA. Speech

synthesis,

many domains, such

which possesses

as industry, cars and

games.

The development of video recording techniques

fields,

for television, together with fast digital techniques in other

has had a large influence on sound recording.

An

early application

was

the

Army

Wireless Set No.

10

multichannel transmitter and receiver which used digital techniques and was designed in 1942 and introduced
in

1944.

further application of digital techniques to audio

Code Modulation' (PCM) system

to another.

In the

was not

for sending high-quality stereo

and

for recording, but

TV

1960s the instantaneous amplitude of the audio wave was sampled

and the sample amplitude expressed as a binary number of 12 or more

for

doing

this is called

an analogue-to-digital (A/D) converter.

reconstituted into an audio

waveform by

rapid succession of 0s and

Is,

D/A

converter.

the

BBC's

'Pulse

BBC

centre

bits,

i.e.

at

0s and

frequent intervals,
Is.

The apparatus

At the other end, the stream of 0s and

large

but the distortion of the system

was

sound signals from one

is

bandwidth

far

is

lower than

Is is

required to transmit this very

that of

normal landlines. For

A Concise
example, programmes can be sent from London
quality.

to

History of Audio and Sound Reproduction

Edinburgh and back with no perceptible degradation

These techniques are now being used for sound recording, the

digital bits

21

in

being recorded on a video

tape recorder or on video discs. There are several disc systems, the latest one using a laser spot focused on a

and modulated by a pattern of indentations on a

reflective track,

by the Philips Co, enabled

disc.

Digital

Compact

Discs, invented in 1978

one hour of stereo sound, with much lower distortion

a 5 inch diameter disc to carry

and background noise level than could be achieved by analogue methods. In addition, the sound reproduced
unaffected by dust, scratches and fingerprints on the record.

Diameter,

20

system

50
15

mm
mm

is

in figure 4.2.

-33 mm-*'

Lead-In
2

signal,

mm

Lead-out

__

signal. 0.5

Signal
surface

Clamping
area, 3.5

mm

tzsmrt^
beam

shown

Signal area

protective

Laser

is

mm

Plastic
film

CD

The

mm

Transparent
layer

Grating plate

Polarization beamsplitter

Spot lens

Detector

Figure 4.2. The

CD

(compact disc) system (courtesy IEEE Spectrum, March 1984, and Senri Miyooka, Sony

Corporation).

Conventional digital audio, as used for instance on compact discs, requires a large bandwidth for transmission

and enormous amounts of storage space. Developments

it

practical to reduce these requirements

redundant and irrelevant information

Over

in

high-speed digital signal processing chips have made

by employing sophisticated data compression techniques which reduce

in the

source signal.

the years the quality of sound reproduction has

reproduction

is

now

the digital

four speakers fed from a

A summary

CD

compact disc marketed

in

improved and
1983.

the standard of excellence in audio

In addition to

provides a stereo reproduction of excellent quality.

of audio development

is

given in Date Chart

3.

home

use, a

modern car with

22

Concise History of Audio and Sound Reproduction

History on a page
Audio and Sound Reproduction

3.

1760

1780

Speech synthesis
Kratzenstein (1779)

1800

Von Kemplen (1791)

Reisz (1937)

Magnetic recording

-1820

Steel wire (1808)

Steel tape (1898)

Plastic tape (1920)

1830

Ferric oxide tape (1930)

Videotape (1958)
Cassette tape (1963)

-1840

Video tape recorder (1977)

Bit stream recorder (1995)

1850

1860

Diaphragm microphone (1860)

Moving iron microphone (1876)
Carbon microphone (1877)
Condenser microphone (1917)
Crystal microphone (1919)
Moving coil microphone (1922) Phonograph (1877)
Ribbon microphone (1931)
Gramophone (1887)
Lapel microphone (1932)
Flat-disc records (1897)
Electromagnetic pickup (1910)
Crystal pickup (1919)

Moving-coil pickup (1932)

Long-playing record (1946)
Stereo record (1947)
Multitrack recording (1955)
Laser LP disc (1972)
Accutrac turntable (1976)
Vertical record player (1981)

-1870

Telephone (1876)

1880 Electomagnetic
loud speaker (1877)

LS (1877)
1890 Electrostatic LS (1925)
Moving

coil

Full frequency range

electrostatic

LS (1957)

1900

Telephone exchange

Strowger auto exchange

878)

( 1

892

PBX, Siemens (1909)

Cross-bar system (1919)

Metering (1923)

Vocoder (1936)
Pulse code mod. (1937)

MODEM
1910

(1950's)

Packet switching (1964)

Exp. electonic system (1952)

Electronic system (1958)

ASDIC

1920
(1915)

SONAR

Electronic organ (1918)

Hammond organ
Moog synthesizer

(1915)

(1935)
( 1964)

STD(UK)

PCM

(1958)

digital

audio (1967)

Digital systems (1975)

1930

Stereo sound (1933)

1940

Hi-Fi (1950's)

Quadraphonic sound

Film, sound-on-disc (1926)

Sound-on-film (1927)
(

97

Film, magnetic (1948)

1950
Transistorized hearing aid (1951

-1960

'Chip' hearing aid (1962)

DOLBY

noise-reduction system (1967)

-1980

Compact

disc (1978)

WORM

(1980)

Digital

DVD

CD

H970

(1982)

WALKMAN portable audio

(1980)

-1990

(1995)

2000

DAB

(digital

audio broadcasting) (1995)

Chapter 5

Concise History of Radio, Communications and

Avionics

At the end of the nineteenth century, the electron had been discovered and a great deal of experimental work

was being done on electromagnetism. Sparks produced by discharges from

transfer of

Many

man-made

electrical

for this

fields together to

jar through a coil of wire

velocity,

which he showed

waves experimentally
the distance over

in

to

phenomena, but James Clerk Maxwell was the

be the velocity of

light.

instance of the

first

to consider

In

1873 he predicted wave propagation with a

finite

Heinrich Hertz succeeded in producing electromagnetic

1877 and confirming Maxwell's predictions.

He

also added a loop of wire and increased

which sparks could be transmitted.

spark detector was produced by a French physicist, Branley,

filled

first

be responsible and formulated his equations from which he predicted

electromagnetic radiation on purely theoretical grounds.

with metal

filings,

which could be measured.

It

who

noticed that the resistance of a glass

normally high, became low when an electric discharge occurred

was now possible

coherer to receive the sparks over a distance.

in

Leyden

energy over a distance without interconnecting wires.

were put forward

theories

magnetic and electric

tube

with a spark gap were found to be reproduced in nearby metal objects. This was the

fitted

to transmit telegraphy

It is

in the vicinity,

by coding the sparks and using Branley's

interesting that Branley

was

the

first

to

use the word 'radio'

connection with his experiments.

Guglielmo Marconi was interested

in Hertz's

experiments and began experimenting

in

1895 with a spark

He

induction coil and Branley coherer, and succeeded in sending telegraph messages over a short distance.
travelled to Britain in 1896 to exploit his discoveries with

Preece, Engineering Chief of the

Telegraph Service, and Marconi demonstrated his apparatus to the Post Office

officials

Government

over a distance of 100

metres.

Similar work was being done in Russia and

was not published

until

Marconi patented
in

1897

to acquire

some

S Popov gave a demonstration on 12th March 1896, but

his invention in

June 1896 and the

Marconi's patents and

set

first

Radio Telegraph Wireless Company was formed

up the manufacture of spark transmitters and

manufacturers such as Siemens and Halske were, by the

aerials

this

thirty years later.

late 1890s, also

receivers.

making radio equipment. By

Other

this time,

had become long wires raised as high as possible.

Marconi continued

to

improve

his

1899, and later over longer distances.

equipment and succeeded

He

in linking

England with France by radio

also installed equipment on ships for

in

communication between ship

and shore.

To explain why

radio

communication was possible around the curvature of the

America proposed an ionized layer

and Kenelly

in

was

and was known as the Heaviside/Kenelly

in 1901

in the

earth,

Heaviside

in

England

upper atmosphere which reflected the waves. This

layer.

Spark transmitters were almost universal for radio telegraphy, but they were improved when rotary discharger
sets

were introduced, fed from alternators

In

1903, Steinmett built a

Kw

10

to give

KHz

more

transmitter

alternator,

power and

to radiate

continuous waves (CW).

which was used by Fessenden

in

experiments with

wireless telephony and in 1904, Alexanderson designed an alternator operating at a frequency of 100

KHz

(see

figure 5.1).

23

A Concise History of Radio, Communications and Avionics

24

Figure

5.1.

The Alexanderson

&

Museum/ Science

alternator (The Science

Society Picture Library).

Atmospherics were a great enemy. Larger and larger powers were introduced, such as
operating in 1911 and

at the transatlantic station at

focused attention on radio-telegraphy

summoned by

as,

Poldhu

in

Cornwall,

Clifden in Ireland, in 1912, the sinking of the

TITANIC

although over 1500 lives were

lost,

at

some 700 were saved by

ships

wireless.

The Great War of 1914-18 produced

major change

technology with the introduction of the three-

in

electrode tube in quantity, which ultimately resulted in the ending of the spark transmitter era.

By

1919,

high-power transmitter tubes were being made and the Marconi Company spanned the Atlantic by telephony
in daylight.

The superheterodyne

was

receiver (see figure 5.2)

and particularly constant selectivity over a wide tuning range.

frequencies were made, such as the retarded

field oscillator

and the negative resistance oscillator by Gill and Morell

in

use and provided virtually constant gain

Attempts

to

make

oscillators at

by Berkhausen and Kurtz

in the

United

Kingdom

in

in

much

Germany

1922.

higher

in

1919

Crystal control

of frequency was introduced and the screened grid tube and the pentode improved the performance of radio
receivers,

which were mostly made by home constructors

Frequency standards were

line of

ammonia and

finally the

set up, first the

in the 1920s.

quartz crystal

itself,

then the atomic clock, using the spectral

caesium and rubidium beam magnetic resonance methods

intially

developed

in

1939.

The advent of
as the

R1155

National

HRO

the

for the

of the

1939-45 war introduced high-sensitivity communication receivers

Royal Air Force.
late 1930s.

components and high-quality

in

1933 aroused considerable

FM

The

first

production communication receiver

for military use, such

in

wide use was the

Post-war developments benefited from the research which had been done on
receivers and

interest

In the 1950s, frequencies in the

band 400

(PMR). Mobile handsets and vehicle

hi-fi

amplifiers

and Jodrell Bank was

to

500

MHz

became

available.

Radio astronomy, discovered

in operation in 1951.

were found

installations are intended to

to

be suitable for Private Mobile Radio

communicate with

a radio

Base Station, but

A Concise History of Radio, Communications and Avionics

Figure

may

5.2.

superheterodyne receiver of the 1930s (The Science

Base Station

also 'talk through' the

to other mobiles.

The

Museum/ Science

radio Base

is

&

25

Society Picture Library).

usually connected to an office or

Headquarters by land-line.

was developed

Cellular radio

to

provide access for mobiles into and out of the public network by direct

number of 'mobile'

dialling at the largest possible

sites.

This was achieved by providing a large number of

transmit and receive Base Station sites, each covering a small area or
large

group of

cells as a

honeycomb). The

cell sites

'cell',

(usually

drawn

were interconnected and connected

as a

hexagon and

to the Public

Switched

Telephone Network by mobile switching centres.

In the United

Kingdom,

the cellular Tactical

Access Communication System (TACS) commenced

in

1985

with two rival licenced organisations, which adopted the names Vodafone and Cellnet.

pan-European, 900

known

as the 'Global

MHz

System

cellular

for

system which has been under development since 1982 and

Mobile Communications' (GSM) (see

figure 5.3) should solve

is

technical problems experienced with current cellular systems and offer other advantages.

VLA
Hand

held
portable

Visitor location

register

Aerial

KAvr
MbO

BSC
Base-tranceiver

system

Subscriber-interface

/Telephony (PSTN)
Data & mobile

Networks

Base

station
controller

module

HLR
Mobile switching
mobile vechicle

Figure

5.3.

Arrangement of the European

centre

GSM

cellular radio system.

Home

now

many of

location
register

the

A Concise History of Radio, Communications and Avionics

26

The invention of the

transistor revolutionized radio techniques, with

leading to cheap and reliable battery

power supplies

its

low voltage and current requirements,

for portable sets. In 1954, the

Regency

transistor set

Printed circuits were widely used with ferrite rod aerials in portable receivers.

introduced in America.

was
In

1957, the Russian Sputnik satellite was launched and carried a 1-watt transmitter, becoming the forerunner of

modern

satellite

communication. For low-noise amplification,

techniques were used, particularly in

satellite signals receivers.

the earlier oscillators and the travelling-wave tube

USA

launched

communication
for 13 days.

and

TV

EXPLORER

TELSTAR-1

countries, enabling
Bird',

is

Figure

Hughes

shown

5.4.

first

was incorporated

in

high-performance microwave

USA the SCORE

satellite,

launched as a passive communication

active repeater

communication

satellite

belt.

Also

sets.

which transmitted taped messages

satellite,

which relayed both voice

COURIER- IB was

also launched in 1960,

Since then a series of communication satellites have been launched by

in 1962.

worldwide coverage of radio and

TV

The

in 1958, the first

signals to be achieved.

Intelstat

I,

known

many

as 'Early

in figure 5.4.

Intelstat

I,

known

as 'Early Bird' (courtesy

Mark Williamson, Space Technology Consultant, and

Aircraft).

Inmarsat

is

an international organisation which used several geostationary satellites to provide nearly

worldwide coverage

for private

and business users.

and Fax services to and from ships at sea and

Integrated circuits were

now

more

techniques and
great reliability.

now

in

It

offers an extension to the public telephone, data, Telex

recently land mobiles.

being used in radio receivers, commencing in the early 1960s, with circuit

designs, which often used transistors in place of

etc, are

parametric amplifiers and cryogenic

Microwave systems were now developed from

1958 which discovered the Van Allen radiation

ECHO-1 was

signals and the

followed by

in

was launched by the

satellite

In 1960,

MASERS,

many

packing density and complexity resulted

resistors
in

and capacitors.

modern radio

Improvements

in

circuit

receivers of high performance and

LSI (Large Scale Integration), VLSI (Very Large Scale Integration), microprocessor devices,

used

in radio

systems.

27

Avionics

communication

Spread-spectrum

communications.

techniques

spread-spectrum system

increasingly

are

one

is

Various spreading techniques are used,

frequency band.

being

used,

particularly

which the transmitted signal

in

e.g.

is

for

satellite

spread over a wide

code sequences (DSN), frequency

digital direct

hopping (which can also be 'time-hopping' or 'time-frequency hopping'), and chirp or frequency sweeping.

Because the system

improved resistance
High-speed

by

fastest

based on coding, privacy

may be

There

obtained by selective de-spreading.

also

is

digital

now

signal processors (DSPs), are

being designed to translate analogue signals into

microprocessor based control systems such as high-frequency video, radar signal processors,

digital data for

The

is

to interference.

method

is

known

where

as parallel or flash encoding,

stray capacitances are reduced to a

etc.

minimum

micron lithography and other techniques.

The use of
paths

is

digital data

systems

in

which machines communicate

directly with other

machines over radio

increasing rapidly, often because of the improved bandwidth/information rate that can be achieved

(compared with human beings) and the trade-off

flexibility that

can be achieved between bandwidth and data

rate.

Digital

Audio Broadcasting (DAB)

the result of a standard devised and developed by a group of

is

European

broadcasters and consumer electronics industries and their research institutes to provide a reliable, multi-service
digital

sound broadcasting system for reception by mobile, portable and fixed receivers, using

a simple rod

aerial.

There are now

strict

OCIR

and very detailed international

(Comite Consultatif Internationale Radio) rules

governing the use of radio transmission from a few KHz. to tens of GHz. Developments
are

summarised

5.1

Avionics

The

first

in

Date Chart

use of avionics

4:

in aircraft

was probably D/F

back as 1905. He used a ring of inverted

(direction finding) initially developed

'L' aerials and,

the direction of the transmitting station could be found.

a directional

beam system using

runway approach, enabling the

the

morse

letters 'A'

aircraft to fly

down

ILS (Instrument Landing System) (see figure

first

in radio

communication

'History on a Page'.

by selecting the

When

short

wave

radio

became

and 'N' was transmitted from

beam by keeping

the

by Marconi as

far

aerial receiving the strongest signal,

available in the 1920s,

aerials right

the tone steady, thus

and

left

of the

becoming

the

5.5.)

Aircraft track

Runway

Figure

5.5.

ILS system layout and approach

path.

During the 1939-45 war, interlocking morse signals using a series of dots and dashes was used as a beam
navigation system by Germany,

developed.

USA

known

as 'Knickebein' whilst, in the United

hypobolic grid navigation system

known

as

GEE

Kingdom, radar systems were

gave position coverage up

to

350

miles.

The

developed a similar system under the name 'LORAN'. This was followed by a United Kingdom precision

navigation system
the ground

known

as

'OBOE' which used

below capable of being

fitted in

on

a dots

aircraft,

and dashes system.

known

as

high definition radar picturing

H2S was developed by

the

UK

for accurate

A Concise

28

bombing

History of Radio, Communications

and Avionics

raids.

After the war, intercontinental flying increased considerably and more aircraft were needed.

were

built, the

need for

a control centre.

air traffic control

In addition to the

identify each aircraft.

Measuring Equipment
to

112

5090.0

MHz,
MHz.

The
all

VHF

small airports,

whilst the

could have continuous control of

Ohni-range (VOR)

(DME)

As more

aircraft

was by radar from

is

in direct radio

all aircraft

communication with

to

the

movements.

used as a navigational aid

in

conjunction with Distance

Today's ILS systems operate on a frequency of 108.0

carried in the aircraft.

Microwave Landing System (MLS) operates on

a frequency

band of 5031.0

MHz

to

increase in aircraft production has been phenomenal and the variety of aircraft has expanded to cover

forms of

flying.

The use of

electronics has

flown by the use of computers (see figure

radars, cabin temperature
flap controls,
satellite

control

main radar system a secondary surveillance radar (SSR) was also used

Using the information from the radar screen and

aircraft's navigator, the controller

On

became paramount. The chief method of

and

become

essential as the

modern aeroplane

all

controlled and

air pressure, flight

data recorders, cockpit displays (in colour), engine monitoring,

to control

systems and geostationary

designed to reduce the workload of the aircrew.

Figure

In addition,

now

Several microprocessors control communications, multimode

onboard maintenance systems, including fly-by-wire linkages

navigation

is

5.6).

5.6.

Modern

civil aircraft electronics.

warfare electronics in military aircraft have created an entirely

new

field

of sophisticated

electronic systems, e.g. surveillance airborne radar, including sideways looking and synthetic aperature radars,
terrain

following radar,

fire

control systems, ground mapping, missile approach warning systems, thermal

imaging systems, jamming countermeasures against heat-seeking or radar controlled missiles, electronic head-

up display

in

the glareshield, digital

systems (GPS). All

moving map cockpit displays

this data is controlled

elements of a defensive avionics system

by microprocessors.

in a

modern warplane

An
is

in

colour and global position navigation

illustration of the offensive

shown

in figure 5.7.

and supporting

Avionics

29

OAT*
TRANSFER
SETS

12)

SENSOR
EOtMPMENT

L^l

MOOtFIED

Figure 5.7. Offensive and supporting elements of defensive avionics systems. (Reprinted with permission from
Jane's Avionics 1995/96, published by Jane's Information Group.)

A Concise

30

History of Radio, Communications and Avionics

History on a page

Radio and Communications

4.

rl820
Telegraph (1823)

1830

5 unit system (1832)

Morse code (1840)

1840

SYSTEMS
1850

Facsimile (FAX) (1843)

Wireless telegraphy (1876)
(Marconi)

1860

Radiobroadcasting (1906)
Single sideband (1915)

Medium-wave
broadcasting (1920)

1870

Crystal control (1921)

Amateurs -SW (1920's)

Long-wave

Maxwell's theory (1873)

Hertz aerial (1887)
Spark transmission (1888)
Radio tuning (1889)
Groundwave propagation (1895)
Ionospheric propagation (1899)
Heavyside/Kenelly layer (1901)
Alexanderson alternator (1903)
Appleton layer (1924)

-1890-

1900

First

army

Boer War (1899)

use:

Admiralty trials ( 899)

Royal Flying Corps (1915)
First

-1910

Direst digital

International

CIRCUITS

synthesiser (1980)

regulations

ELF radio

Regenerative circuit (1912)

Superheterodyne circuit (1912)

Neutrodyne

broadcasting (1922)
Autoplex (1925)
Diversity reception (1928)
Pulse code modulation (1930)
Troposcatter (1933)
Coherer (1890)
Frequency modulation (1933)
Electrolytic
detector (1903)
Microwave radio relay (1943)
Crystal detector (1906) Mobile radios (1950)
Waveguides (1936)
Radio paging (1956)
Optical fibres (1966)
Meteor scatter (1957)
Packet switching (1964)

(1912)

1920

Digital audio

Berlin (1906)

(extremely low frequency)

(1918)
Superregenerative circuit (1922)
Auto, volume control (1926)
Neg. feedback amplifier (1927)
Pulse circuits (1940)
Synch (1945)
Phase locked loops (1950)
Parametric amplifier (1950)
Bus control (1955)
Linear integrated circuits (1960)

broadcasting

1995)

circuit

FREQUENCY

-1930

STANDARDS
Quartz (1928)
Atomic (1934)
Caesium and

Nyquist
Sampling tech noise

levels

1928)

-1940
First

missionary radio station (1931)

Radio astronomy (1933)

Rubidium beams (1939)

-1950

Frequency

Shannon (1948)

synthesiser (1943)

(Information theory)

MOSICs (1962)
C-MOSICs (1968)

-1960

Transistor radio set (1954)

Error control code (1955)

Spread spectrum (1970)

Bucket brigade circuit (1969)

Microprocessor circuits (1972)

Uncommitted

DS

hop. chirp (1970)

logic array circuits (1974)

Digital signal processing

(DSP)

-1970

1994)

SATELLITES
Sputnik

(1957)

Explorer

SCORE
Echo

CELLULAR SYSTEMS
1990
Rabbit (1989)

Courier IB (1960)
Transit IB (I960)
Telstar (1962)

Syncom3

(1964)

lntelstar

(1965)

known

Skynet

as Early Bird)

(1969)

Marecs
(1981)
Immarsat
(1981)
1

Eutelsat (1983)

LEO Satellites
(Low

(1997)

earth orbit)

Vodaphone (1984)
Mercury (1984)
Cellnet (1984)

-2000

West Ford (1963)

(also

Infra-red remote control (1975)

(1958)

(1960)

1980

(1958)

GSM

(1992)
(Global system for mobile

communications)
Orange (1992)

PCN

(1994)

(Personal communications

network)

Chapter 6

Between

Concise History of Radar and Sonar

the 1920s and the 1930s,

were affected by

was noticed

it

from high-frequency radio transmitters

that signals received

when measuring

overhead. Appleton and Barnett

aircraft flying

the height of the ionosphere in

the United

Kingdom

this effect,

although Briet and Tuve used a pulse technique for their measurements. During the following ten

work on

years, experimental

in

developed the

Radar operates by sending out

any object

Kingdom.

1.5

Watson-Watt suggested

Sir Robert

effective radar system in the

first

summer of

for

more accurate

both noticed

a serious

of research

lines

1935.

some of which

main wavelengths were used

USA,

in the

make

back by

reflected

is

between the transmitted and received pulse on

the time interval

base, the range can be accurately calculated. Three

warning floodlight radars;

was done

sea by radio

a pulse of energy at radio frequencies,

By measuring

in its path.

at

1935, a committee was set up under Sir Henry Tizard to

investigation into the air defence of the United

scientists

and of vessels

the detection of aircraft

France and Germany. In Britain,

and with other

USA,

1924, and Briet and Tuve, in 1925, doing similar experiments in the

in

around

10

cm

positional radars and, later, around 10

time

for initial early

for pencil

beams

of high resolution accuracy.

Because the United Kingdom developed and used the

first

practical radar

descriptions are primarily of wartime developments in British work.

due

working

to the close

liaison

early warning radar stations

between the fighting forces and the

was constructed, using wavelengths

system

in the

world, the following

The success of United Kingdom

scientists.

in the

series of

6-15

band.

CH

The

towers, 360 feet high, and the receivers on 240 feet

750

kW

had a

was used with

DF

system

wooden

CH

transmitting aerials were

towers.

to give

aircraft

mounted on metal

peak transmitter power of 200

The

a pulse repetition frequency of 25 and 12.5 pulses per second.

Home)

1938, five stations

In

covered the East Coast and, by 1940, the whole of the East and South Coasts were covered against
flying at 15,000 feet out to a range of 120/140 miles.

was

radar

(Chain

kW

later

receiving aerials

approximate bearing. The complete co-operation between the scientists and the RAF,

ensured that fighter aircraft were able to be alerted with time to intercept enemy bombers, enabling the 'Battle

won

of Britain' to be

in 1940.

Low-flying enemy

was

set

Figure

up
6.

in 1939,
1

mines on these

aircraft

could avoid the 10

known

as

CHL

(Chain

m CH

Home

aerial

shows some low-flying enemy mine-laying

The

plots.

1.5

beam was

with the aerial rotation and the

first

in the

directional and

per minute, searching each sector of the sky in turn.

coverage so a chain of stations operating on

Humber

tracked by

was swept round on

The time was now

its

CHL. The Navy

turntable

in 1940.

The

posing a problem, and directing the fighter towards a bomber became a possibility with

was known

as

GCI (Ground

long afterglow

CRT

In 1936, a start
fitted in

a fully

an

Anson

developed

Also

in

series of

AI

was used

Controlled Interception) and a controller with a

ASV

1937, the
sets

in their relative positions

observed echoes from ships

system was installed

first

then swept

one or more times

GCI

station

and advise the

night

this

bomber was

equipment. This

was able

fighter pilot

to see the

by radio.

to 'hold' the signals.

was made on airborne radar and an experimental

aircraft

.5

ripe for a rotating time base to be linked

PPI (Plan Position Indicator) was installed

echoes of both fighter and bomber on the PPI

Low).

in

Coastal

AI (Air Interception)

and the AI Mark 4 was used

of the cavity magnetron (shown

at a

1.5

m ASV

(Air to Surface Vessel) radar

Command.
This was the

radar flew in a Battle aircraft.

in the early part

in figure 6.2) initially

1.5

range of 5 miles on 4th September 1937. By 1939,

first

of a

of the war with good success. With the invention

giving about 400

C W,

by

Randall and

HAH
31

A Concise History of Radar and Sonar

32

Figure

Boot

in 1940,

in radar

6.1.

both AI and

development.

Up

CHL

ASV

tracks of low-flying

later

became

to the discovery

enemy mine-laying

in the

centrimetric and the magnetron

Humber.

was one of the turning points

of the cavity magnetron, klystron oscillators were the only source

of high-frequency power. Using the same resonator principle, Randall and Boot developed the

high-power oscillator which was improved

to

produce hundreds of kilowatts

in short pulses at a

first

magnetron

wavelength of

around 10 cm.

Figure

6.2.

The

With a small
pilot

original cavity

reflector, a pencil

magnetron (The Science Museum/ Science

beam was now

with a picture showing the position of the

&

Society Picture Library).

available for an AI set which could be scanned to present the

enemy

aircraft.

Two methods

of scanning were used: a helical

A Concise
and a

As an experiment,

spiral scan.

the spiral scanner

towns was seen on the PPI tube. Following

carrying the radar.

RAF's most
It

was

needed

to

was pointed downwards and

Halifax

this, a

was flown on 27th March 1942 and

It

bombing

successful blind navigation and

History of Radar and Sonar

bomber was
the

fitted

down our own

planes.

a recognisable picture of

with a perspex blister underneath

equipment was code named H2S.

It

became

the

aid.

some form of

realized soon after the development of the early radar system that

avoid shooting

33

beacon system was devised (IFF)

was

identification

identification Friend or

Foe', which automatically responded to small transmitted signals and returned a stronger coded signal on the

same frequency which

identified the aircraft as friendly. All

In 1941, the navigational

the invention of

GEE

By

The

one a master

referring the pulse positions to a

GEE

map marked

fitted

with detonators in the event of a crash.

Germany

in

for night

activate

two slave

on which the

station timing pulses

arrival of the pulses

in

The

first

1000 bomber raid was carried out using

GEE

navigation on 30

May

modified system (GEE/H) used two stations only and the aircraft transmitted to both. The signals were

was code named OBOE. This was so accurate

flares,

aircraft to fly
far,

(shown

was recorded.

with the hyperbolic curve lines, the navigator could find his

transmitted back with different delay times according to the aircraft's position.

marker

bombers was solved by

Dippy. This was a transmitted hyperbolic grid pattern from

which could

station

were

town

could guide hundreds of bombers simultaneously to a target 350 miles away

with an accuracy of about 2 miles.

target

aircraft carried a cathode-ray tube display

position and also the target.

1942.

(Grid Navigation) by

three pulsed transmitters,

figure 6.3).

problem of finding the

so that following

along a

beam

was used

it

bombers could unload

centred on the target.

the opposite side, a series of dashes

transmitter

that

was

If

heard.

their

to

were accurate

raids

from

to within

a height of

30 000

bombs.

It

6.3.

more accurate system

used two transmitters, one enabling the

feet, at a

Grid pattern of

if

too

continuous note meant the correct course. The second

the

bomb aimer

exactly

when

to release the

distance of 250 miles, controlled by 'Oboe' Pathfinders

150 yards.

Figure

still

too far one side, the navigator heard a series of dots;

measured the distance along the track and signalled

bomb. Bombing

guide Pathfinders to the target for dropping

GEE

navigational system.

A Concise History of Radar and Sonar

34

Many

consisted of thin tin

bombing

a large

made by Germany

attempts were

jam or render

to

foil strips

raid.

scattered

This was

first

from

British.

a single aircraft giving multiple

dropped

in

was modified

set

to imitate the

One was

1943 and was extremely successful.

echoes from a large formation of

raids and,

'WINDOW

which

echoes to create the impression of

with the invasion of France in conjunction with a further deception device called

IFF

bombing

ineffective the radar-guided

methods of confusing German radar screens were adopted by the

in turn,

It

was again used

'MOONSHINE',

aircraft, instead

in

in

1944

which an

of a single one. There

were also many deceptions towards the end of the war as radar equipment became more sophisticated.

RAF, and

After the war surface-to-air guided missiles were developed such as 'Bloodhound' for the

'Thunderbird' for the

Army and

homing heads which homed on

after the war,

such as

TV

carrying infra-red

sophisticated devices were produced

guided air-to-ground missiles, cloud- and collision-warning systems, terrain-following

Since the war, both in the

USA,

the

UK, and

France, there have been great advances in radar systems, and

techniques have been widely introduced.

digital

Many

to the engine exhausts of jet aircraft.

RAF, some

more sophisticated systems.

radars and even

first

small air-to-air missiles were designed for the

Video

integrators, displays

functions to be converted to digital techniques. This digitization

is

and ranging equipment were the

necessary to handle the large amount of

information collected by modern search radars. Digital computers are widely used and with an electronically

scanned or phased array antenna there are no moving

beam

scanning,

Array antennas have many advantages:

parts.

rapid

shaping, step scanning, so that radar aerials of this type can obtain multiple target capability

and function time-sharing.

In the

USA,

electronically scanned antenna arrays, together with

MMIC's

multichip

at

microwave devices using Gallium Arsenide

Ka band

band, have been developed and are being extended to millimetre wave

(35

GHz).

So

equipments described were used by the RAF, but

far the

parallel

developments were taking place

in the

Army and Navy.

Army Radar

6.1

Following the original optical sightings of

targets, the

AA

guns were aimed and fuses

predictors which were, in effect, mechanical analogue computers.

CD

the

(Coastal Defence) followed by the

could not be seen. The

first

radar set

GL1

The Army's

first

by information from

set

use of radar

to feed information to the predictor at night

GL1 (Gun Laying Mark

provided range and bearing only

1 )

1938/39 was

in

when

the target

which two

in

cabins were used, one containing the transmitter and one the receiver; the receiver cabin rotating to obtain the
bearing.

GL1

provided elevation by adding two more vertically displayed antennas and an extra display.

was an improved system with range, bearing and elevation

V2s under

the code

name BIG

BEN

Following the completion of the

(CMH Mark

was designed

1)

capability of a

although
tests

CH

was

on the early

all

and was

built-in

later

GL2

used to track the German

also used.

GL3

equipment, a centimetre height finding equipment

to give increased range of detection

on very low flying

aircraft

beyond the

CHL.

SLC (known as ELSIE) using Yagi transmit and receive antennas

cm or 150 cm searchlight), was also used in conjunction with Bofors
10 cm AA radar GL3 was deployed in 1943, leading to auto-follow, auto-gun-aiming,
automatic firing in later models. Close co-operation between the Army and the Radiation
the USA, resulted in an auto-following anti-aircraft fire-control radar, called SCR 584,

In 1940, the searchlight-control system,

(some mounted

directly

AA

first

The

guns.

auto-fuse setting and

Laboratory, MIT, in

on

to a

90

which was widely used.

In 1940, a

to

and,

VT

into a shell.

fit

when within

in the

UK,

in

ultimately shot

(Variable Timing) proximity fuse

was proposed by

S Butement

in the

a certain range,

exploded the

shell.

The

shells

75%

time to meet the VI flying-bomb attack.

down by

Radar was also used

AA

guns using

VT

were manufactured
of the

German

in the

USA, and were

Vl's approaching

With

cm

a 3

same way

pencil

beam, the ground ahead could

terrain.

shell splashes in the sea, the field artillery

could observe shell bursts on the ground, enabling

in

which

out.

its

Another type of

beam could

search.

field

fitted

London were

fuses.

for field artillery fire correction.

be scanned to give a rough picture of the

be carried

United Kingdom,

small radio transmitter and receiver inside the shell measured reflections from the target

army radar

set

In the

could locate

that the Coastal Artillery sets

'Watch Dog' allowed movement

'Watch Dog' used the Doppler effect

to differentiate

to

fire

correction to

be detected

in

any zone

between fixed echoes and

Naval Radar

35

moving echoes.
After the war, target-tracking radars for
radar

was developed

AA

guns were improved

Diamond', which used

called 'Blue

scan of 60, 20 times per second. The elevation scan

the

whole equipment formed

System called 'Yellow Fever'

part of a Fire Control

AA

medium and heavy

Mortar locators were developed about one year before D-day, the

to its point of origin,

a rapid

azimuth

Army

for the

AA

L70

guns. Other

for the tactical control

and

fire

guns.

the range, bearing and elevation angles of

back

light anti-aircraft fire, a

which produced

lower speed was done by a nodding arrangement and

at a

search and tracking radars were developed and put into service with the
control of

For

in accuracy.

a 'Foster' scanner,

so that

it

two points on the

first

being 'Green Archer', which measured

trajectory of the mortar shell in order to extrapolate

This was followed by 'Cymbeline' which was

could be attacked.

lightweight and improved version of 'Green Archer'.

To

known

one-man

deal with low-flying attacking aircraft or helicopters, a

as

RAPIER was

fire-control

and missile system equipment

developed. Four radar-guided missiles were mounted on a lightweight

trailer that

could

be towed by a Land Rover.

6.2

Naval Radar

Before the advent of radar, the Navy had to rely on good weather and high-power telescopes to detect enemy
planes and ships. This gave reasonable co-ordinates, but range was difficult to estimate, errors of 1000 to 2000

yards being

common

at

At the beginning of the war, Type 79 radar operating on 7

ranges of 20,000 yards.

metres and Type 81 on 3.5 to 4.0

were

to provide accurate range for fire-control against

Type 282 radar with Yagi

in capital ships

and

aerials

allowed ranges up

to

HMS

King George

The GL1 Army

cruisers.

For close ranges, multiple

aircraft.

6000 yards against dive-bomber

were used with

cruisers, multiple antenna systems

Direction Control tower in

and

fitted in battleships

Type 284

pom-poms
attacks.

radar.

It

was added

radar

with a

fitted

For surface

was

fire

on the

fitted

and gave ranges on cruisers of 20,000 yards and on destroyers

between 12,000 and 14,000 yards.

By

the end of 1940,

50

cm

radar range-finders were fitted in

HMS

Suffolk and Radar 281 was responsible

for tracking the Bismarck in June 1941.

About

this time, a

10

cm

set

Type 271 had been

Corvettes for anti-U-boat attack and Type 273 in

fitted in

most battleships and cruisers for surface warning.

Beam-switching was adopted

to

improve the accuracy and

for blind-firing the

guns

at night.

could provide tracking in bearing of ships and aircraft with an accuracy of about 1/2.

was used

in a

10

cm

blind-fire with twin

co-ordinates before

high angle set against

Bofors guns.
it

set, a special

Because the Navy

CVD

cm

to pick

first

up

radar set (Type 262)

a target at

Radar echoes could be obtained from

was provided

developed high-power tubes, such as the

Development)

SEACAT

and

deal with low-flying aircraft or missiles and

by

in all three

it

and

in a

is

tubes manufactured

low-angle

co-ordinated the requirements for

SEASLUG

all

Portsmouth

at

other tubes was allocated

SEAWOLF. SEACAT was

to the

Navy

three services.

using beam-riding guidance.

designed as a close-range missile to

controlled manually or by

TV

along a line of sight controlled

radar.

Missiles launched from submarines such as

is

silica

all

After the war, surface-to-air guided missiles were developed such as

Other marks followed such as

track

to provide

for the observation of 'fall-of-shot' echoes.

designing and producing transmitter and

for Valve

7000 yards and

shell splashes in the sea,

initially

(Committee

was developed

'out-of-sight' fighting using radar involved the sinking of

display

in 1939, responsibility for

and the

was designed

reached 5000 yards. The

the Scharnhorst in 1942.

gunnery

It

aircraft.

This technique

Conical scanning

a two-stage solid propellant missile with an

small rocket in the submarine;

6.3

Civil

its

own

POLARIS
inertial

first-stage

have ranges of a thousand or more miles.

guidance system.

motor

fires

only as

it

It

is

'shot'

from

its

POLARIS

launch tube by a

leaves the water.

Maritime Systems

Civil maritime radars normally operate at a frequency in the 9

GHz

range or in the 3

display giving information on the position of other ships, buoys or coastlines.

carried out by land-sited radars giving a picture of the

movement of

all

GHz

range with a

Harbour surveillance

is

CRT
also

ships in or approaching the harbours.

A Concise

36

History of Radar and Sonar

Civil Aviation

6.4

Since the war, development of radar systems had also been applied to

approach (PAR), for

airfield control

(ACR),

civil aviation

movement

for airfield surface

and used for precision

indication and for air traffic control,

both long-range and terminal areas surveillance (TMA). Airborne cloud and collision-warning radars were also

developed.

IFF system was adopted and known

In addition, the

SSR

as

(secondary surveillance radar). Through the

agency of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), there

is

an internationally agreed spacing and

connotation for the civil system. This enables each aircraft to be identified.

Navigational Aids

6.5

Radio aids to navigation have progressed from early direction finding (D/F) and goniometer systems

NAVSAT.

navigation systems such as

Following D/F systems, the pre-war Lorenz system

OBOE,

dots-and-dashes guidance system similar to that described in

CW

but using

The war-time German Knickebein long-range navigation beams were

in

to satellite

Germany used

signals instead of pulses.

a long-range version of the Lorenz

system, with greater receiver sensitivity.

Inertial

from

navigation depends on a stable platform and high-grade gyroscopes in order to measure acceleration

known

starting point.

From an

accurate knowledge of acceleration in three planes and also of lapsed

time, position can be calculated.

The very long-range

navigational system

a grid system throughout the world.

system with high accuracy was

The

first

followed by the American system

in 1941,

The

The

DECCA

LORAN A system
LORAN C operated on

early

later

OMEGA

is

based on

positional system

LORAN

was

VLF

CW

transmitters radiating signals

the hyperbolic grid system

(Long Range Navigation)

in

1942.

The

GEE

first

on

invented

commercial

introduced in 1946.

operated on frequencies close to 2

MHz, and

100 kHz, and multipath (which arrives

late)

suffered from sky-wave effects.

by tracking only the early cycles

of each pulse. The system has recently been enlarged. Satellite navigation (Global Positioning Systems (GPS))
are

6.6

now

in use.

Meteorological Radar

Meteorological radar echoes were

of 7 miles by a 10

cm

first

noticed in February 1941

radar located on the English coast.

when

a rain

shower was tracked

to a distance

Since then, rain detection by radar of showers or

heavy storms has become a useful tool for the meteorologist.

6.7

Angels

Echoes from birds and insects are obtained

as 'Angel Echoes', as

6.8

no obvious

at

wavelengths of 20

aircraft or solid targets

Satellite surveillance radars operate at frequencies

6.9

MHz

known

between 200

to

5000 MHz; below 200

MHz

sky noise occurs

atmospheric absorption effects occur.

Radar Astronomy

Echoes from meteor

in

or less and in the early years were

Radars

Satellite Surveillance

and above 5000

cm

were present.

1946.

In

trails

were observed

in the early

1961 echoes from Venus were observed

Mercury, Mars and the Sun.

1940s and a radar echo was obtained from the

at its

closest approach to the earth and since then

moon
from

Radar Astronomy

37

History on a page
5.

Radar
1920

Appleton

&

1925

Barnett

Briet

Ionosphere measurements (1924)

& Tuve

Pulse measurements

925)

1930

Watson- Watt proposals (1935)

Tizard Committee (1935)

-r955I

GROUND RADARS

AIR AND SEABORNE RADARS

UK Air Force
CH (Chain home)
CHL (Chain home

UK

IFF (1935)

(Identification Friend or Foe)

(1935)

low) (1939)

1940

GCI (Ground controlled interception) (1940)

Blood Hound (Guided weapon) (1958)

-]

Radar
astronomy

Met. radar

UK Air Force
ASV

(Air-to-surface vessel) (1937)

AI (Air interception) (1937)

Window

UK Army
-1945

GLI (CD) (Gun laying) (1938)

GLI Star GL2 (Gun laying) (1939)

SLC
GL3

Moonshine
demonstrated
(1942) used
(1944)

(Searchlight control) (1940)

(

cm

radar) (Mortar locator) (1943)

Type 80 (Surveillance radar) (1953)

Orange Yeoman (Surveillance) (1957)

-1950

-1955

system) (1942)

H2S (Navigation and bombing)

BABS

1942)

(1942)

(Beam approach beacon system)

(1943)

(Sideways-looking radar) (1955)

collision

warning system

Terrain following (Radar system)

Air launched missiles

UK Navy
(

1967)

-I960

(1959)

Type 27
Type 273
Type 284
Type 262
1

(Tracking radar) (1939)

(Tracking radar) (1941)
(Tracking radar)

Seacat (Visually guided)

Seawolf (Guided missile)

Seadart (Guided missile)

ground environment)
1970

(Airborne radar)

1975

1980

1985

1990

1941

(Tracking radar) (1946)

Seaslug (Beam rider)

-1965

DEW (Distant early warning)

BMEWS (Ballistic missile early warning system)
AWACS

OBOE (Navigation

SLR

(1943)

AEW (Aircraft early warning)

system) (1941)

(Navigation system) (1942)

Cloud and

Rapier (Guided missile) (1970's)

SAGE (Semi-automatic

GEE/H

(Beacon system)

Yellow Fever (Fire-control system) (1957)

Green Archer (Mortar locator (1957)
Thunderbird (Guided weapon) (1958)
Yellow River (Weapon control) (1958)
Type 84 (Surveillance radar) (1961)

USA
SCR 584 (Gun laying)
SCR 16 (Surveillance)

GEE (Navigation

REBECCA/EUREKA

Blue Diamond (Tracking radar) (1957)

Cymbeline (Mortar locator) (1965)

Type 85 (High power surveillance radar)

(1942)

A Concise

38

History of Radar and Sonar

Radar Imaging

6.10

Known now

as Surface Penetrating Radar,

it

is

waves

a non-destructive technique using electromagnetic

investigate the composition of non-conductive materials under the earth's surface.

The technique

is

to

now

being used to penetrate ground to some depth to discover buried objects. Interferometric techniques are being

developed to provide three-dimensional images of target scenes. Aerial survey

to discover traces

of early settlements.

the thickness of the

moon from Apollo

It

is

used

in archaeological studies

has been used to detect buried metallic mines, as well as for measuring

space missions. Technical improvements are being made to enable clearer

radar images of the internal structure of materials, enabling a wider field of applications to be developed for
the future.

Some, but not

all,

developments

and navigational systems are summarised

in radar

on a Page'. The dates given are those when the

first

in

Date Chart 5 'History

radars were demonstrated, not those in operational use.

Sonar

6.11

Prior to the

first

world war, hydrophones were used for the detection of submarines. They consisted of normal

microphones insulated from the water. Because of ship noise, they were often towed behind the

ship.

SONAR

(Sound Navigation and Ranging) was originally known as Asdics (Anti-Submarine Detection) during the 1914/18

The word

war.

SONAR

In the period

was invented by F

Hunt of the Harvard Underwater Sound Society

transducer housed in a streamlined

dome and connected

on an electro-acoustic transducer, which converts an

electrical signal into an electrical signal.

was 14
later

to

26

in 1942.

between the two world wars, the Royal Navy had an operational asdic system with a quartz

KHz

to a

chemical range recorder. All systems are based

electrical signal into an acoustic signal, or converts

The frequency range

for anti-submarine detection

an

by the Royal Navy

using a 15 inch quartz steel transducer. Initially the transducer was rotated manually, but

scanning transducers were developed.

typical

World War

II

Asdic installation for destroyers

is

shown

in figure 6.4.

Opanton

hut (pert tdt)

Tnnsmflttr lunng paral

Hul

Figure

Three types of Asdics were

sloops and one for trawlers.

in

Many

6.4. Typical

use

at the

technical

World War

II

Asdic

unit injujfflng

winch

installation.

beginning of World War

11:

one for destroyers, one for escort

improvements were made as the war progressed. The Type 144

Sonar
(shown
i.e.

was

in figure 6.4)

the

the transducer pattern

first

attempt

at

39

an integrated weapon system with a certain degree of automation,

was automatically tapered

in 5 steps.

Automatic recording of the signal was also

relayed to the bridge.

In

1919 the average echo range was about 500 yards (457

during the second World

War and

to several miles in 1944.

);

it

increased to about 1500 yards (1.2

km)

Asdic installations were also used for harbour

defence placed on the sea bed and connected by cable to the receiving gear on the shore to give warning of

submarine attacks.

Willem Hackman, of the Museum of History and Science, Oxford University and
London, on whose book 'Seek and

HMSO

(1984), this short

summary

Strike,
is

submarine's most important weapon,

were the most

SONAR,

based, says 'Of

its

all

Museum,
Navy 1914/1954',

the Science

anti-submarine warfare and the Royal

the techniques tried during the period to take

ability to hide in a

away

the

mass of water, those based on underwater acoustics

effective'.

Since the war Synthetic Aperture radar has been developed by the
floor with greatly

improved

detail.

The technique

US Navy

to

produce pictures of the sea

creates the illusion of a long aperture by

moving

the array

through the water and then combining the data from several snapshots taken from different positions. Whilst
still

experimental,

it

can pick out features measuring 90 cms from a range of up to 400 metres.

Chapter 7

The

heart of

up

are built

and

all

modern

in colour.

development

its

Concise History of Television

television receivers

It is

the cathode-ray tube, on

by Ferdinand Braun

into an oscilloscope

The

present-day television receivers.

in

is

A A

Although

and reception,

system which was demonstrated

it

was

in 1927.

was

other major development

Campbell-Swinton had proposed

By

Philip

by

William Crookes

Sir

camera tube

the 'iconoscope' storage

in 1919.

system of electronic television, using cathode-ray tubes

Famsworth with Zworykin who

developed

first

1929, television receivers were on sale in the

was

'Radiovisor' sets, and low-definition television broadcasting

established.

The

BBC

down

during the 1939-45 war,

a practical

USA, under

name

the

opened the world's

EMI

regular high-definition (405 line) television service in 1936 using a system developed by

Musical Industries) and, although the service was shut

1878

in

1897, to the sophisticated cathode-ray tube

in

scanned by an electron beam, originated by Valdimir Zworykin

for both transmission

which the transmitted moving pictures

a far cry from the initial discovery of cathode-rays

it

first

(Electrical

was resumed,

&

in black

and white, as soon as the war was over.

The

principle on

sweeps, whilst

at the

which television operates

same time moving down

The beam

has been completed.

is

that a

beam of

the screen until

it

electrons scans across the screen in horizontal

reaches the bottom,

when one

'frame' or

start the

next frame.

then deflected back to the top of the screen to

is

'field'

The

horizontal sweeps are slower than the corresponding fly-back strokes and are synchronized with the incoming
picture signals to produce light and dark shades and therefore build
are

made

by blanking out the beam.

invisible

625 horizontal

lines

and

in

up

a picture.

The

faster fly-back strokes

picture in contemporary British practice

is

built

up with

order to save bandwidth, normally several Mhz, but give acceptably low flicker,

successive frames are interlaced.

incoming signals from the

The

The

television receiver itself has signal circuits to amplify and detect the

aerial in order to

modulate the beam of electrons

in the tube.

sound channel and synchronizing pulses for triggering the horizontal and

The

signal also provides

vertical directions is

provided by

time bases, triggered by the synchronizing pulses, which generate currents in the picture tube yoke coils to
deflect the

The
for

it

NTSC

to

beam of

first

electronics.

public television service in colour

was transmitted

1951 in the

in

USA, and

it

was necessary

be compatible with black and white television. The colour system adopted was that specified by the

(National Television System Committee). In Europe, two systems were adopted in 1956; the

Alternation Line) and

SECAM

(Sequential and

Memory). These

three systems are

now used

PAL

(Phase

throughout the

world, digital converters being used to convert one system to another.

In colour, the visible
red.

An approximately

spectrum of

light starts at violet, passing

equal mixture of

the three primary colours red, green

in

is

terms of

known
its

red,

as chrominance.

colours gives white

and blue. The varying

as luminance, whilst in colour television

required

all

The

Any

colour can by synthesized by mixing

level of brightness

when hue and colour

television

through blue, green and yellow and orange to

light.

of the picture elements

saturation information

camera analyses the

green and blue constitutes by means of optical

light

filters.

The

is

is

known

added, the extra signal

from the scene

to be transmitted

transmitter separates the picture

information into two parts, a colour signal and a brightness signal. These are decoded in the television receiver
to give a colour display.

Television receivers are one to the greatest technological achievements of the age with their complexity of
circuitry, ingenious design, accurate

alignment and great

available in 1959 and the television set has

40

reliability. Transistorised television receivers

become one of

the most important items in the

became

modern home and

A
became more

useful with the introduction of

TELETEXT

Concise History of Television

systems such as

CEEFAX

in

41

ORACLE

1972 and

in

1973.

The

first satellite

television pictures

were transmitted across the Atlantic on 19 July 1962 by Telstar

by July 1963, sixteen European countries were exchanging television programmes with the USA.
the

first

of the internationally

communications have been

satellites is

shown

owned

satellites,

was launched

in use, relaying television

in figure 7.1.

in 1965,

and since then

programmes throughout

Recently introduced cable

TV

and,
1,

of television and

a series

the world.

offers an increased

Intelstat

The family of

number of channels,

Intelstat

less

use

of other space and the possibility of interactive communication.

Figure

Hughes

7.1.

The family of

Intelstat satellites (courtesy

The change from analogue

derives

its

origin from

of encoding signals.

the Pulse

to digital television took place at the

The production of

end of the 1970s.

Code Modulation System (PCM) invented

With the introduction of semiconductor

possible the transition

full

Mark Williamson, Space Technology

Consultant, and

Aircraft).

from analogue

circuits, the

of images from

The

special effects for television

ability to

digital stores,

draw

Digital television

1937 by Alex Reeves as a means

technology of digital storage made

to digital television.

due

to digital

technology was

screen image could be shrunk to occupy a small portion of the screen,

a variety of axes.

in

directly

on

now

possible,

i.e.

moved around and even

and paste' parts

to the 'screen' with an electronic palette, 'cut

combining drawings with

live actors, all

gave more

artistic

the original

rotated about

freedom

to television

producers.
In

1984, a 'Cable and Broadcasting Act'

Many towns now have cable TV,

DBS

but

it

was passed

to enable cable television to be further developed.

cannot be provided economically

in rural areas.

(Digital Broadcasting Systems) were internationally allocated and are

However, improvements

in receiver sensitivity

made

it

now

In 1977,

being used

in

channels for

some systems.

possible to use the channels intended for lower

power

A Concise

42

History of Television

point-to-point telecommunications services.

Many DBS

services using the conventional

PAL

or

NTSC

standards

on the telecommunication frequencies were introduced during the 1980s.

Improvements

in

technology are always subject to the restriction

possible, technical changes

During the 90s, world wide agreement was reached on

be introduced.

changes

that, whilst

which could cause obsolescence of the millions of television

a

in transmission are

can only rarely

sets,

means of encoding

the digital

bandwidth compression based on the Discrete Cosine Transform (DCT) algorithm.

signal using

standards for transmission of digital

digital broadcasting standards are

TV

by

satellite,

cable and terrestrial means.

being introduced in the

latter half

Services using these

of the 1990s generally with a

TV

This led to

'set

new

top box'

receiver converting the signals into a form suitable for existing receivers.

The new

digital

encoding standards made flexible provision for the service provider

conventional definition services, enhanced definition and high definition,

16x9

(compared

to the existing

4x3

all

to

choose between

with the option of a

format) depending on the preference for

programmed

new format of

quantity or picture

quality.

Experimental work
substantial archives of

is

being done throughout the world on High Definition Television

HDTV

programmes have been

built up.

It

is

generally accepted that

have twice the vertical and twice the horizontal resolution of conventional
Whilst the

new

digital transmission standards

displays which do justice to

services are

more

HDTV

are

still

make

systems using the

should

16x9

format.

provision for advanced or higher definition services, domestic

not available

at

consumer product

prices.

Thus, for the time being,

likely to use the standard or conventional definition, rather than the higher definition options

of the digital broadcasting standards.

A summary

TV

(HDTV) and

HDTV

of television developments

is

given

in

Date Chart

6.

A Concise

History of Television

43

History on a page
6.

Television

-1895

Cathode-ray oscillograph (1897)

1900

Polar coordinate oscillograph (1937)

Double-beam oscillograph (1939)

Campbell Swinton

TV

1910
theory

1909)

Longtailed pair

1920

TV (1919)
Farnsworth electronic TV (1927)
Bell Labs. exp. colour TV (1929)
EMI electronic TV (1935)
BBC TV broadcast (1936)
Zworykin electronic

TV camera (1923)
TV camera (1934)

Iconoscope
Baird (1925)

Emitron

mech. system

RadiovisorTVsetUSA (1929)

TV (1939)
TV Japan 1959)

Large-scale
Transistor

TV

Pocket

(1977)

circuit (1916)
Time-base circuits (1919)
Transitron circuit (1926)
Scanning circuit (1932)
Linear Ic's (I960)

Multiplier phototube (1935)

1930 Photicon TV camera (1949)

Vadicon TV camera (1950)
Miniature TV camera (1952)
Plumbicon TV camera (1960)
CCD TV camera (1988)

-1940

TV (1939)
TV (1964)
625 line TV (1969)
1250 line TV (1988)
445

line

605

line

1950

NTSC colour system USA

PAL

& SECAM

953)

system (1956)
1960

Video tape recorder (1958)

Laser video recorder (1972)

TV (1962)
TV (1965)
WESTAR satellite TV (1974)

TELSTAR

satellite

INTELSTAT

satellite

-1970
I

Prestel (1972)

(Teletext)

Oracle (1973)

-1980
Digital

Cable

TV

TV

(1984)

experimental production (1979)

Digital production standard agreed

(CCIR Dec 601) (1986)

Analogue

HDTV

services Japan (1988)

1990

1995
Digital

TV

Broadcast

TV

Services (1996)

Chapter 8

Concise History of Computers, Robotics,

Mechatronics and Information Technology

There
the

almost a 300 year gap between the invention of the

is

first

mechanical computer and the invention of

first

electronic computer. In 1642, Blaise Pascal, in France,

who was

19 at the time, grew tired of adding

long columns of figures in his father's tax office and he designed a mechanical device consisting of a series

of numbered wheels with gears for decimal reckoning, capable of adding and subtracting the long columns of
Thirty years

figures.

later, a

German, Gothfried Wilhelm Leibniz, invented

the Leibniz wheel using similar

which could not only do subtraction and addition, but also multiplication and division.

principles

Almost

hundred years passed before

Babbage conceived

Sir Charles

the

first

design for a universal

automatic calculator. Again, a mechanical device using counting wheels, coping with 1000 words of 50 digits
each, but with one vital difference: he used punched cards similar to those used in a Jacquard
the

programme.

functions necessary in a

and an output

modern computer

an

own

its

in

years

denote age, sex,

Vannevar Bush

later,

in the

and analogue computers were

stage was now

The

etc.,

Almost

machine similar

early analogue
(e.g.

computer

The
in

first

pentode gates, and was 51

computer was the

feet long

and the numbers could be added

stores, to

each using
circuits,

8.1

developed up

and 8

in

Manchester University

Howard H Aiken of Harvard

ENIAC

feet high.

to this time.

punched cards

in

Another

in the

UK

forty

(1934)).
initially

University designed in 1937 an

IBM

and presented

same

to

Harvard

time.

in 1946.

It

used 18 000 tubes, mostly

The numbers used

in this

in

flip-flops

machine had 10 decimal

2300 microseconds,

Computer memories progressed from

this

techniques as they were developed,

until the present

i.e.

and

units

being the

tubes, mercury delay lines,

magnetic cores, tapes, drums and discs. From the middle 1940s, a series of computers were

later electronic

built

Hollerith, in

(Electronic Numerator Integrator and Computer) begun

200 microseconds and multiplied

each becoming smaller and smaller,

built

tubes to transistors, transistors to integrated

range of microcomputers was reached.

Computer Systems

A modern

computer comprises two basic

parts

manifestation and comprises the computer and

keyboards, mouse, printer,

Software

is

etc.

The software

the hardware and the software.

all

its

components and

The hardware

peripherals.

is

the physical

This includes the monitor,

are the 'instructions' to control the functions of the computer.

generally stored on magnetic discs,

'operating system' software which, in

44

bill.

relay-operated computer was built by Stibitz, of Bell Laboratories, about the

truly electronic

fastest calculator

Babbage's was

of a long line of electronic digital computers, although

first

1942 by the University of Pennsylvania and completed

CRT

the

for solving differential equations,

electromechanical automatic sequence-controlled calculator which was built by

later.

to

1890 census. Holes

statistics for the

by several universities

set for the

electromechanical rather than purely electronic.

7 years

all

unit, a control unit

forty years elapsed before

and the size of the cards were made the size of a dollar

USA, developed an

built

Sweden and

tables.

America, developed a machine for tabulating population

to

to control

unit.

1854, which was capable of printing out

were used

memory, an arithmetic

input unit, a store or

Improvements were made by Pehr Georg Schuetz

in

loom

Punched cards were also used as input and output devices. The machine contained

some form

CDs

or tapes.

or other

is

Software can be subdivided into 'control' or

present in

all

computers' and application software,

Computer Systems
which

is

specific to a particular task, e.g. word-processing. In small

'DOS' (Disk Operating System) or 'Windows'. Software

modern PCs,

the operating system

The

numbers

computer consists of an input device

architecture or arrangement of a basic

may be

not inexpensive.

is

All digital computers operate by adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing

speeds.

45

at

incredibly high

to feed in the data, a

device to hold temporary results until they are required (an accumulator), an arithmetic and logic unit to perform
calculations, a

memory

control unit

used to decode instructions from a predetermined schedule

is

arithmetic and

memory

powers of

numbers

0-10
10.

inary

ecimal

could equally be written (9 x 10")

It

as a 'program' to control the

Two numbers

x 10')

(6

(4

x 10 2 )

and

only are used

decimal system. In the decimal system, a number such as 469

made up of

are

therefore

in the

known

processes.

Calculations are normally effected by using binary arithmetic.

instead of

hold data and program as required, and an output device to display or print data.

to

is

made up

60

400

in binary

to successive

469. Binary

successive powers of 2 and can be compared with their decimal equivalents as follows:

2'

32

16

64

469 would be 111010101.

The operations

most computers are basically as shown

carried out by

in figure 8.1.

Programming
binary

stream

>

User data interface

User output data interface

Binary data

Input store

Binary data output

Calculators
(C.P.U.)

Figure

single binary digit

is

known

as a

8.1. Stages in

BIT (Binary

computer operation.

Groups of 8

Digit).

equivalent of a word or working length of the accumulator

typically

is

known

bits are

between

The binary

as 'Bytes'.

and 8 bytes depending on the

computer.

The use of
two

the binary code greatly simplifies the design of electronic computers, for basic circuits having

states only:

and

Transistors have
release

can be used throughout. Linearity and ageing are not problems.

two properties which make them

them when required,

i.e.

Because the computer operates

in binary code,

or instructions into suitable binary codes.

for

SUBTRACT;

ideal for computers.

memory, and they can

Initial

They

programming language

with these, every action of the computer has to be described

presented in a logical order a flow chart

as

FORTRAN (FORmula

for

commercial use and

is

TRANslation)

BASIC

computer

is

necessary to convert words

mnemonics such

in detail,

To make

but with

as

SUB

modern

sure that instructions are

used sometimes to specify the program. Programming languages such

for scientific use,

COBOL (COmmon

Business Oriented Language)

(Beginners All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code) for teaching, were

developed to make the work of the programmer

When

is

low-level language used simple

high-level languages, a simple instruction can generate complicated actions.

known

are able to store charges and

also act as switches for manipulating codes.

all

easier.

switched on, a pulse generator produces a stream of millions of pulses per second

as clock pulses, for timing. Pulses representing

computer by gates which permit or

BITS of information

are operated

upon throughout

the

inhibit the passage of the pulses being distributed through the various stages

of calculations. In operation, instructions from a programmer are fed into the computer by means of compact
discs or floppy discs in conjunction with a keyboard.

These are then stored

rows of locations. The arithmetic unit then multiplies, adds,

in the

form of binary numbers

subtracts, etc., as dictated

the intermediate answers and finally after processing decodes the binary digits

in

by the processor, stores

and feeds

to a printer or

VDU

(Visual Display Unit) in the form of printed words and numbers.

Great advances have since been made

in the

storage or

systems such as magnetic tapes, cores and drums. Disc storage

locations.

Compact

discs use a laser spot focused

memory system
is

used

of a computer from the earlier

to give high access

on a reflective track modulated by

speed to

a pattern

number of

of indentations on

A Concise

46

the disc. Digital

Compact

Discs, invented in 1978 by Philips, are unaffected by dust, scratches and fingerprints

and are now widely used because of

The

memory

integrated circuit

when

a given pulse or bit

which

was being referenced and

cell

In the case

ROM

the

ROM,

of the

dictates, the

In 1970, the
in

The chip

required.

(Random Access Memory)

the

their high storage capability.

chip consists of
is

many thousands

composed of

of transistors.

number of

with each cell containing a byte (a number composed of eight

cells,

first

and Information Technology

History of Computers, Robotics, Mechatronics

bits),

eight separate lines for the data.

cells

able to store and extract

It is

and a chip with 256 individual

would have eight input

ROM

chips have a facility on the chip to deliver their stored programs

this data is fixed,

RAM

whereas the

RAM

lines to tell

RAM

(Read Only Memory) and

chip can be instructed to

when

remember

requested.

patterns

(i.e.

remembers).

Random Access Memory (RAM) was produced by Fairchild (the 256 BIT RAM), followed
RAM by the new Company INTEL. Also produced in the same year by INTEL was

1972 with the 1024 BIT

microprocessor (the 8008). Progress in chip design was rapid and,

first

was produced; and,

in 1976, the

16 384

BIT

RAM

in

1975, the

was produced by INTEL. Also,

first

RAM

4096 BIT

in 1976, the first

one-board

computer was made by INTEL.

this time, chips were being built into personal computers and, in 1977, the APPLE 2 was introduced.
IBM entered the personal computer market with the 'PC and, in 1984, IBM developed a one
BIT RAM. In 1987, the PC MACKINTOSH and the IBM PERSONAL SYSTEM 2 was introduced.

About
In

1981,

million

Comprehensive, inexpensive operating systems such as Microsoft Disc Operating System (MS-DOS) became
Supercomputers, introduced

available at this time.

Y-MP

1976, were improved each year.

In

1978, the

CRAY

Types of Computer

8.2

At

in

was capable of performing 2000 million operations per second.

the present

moment,

The Supercomputer.
not only

is

there are four general categories of

In the

first

computation done

computer which vary widely

in cost

and performance.

CRAY, where

and most expensive category are the 'super' computers such as the
at

very fast speeds, but

many computation

processes occur in parallel

hence

enabling a high throughput of work.

These computers are used for tasks where an extremely large number of mathematical equations need

to

be

solved numerically in a reasonably short time, often involving the simultaneous input of large volumes of data;

such a task

is

weather forecasting.

The Main Frame.

the

IBM

little

In the

and for

The Minicomputer.
reasonably

fast:

In these

scientific

machines computations are performed

the third category are the minicomputers;

In

for tasks of

to be

is

short, typically

in the

bits so that the

VAX

The Microcomputer (usually referred

processing unit of which

is

750,

to

GEC

4080 and

HP

management,
to

be solved.

steps.

still

accuracy of calculation

These machines are used

accounting, scientific and computer-aided design

are also used for controlling large chemical plants, steel rolling mills and other
are

with

fast but

calculations in these machines are

32

improved by using several programming

moderate complexity

Examples of these machines

tasks, factory

and design problems where a large number of equations need

however, the basic word length

some purposes has

main

ICL 2900.

These machines are used for large payrolls and other accounting

parallelism.

financial planning

for

second category are the so-called 'main frame' computers; examples of these are

3033, Univac 90/30 and

fields.

in the

They

complex continuous processes.

1000.

as the PC). In the fourth category are the microcomputers, the central

usually on a single chip. These computers have a wide range of applications, and

today both computers and microprocessors are widely distributed throughout businesses. Microprocessors are
the heart of

home video games, and

are used as the

as banking cash dispensers, store checkout

tills

main processing element

Computer Aided Design (CAD). Computer Aided Design

efficiently; for
circuits,

tracks.

example,

in the electronics industry,

and translate that design on

Computers

in

many automated machines such

and industrial robots.

is

using computers to aid the designer to do his job

computers are used

to a printed circuit

to analyse the

parameters of proposed

board including component layout and interconnecting

are used extensively in the design of integrated circuits and hence used to design themselves.

Types of Computer

47

History on a page

Computers

7.

1-1600

CALCULATORS
Mechanical calculating machine (1642)
1700

Wheel

calculating machine (1672)

Analytical engine (1833)

Boolean algebra (1847)

Difference engine (1854)

Tabulating machine (1854)

Portable calculators (1963)

1800

1910
Flip-flop circuit (1910)

Multivibrator circuit (1918)

1920

-1930

COMPUTERS*
Differential analyser (1931)

Universal calculator (1939)

Mark

digital computer (1939)

complex computer (1939)
Shannon
Colossus computer (1943)
Inf. theory (1938)
ENI AC computer (1943)
Whirlwind computer (1943)
UNI VAC computer (1944)
CRT storage computer (1946)
Turing
Stored program ( 946) EDSAC computer (1948)
SEAC computer (1948)
1950
Manchester mark
MULTIMEDIA
computer (1949)
Computer
IBM 650 & 701
graphics (1950)
computers (1950)
Image
LEO computer (1951)
animation (1951)
EDVAC computer (1951)
1960 Virtual
SAGE computer (1952)
reality (1965)
IBM 704, 707, 7090
1

Bell

1940

Von Neumann
Computer theory (1945)

DISKS
Floppy disc (1950)

Hard disc (1973)

Compact

disc (1975)

CD

PROGRAM LANGUAGES*

Digital

FORTRAN (1957)
COBOL (1959)
ALGOL (1960)

CD ROM

(1982)
(1985)

Diskette (1991)

DVD

Internet (1969)

(1995)

Information

APL (1962)
PASCAL (1970)
MICROSOFT (1974)
BASIC

ADA

tech.

1970

(1975)

LISP (1981)

NETTALK
ANSI-C

(1986)

(1989)

VIRTUAL BASIC

DYLAN
ADA 95

(1991)

(1992)

(1995)

ANSIC++

RAM
1024 bit RAM
4096 bit RAM
16384 bit RAM
1000000 bit RAM
4000000 bit RAM
16000000 bit RAM
100000000 bit RAM
256

(1981)

(1996)

bit

Web

(1984)

Compact

MEMORIES

(1979)

MS-DOS

(1974)

World Wide
disc

video (1987)

(1970)
(1972)

Digital versatile

(1975)

disc (1995)

(1976)

(1984)

M980

(1987)
(1989)
(1996)

JAVA (1996)

JAKARTA

(1996)

KRAKATOA
*

As

there

is

(1996)

much

controversy on

1990
first

computers (1953)
Leprechaun computer (1956)
CDC 1604 computer (1960)
Honeywell 800 computer (1960)
UNIVAC 80/90 computer (1960)
ATLAS computer (1961)
IBM 360 computer (1964)
Microprocessor computer (1971)
UNIX computer (1972)
Cray computer (1976)
Cray IS computer (1979)
Personal computer (1981)
Cray X MP computer (1982)
Apple Lisa computer (1983)
IBM PC AT computer (1984)
CRAY-2 computer (1985)
Apple Mackintosh-ll
computer (1987)

dates, these dates

must be regarded as approximate.

A Concise

48

History of Computers, Robotics, Mechatronics and Information Technology

For mechanical design, computers are used as drafting aids and for mathematically representing solid

They can

objects allowing such properties as mass, centre of gravity, etc, to be evaluated.

also be used to

analyse stresses in components and assemblies; for example, bridges, aircraft components and structures. Solid

modelling techniques also allow real-looking computer pictures to be produced which can be used for marketing
activities before a prototype has

been produced.

Computer Aided Manufacture (CAM). Computer Aided Manufacture

where computers are used

is

to aid the

manufacturing process; for example, the automatic programming of numerically controlled machines, such as

mask production,

The Date Chart 7

assembly,

drilling,

work plans

schedules, assembly instructions and

in

Programmes

two- or three-dimensional milling and drilling machines.

lathes,

circuit manufacture,

are also produced for printed

Computers can also produce manufacturing

etc.

for processes to be

performed manually.

('History on a Page') has been compiled as a useful quick reference on major developments

computers.

Robotics

8.3

Robotics has been the subject of science

but

it

is

systems were an early form of what

in aircraft

and

used

US

in a

fiction for

many

book and

years, e.g. the

film

'RUR' by Karel Capek,

only recently that the microcomputer has enabled more sophisticated devices to be made.
is

now termed
The

in industrial processes.

first

robot to imitate the grasping motion of the

nuclear plant in 1960 (known as 'Handyman').

general description

is

'a

The popular conception of an

programmed motions

in

microcomputer which

is

to

move

materials, parts, tools or

space for the performance of a variety of tasks'.

industrial robot is an articulated

achieved through a series of revolute and/or sliding joints.

human hand was

Definitions of robots vary considerably, but a

reprogrammable multifunction manipulator designed

specialised devices through variably

arm with

The

of 5 or 6 degrees of freedom

a total

position of these joints

is

controlled by a

capable of being variably programmed by the user of the robotic equipment.

arm made by Unimation (Europe) Ltd

is

shown

WAIST ROTATION

Servo

robotics, e.g. power-assisted steering in cars, servo controls

typical

in figure 8.2.

320'

SHOULDER ROTATION

200

ELBOW ROTATION

270

WPIST SENO 200'

'?

^~

FLANGE
POTATION

270'

GRIPPER MOUNTING

Figure

Each robotic application requires

its

spray gun or welding torch; this device

The

own
is

8.2.

typical robotic arm.

'endeffector' at the end of the arm, usually in the

also controlled by the

computer from

form of gripper.

a user-defined

robotics controller also has to be able to control the processes being performed by the robot,

programme.
i.e.

control

of welding current or paint flow. The arm power source for the larger robots, intended for the heavier tasks,
is

frequently hydraulic, with a few notable devices being electrically powered.

lighter tasks,

becoming

An

such as part sorting and assembly, are more

commonly

However, robots intended

electrically

powered and

for

are rapidly

the preferred device.

important part of the modern industrial robot

is

the software associated with the control computer. This

software consists of a suite of system programmes that enable the robot user to teach the required endeffector

49

Mechatronics

paths, operations

machines,

etc,

and the control of other external equipment such as welding

as a series of recorded steps in the computer's

plant, numerically controlled

The computer can then move

memory.

endeffector through these recorded paths, initiating endeffector and external equipment operations

The method of teaching

points of robot articulation.

for

the

required

at the

the robot varies considerably with the intended application;

example, teaching the current generation of paint-spraying robots entails moving the robot arm through the

required spraying motions at the proper speed, the computer recording these

during operation.

On

movements

the other hand, pick and place robots are taught the positions

be played back

to

where operations have

to

occur, usually with a few intermediate points to ensure collision free operation, leaving the robot to derive
the path

between these

move from

The more

points.

sophisticated robots have software refinements that allow the

endeffector; the simpler machines use joint interpolation

from point

powered source. One of

has a reach of just 0.45

the smaller

.25

mm

machines

and has a

powered. The operational speed of the industrial robot (the

of

Walking robots, such as

a six-legged walker

leg

was designed

mm,

this

Ohio

1.5 kg,

machine being

is,

the

and

electrically

controllable velocity of the endeffector

to do.

For example, a

fast pick

metres per second, whereas the welding robot will weld

to 1.5

movements, but
at the

of the largest

space with the

250 which can only handle

at a

of course, required.

used on the moon, have been developed. Attempts were

that

human

in

main problem was keeping an

first

made

to

produce

effective balance. In 1977,

which could climb over obstacles and up shallow

State University

one-legged robot was built in 1983 by Carnegie-Mellon University to study the problem of balance.

recent development in which a Canadian

that include display

as the

maximum

metre per minute; between welds, a faster speed

an exact simulation of

move

reach of 2.5 m; this machine has a hydraulic

PUMA

end of the arm) varies considerably with the task they are designed

maximum

stairs.

total

Unimation

the

is

with positional repeatability of better than 0.05

and place robot can achieve speeds of up

One

can handle loads of 102 kg and position them

this robot

required orientation, to within less than

at the

to

depending on the robot's geometry.

capacity, overall size and reach of these robots varies considerably.

the Cincinnati Milacron:

is

driving the joints at constant velocity) to

(i.e.

to point, the actual trajectory of the end-effector path

The load-handling
robots

arm

point to point along pre-defined straight or curved paths, possibly with a change in attitude of the

and control functions

will

Mobile Servicing System); one robot

company

will

design and build two

flight robotic

workstations

enable astronauts to operate the Space Station's robotics (known

will

other the Special Purpose Dextrous Manipulator.

be the Space Station Remote Manipulation System and the

They

will

be used

in the

assembly and maintenance of the

Station.

Many

made

attempts have been

to reproduce a

programmed robot which can

carry out domestic tasks,

In the main, industrial robots are used for such tasks as loading, unloading, inspecti.>n,

but without success.

maintenance, welding, painting and precision manufacturing.

thought to be a key factor in the future of robotics. AI

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is

such a way that they perform functions normally associated with

in

human

is

the use of

computers

intelligence, such as learning,

adapting, self-correction and decision taking.

There

is

considerable controversy on whether, or

work focuses on game-playing problem solving,

'expert systems' of

human

soon, AI will

become commercially

computer programming. Expert systems may help

The technological

in the specialised intelligence

Present

used by

revolution brought about by the increasing use of robots, brings the problem of increasing
factories

become automated. This

is

problem

for society to solve.

Mechatronics

Just as the integrated circuit in electronics brings together transistors, passive

circuit design reliability, etc, in

systems.

components, heat dissipation,

one overall function, 'mechatronics' applies the same principle

Mechatronics brings together mechanical engineering, electronic engineering,

control engineering and

It

viable.

experts, such as a doctor diagnosing a disease.

unemployment, when

8.4

how

the use of natural language in controlling robotics and the

computer technology, covering

to

mechanical

electrical engineering,

wide range of manufacturing products and processes.

involves sensors, drive and actuation systems, control and measurement systems, behaviour analysis and

computer technology,

e.g.

microprocessors.

Examples of mechatronics can be seen

tools, robots

and many others.

recent

in the

example

design of cars, washing machines, automatic cameras, machine

is

the use of mechatronics in surgery

for orthopaedic applications; mechatronic techniques for

using automated

tools

minimal access surgery, and mechatronic methods for

A Concise

50

History of Computers, Robotics, Mechatronics and Information Technology

tool guidance, registrations

and control of processes during surgery. All these techniques have

as early as possible in order to design

more

flexible

to

be incorporated

and cheaper systems for production.

Information Technology

8.5

The

definition of Information

Technology (IT)

capture, storage, retrieval, analysis and

is

generally

assumed

to be: the

use of technology to provide the

communication of information, whether

in the

form of

data, text,

image

or voice.

With the invention and exploitation of the integrated

circuit or

1960s, the growth of

since the

'chip'

applications using electronics has been phenomenal. The modern electronic computer can process data, graphics

and speech
In the

hand

games,

extremely

at
it

digital

fast rates.

The microprocessor

is at

the heart of

what

is

known

as the IT revolution.

home computers, cameras,

controls washing machines, cookers, televisions, telephones,

video

watches and many other devices.

Offices and factories

now

use microprocessors in their everyday

control, railway signalling, police

life,

as

do

cars, fax

machines, aircraft

computer databases, including the Armed Forces with guided

flight

missiles, battle

control systems, submarine control and countless others.

The
steel

effect of this

and cotton

manage

IT revolution has been

industries,

large factories with mainly

The

transform labour-intensive work, such as mining, agriculture, iron,

etc, into

automated labour. The manufacturing labour force has largely transferred

to

increasingly possible.
influence of the Multimedia

is

part of the IT revolution.

enabled special effects to be developed, such as the original

to

an industry where a few highly-skilled workers

improved methods of rapid communications have enabled home-working

to the Service Industries, whilst

become

to

hardware manufacturing,

full

The change from analogue

to digital television

screen television image which could be shrunk

occupy a small portion of the screen, moved around and rotated about a variety of axes. Combining drawings

with live actors,

Compact

all

give

artistic

The development of IT
with

its

freedom

to television producers.

discs can record complete encyclopaedias, as well as providing

social implications

in its various

and

it

forms has meant a major change

has truly been

named

sound and

in the

the IT revolution.

working

pictures.
lives of the population,

Chapter 9

Concise History of Industrial, Automobile, Medical,

Educational, Office, Banking,

Consumer and

Security

Electronics

Industrial Electronics

9.1

The

earliest general use of electronics in industry

was

such as induction heating for

for control of processes,

the hardening of steels and setting of glues, electroplating, resistance welding for the joining of metals and
ultrasonics for cleaning castings, crack testing in metals, drilling glass, etc. Photocells
variety of devices, e.g.

many

small objects by colour, facsimile transmission of photographs and

Process control needs three functions

close valves, regulate power, etc, so that the required equilibrium

up.

transistor

and

obtained.

later the integrated circuit,

mechanism

control production processes with great accuracy and there

use electronics

in

one form or another. The

and even helped with

tea blends for J

&

open and

is

usual to

process control expanded and, with

Among

cement,

all

computers

to

is little

field

of control was

computer

were made. The computers can be used

limit to the type of industry

Lyons modelled

the

(Lyons' Electronic Office) stayed in service for fourteen

faster than a

human

clerk.

cope with process variations required

in controlling

production

the industrial applications are the metal industry, the mining, glass, pulp and paper,

textile, rubber, plastics

to

which can now

built for business use, calculated taxes, payrolls,

Co., a victuals purveyor in England.

computing employee paychecks three hundred times

Signal processors enable

tool,

first

Lyons

EDSAC. LEO

room-size system on Maurice Wilke's

outputs.

to

feedback system

Large masses of data could be accommodated by the computer and assessments could be made of

the effects of possible changes in production before actual decisions

years,

wide

pressure, flow, temperature,

in

development of computers, particularly minicomputers and microcomputers, a new

opened

for a

cine, sorting

amount of control necessary.

With the introduction of the

the

is

on film

others.

changes

a transducer to convert

colours, or levels into electrical voltages, a signal process or amplifier and a control

regulate the

were used

the automatic opening of doors, smoke-density control, sound

and chemical industries,

machine

and space applications,

in addition to aircraft

land and marine transport applications. Mini or microcomputers are used in automatic machines and systems

on the factory

floor to carry out

many

different processes.

For example, industrial robots are used for paint

spraying, spot welding, handling dangerous and difficult material such as hot glass and
processes, fettling, etc.

Computers

are also used to control automatic test

components coming

into the factory

position of a fault.

Another important area of use

and the completed products, and are able

is

making cores

equipment which
to isolate

for casting

tests the electronic

and report the type and

the transfer of parts between automatic machines in the

factory for automatic warehousing.

9.2

The

Numerically Controlled Machines

so-called numerically controlled

electronics, usually a microcomputer,

(NC) machines

are a special group of industrial

which receives commands

computer then reads the input sequence of commands, one item

in the
at a

form of

machines controlled by

sequence of numbers. The

time, then uses interpolation (the form

Consumer and Security

Industrial, Automobile, Medical, Educational, Office, Banking,

52

commands to precisely control the

commands in the sequence will,

of which depends upon the application) on the positional

of the axes to achieve the required tool path.

computer

to

control are

change the cutting speed, the

NC

lathes

Some

of the

NC

which normally have two axes,

velocities of each

of course,

Examples of machines having

tool type, shaft speed, etc.

Electronics

tell

this

the

type of

milling machines which have three, four or possibly

axes and automatic printed circuit drilling and routing machines which are three-axis devices. Numerically

five

controlled machines

The

come

machine

itself

many

in

control sequence or

different forms: lathes, mills, drills, routers, etc.

programme

machines can be created by

for these

a variety of

NC

methods: (a) the

can be used to create the programme sequence by moving the cutter to the required positions,

recording these and the type of interpolation to be used between this and the next point; (b) the sequence

can be programmed off-line by a production planner, using a human readable form of programme which
translated by the computer

later

computer-aided design

(CAD)

into a numerical sequence; (c) the

system.

design of high-power supplies has been influenced by the availability of

In induction heating, the

is

sequence can be generated directly from a

switching high-power devices, such as insulated gate bi-polar transistors, and metal oxide semiconductor

fastfield-

effect transistors.

Machine vision systems

used. Efforts are being

in

made

which optical sensing

to

used to control machine output, are increasingly being

is

apply neural networks to such tasks as pattern recognition and the control of

robot welding systems.

Whilst the production of heavy units

is still

computer controlled assembly of integrated

systems are being used

Image processing

now

which there

is

an enormous demand. Machine vision

production systems. The machine vision industry requires the manufacturer

in today's

to pinpoint an object, e.g.

necessary, production techniques are turning to the automatic

circuits, for

component on

rates for this are

now

extreme accuracy (of about

a printed circuit board, with

pixel).

of operations per second; the resultant assembly speeds are

in billions

considerably higher than would be thought possible a few years ago.

Automobile Electronics

9.3

The

electronic device to be fitted in cars

first

was

but the greatest impact of electronics

was

the car radio,

first

the use of the electronic

mass-produced by Motorola

computer

in

1930,

to control the car's functions.

Microprocessors, in conjunction with specialized sensors, today control automatic gear shifting, monitor fuel

consumption, ignition timing and duration, instrumentation, warning devices, airconditioning, anti-lock braking
(

ABS), suspension

modern

bags and car security systems. These are

characteristics, air

examples of the influence of

all

electronics.

In the

USA,

there are up to 12 microcomputers on

many of

the luxury cars,

which control

ride, handling,

transmission and air conditioning, in addition to engine management and control to meet stringent emission
requirements.

window

lift.

There are body control computers, as well as electronic control of

Cars

now

door locks and

lighting,

include facia liquid crystal displays of fuel level, water temperature, battery voltage,

oil

pressure, lights, etc.

Engine analysers used

ignition, cylinder leakage,

Using navigational

workshops electronically measure such

in service

combusion

satellites,

such as the

locate itself, using the dashboard video

(Global Positioning System),

map, with an accuracy of

into the car's navigational computer; the

traffic

GPS

characteristics as r.p.m., timing,

and many other engine-related parameters.

efficiency, dwell angle

is

it

now

possible for a car to

few metres. The driver enters

computer then chooses the

fastest route, taking into

his destination

account current

conditions and guides the driver with verbal instructions over the car's sound system and through the

car's video display screen.

The Irradium

satellite

Such systems are now available

network to be launched

in

1997

as standard
will

on some upmarket vehicles

comprise a network of 66

uninterrupted coverage of the globe for personal communication purposes.

in Japan.

satellites to

give

This will obviously revolutionize

mobile voice and data communications.

There

is

volts

AC;

systems

a trend to multi voltage

improve efficiency. For instance,

active suspension at

Matching the

electrical

it

350

the standard 12 volt battery

may

give

may

be advantageous to supply the electronics

volts

DC; and motors and

and electronic supplies

to the car's

activators at

42

volts

way

to other voltages to

at 5 volts

DC;

lighting at 6

DC.

requirements with the highest efficiency will be

a requirement in the near future.

Electric cars are also under

development

in

which

electric

motors are powered by

fuel cells

which generate

Medical Electronics
by combining hydrogen with oxygen from the

electricity

be electric by the year 2000. There

fleet will

are,

air.

It

is

5%

estimated that

however, many technical problems

53

of California's vehicle
to

be solved before the

electric car replaces the present system.

The trends

automotive

in

electronics

are

illustrated

in

figure

reproduced

9.1,

by

permission

of

Automobile Electronics by Eric Chowanietz.

Newnes/Butterworth/Heinemann, from the book

>r Or MANUrACTVU

Figure

Trends

9.1.

in

automotive electronics.

Medical Electronics

9.4

Heart sound amplifiers have been used for

waveforms.

Devices can

now

sense

when

many

years,

together with cardiograph displays of heartbeat

spontaneous beat arises and take appropriate action,

compete with the natural

inhibiting their output stimulus so as not to

displays brain rhythms and computers analyse their waveforms.

beats.

Since the introduction of the

in their use.

first

beat.

e.g.

The electrocardiograph records

the heart's

cardiac pacemaker in the early 1900s, great strides have been

Figure 9.2 shows a portable electrocardiograph

by

The electroencephalograph (EEG)

(ECG) operating

in 1947.

The

ECG

made

detects and

records the tiny electrical signals that co-ordinate the heart's beats and which can indicate the heart's disorders.

The

signals 'ripple' outwards and are picked

up by metal sensors stuck

1927) developed the

ECG

during the 1900s. Portable

pacemakers used

1962

is

in

Defibrillators,

shown

ECGs

William Einthoven (1860-

One

of the

first

implantable

in figure 9.3.

providing natural counter shocks to the heart and electrocardiographs observing blood

circulation and functional heart problems, are in use.

in

to the skin.

date from around 1928.

most hospitals and closed-circuit

TV

Intensive-care patient monitoring systems are standard

systems are also used.

Other electronic aids are laser

retinal

ultrasonic echo analysis and hearing aids. Fibre optics are used to illustrate areas

photocoagulators, radio

pills,

normally inaccessible.

Pressure-sensitive radio pills are used for measuring conditions in the gastrointestinal

tract.

major electronic technique

ultrasonic,

is

non-invasive diagnosis by computerized scanning,

fluoroscopic and x-ray equipment.

MRI

(Magnetic Resonance Imaging)

technique that relies on the response of hydrogen atoms to a magnetic

using nuclear,

medical imaging

is

field to distinguish

between various

types of soft tissue. Computerized axial tomography can provide 'slices' of patients anatomy and yield valuable
diagnosis, enabling physicians to visualize anatomic structures of live patients.

be made and the experimental model with which the earliest

Horley's Hospital

in

1970-71. Techniques developed with

this

trials

Figure 9.4 shows the

of patients were undertaken

at

first

to

Atkinson

machine established computed tomography (CT

scanning) as a key tool for studying the brain.

Telemedicine systems are used for transmitting data from one hospital
Spare parts of the

human anatomy

angioplasty, digital hearing aids, hip joints, pacemakers, and

artificial

limbs are

now

possible.

training; the fusion of virtual

to

another and for telesurgery.

are increasingly being used with implants, such as cardiac valves, balloon

Virtual reality

humans with

real

is

many

others.

Computerized

electrically driven

being increasingly used in three areas: virtual humans for

humans

in

performing surgery; the

decision environments for training of physicians, nurses and other professionals.

virtual

The

telemedicine shared

electronic artificial eye

54

Figure

Industrial, Automobile, Medical, Educational, Office, Banking,

9.2.

Figure

9.3.

portable electrocardiograph of 1947 (The Science

An

implantable pacemaker of 1962 (The Science

Consumer and

Museum/ Science

Museum/ Science

&

&

Security Electronics

Society Picture Library).

Society Picture Library).

Educational Electronics

Figure

9.4.

The

Museum/ Science

computerised tomography scanner (The Science

first

&

55

Society Picture

Library).

uses ocular implants for certain types of blindness, leading to all-silicon electrode arrays implanted directly into
the brain for the profoundly blind.

Computer analyses using expert systems

USA,

a software

Government records

together with computer link-up with

part played

by electronics

replacing parts of most of the

9.5

The

way

more medical applications and,

into

medical information and treatments can

detail recording of patients'

The

are finding their

package can include 2200 diseases and 5000 symptoms

is

human

in its

now be

knowledge

in the

Computerized

kept by medical practitioners,

for accurate record-keeping.

inceasing day by day and, eventually,

may

lead to

computer systems

brain.

Educational Electronics
electronic calculator

a course at that time

may be considered

to

be the introduction of electronics into education.

as an experiment,

computer

it

was

the introduction of

which revolutionized the teaching of electronics.

for every 17 pupils in primary schools

computers into schools,

In the United

and one for every 8

Kingdom today

acquired.

now

now

there

is

one

information Technology'

taught in schools; word-processing replaced typewriting, and data-handling skills were

Programmed

learning of foreign languages

taught. Experience

is

gained by assembling

is

kits

available.

'Electronic Technology' as a separate subject

of parts or modules to

transistor receiver, chips as operational amplifiers, logic gates, etc.

waves, magnetic resonance, electron spin resonance, gas

It is

it.

initially

in secondaries.

Basic programmes were taught and electronic games were not discouraged,
as a subject is

There was

on electronics of A-level standard, but very few teachers were capable of teaching

Television and videos found considerable use, but

is

base.

predicted that every secondary school will have

make up

More complex

kits

a complete oscilloscope,

can demonstrate standing

lasers, etc.

some form of

Internet connection in the near future,

allowing wider access to the information superhighway, whilst video-conferencing

allow link-ups with France, Germany, and other countries.

in

language lessons would

56

Industrial, Automobile, Medical, Educational, Office, Banking,

The

ability to

draw

pictures

on Graphic

TV

Consumer and Security

Electronics

enables students to learn directly without the necessity for

many

textbooks. Mathematics can be presented pictorially as algebraic equations or as large numerical calculations.

Computer programmes can be

written to cover

all

stages of learning, either as simulation and modelling

programmes, or more general application packages.

developed and many are available over the

Office

9.6

Synthetic software for educational purposes has been

Internet.

and Banking Electronics

Computers can now do

tasks such as cost accounting, ledger records

collection and storage on magnetic tape or

computers allowing multiple use,

are

now

used.

point the

all

The

returned with

is

way

typist starts

At the same time, a copy of the document

of the document

retrieval,

updating and

filing.

Data
visual

Telex systems with data printers, facsimile document transmission and time-sharing

displays or printout.

word processors

and

compact discs with data processing can present analyses or

is

to the electronic office. In the typing of letters or

by typing a draft document on to a

VDU

CD-ROM. When

also written on a floppy disc or

corrections, modifications, additions, etc, having been

all its

now

has only to type in the corrections or additions. The original copy on the disc,
automatically, at 175 words per minute, a perfect copy of the document.

documents,

(Vidual Display Unit).

the final version

made, the

typist

used

to type

The word processor makes

logical

corrected,

is

decisions such as automatically deleting, respacing and repositioning words and sentences, inserting hyphens,

determining line lengths and controlling format and tabulation.

The modern

now

can

office

provide normal and networked computers,

scanners and laser printers.

Spreadsheets are used for record keeping, etc, whilst graphics and desktop publishing are
in

an electronically assisted

facilities

now

available

office.

banknote counting and dispensing machines deal with both notes and cash, computers deal with

In banking,

cheque transactions, mortgages, loans, and dividend payments, credit-card systemization, security and customer
recognition safeguards,

all

data being sorted on magnetic tapes or

CD-ROMs.

Page-reading systems used flying

spot scanning of characters from a cathode-ray tube and a group of photocells picked up reflections and output

them

network

to a decision

to

make

out in different type and letter size.

and

reject those

cards

9.7

is

which are

visual

image systems, which can scan

print at high rates

and print

Electronic machines are available which can identify genuine banknotes

counterfeit. Electronic bill paying services are being

developed and the use of smart

increasing.

Consumer

Electronics

The microcomputer

is

being built into more and more customer products. They range from the very simplest

built as a single chip to

These are now

the white, black or grey decision (video processing).

replaced by modern computer systems using

more complex

dozen chips.

units with several

simple example of an application which uses a computer on a chip

programme

for this device

is

stored in an

RCM

which

is

programmed when

is

the electronic

the chip

is

door chime. The

made. Twelve different

tunes can be played, the tune depending an which door the chime was initiated from and on the tune selected.

Other applications are controllers for central-heating systems which may be programmed with different on/off
cycles,

home games and

More complex micros

teaching aids

are used in

good example

is

gaming machines found

the 'speak and spell' unit

in

and sound effects are generated as well as complex game

mundane devices
The change
high definition

as

which synthesizes speech!

arcades and pubs in which sophisticated graphics

strategies.

Micros now

find their

way

into such

washing machines, cookers and videotape recorders.

to digital

TV now

audio radio

(DAR)

in

1996

will affect

consumer radio and

television sets, whilst

being developed will mean more changes for consumers. Compact discs have replaced

most other forms of recording data and music and high density compact discs (DVDs) offer wider applications,
including movies.

For the

home

user,

camcorders are

now

widely used, including recently developed digital

camcorders such as the cybercam.

DVDs replacing CD-ROMs for games, many new improved games will be available,
Home automation, using modern communication techniques to close the curtains or

With the introduction of

some being

interactive.

switch the cooker on from afar will undoubtedly increase.

Security Electronics

9.8

and Surveillance

57

Security Electronics and Surveillance

Intruder alarms

now

use sound detectors, magnetic switches on doors, light beams, laser beams, pressure mats

and hoses, infra-red detection, microwave radar, surveillance scanners, security pass systems and

TV

coverage.

For surveillance, millimetre wave cameras can penetrate walls to see subjects from a distance. Digital video

cameras can pick out faces

hidden

in buildings,

Conversations

in a

even hidden

in a

crowd using computer-recorded information. Microphones

in steel girders or fed into the

room can be overheard from

water

to

lodge

(or

BUGS)

outside by bouncing a laser

beam

off a glass

picking up the sound waves. Surveillance satellites can watch over large areas of the world. There

which can be secret from prying eyes using electronics.

can be

in taps or drains.

window

is little

now

Chapter 10

by Subject

List of Inventions

1.

Assembly Techniques and Packaging

2.

Circuitry

3.

Communications

4.

Components

5.

Computers

6.

Industrial

7.

Microelectronics

and Medical

8.

Physics

9.

Radar

10.

Sound Reproduction

11.

Television

12.

Transistors and Semiconductors

13.

Tubes, Lamps, etc

Assembly Techniques

1.

1940

Thick film packaged

1943

Printed wiring

1945

Potted circuits

1947

Automatic

1949

Dip soldering of printed

&

Packaging
(Centralab)

circuits

(Eisler)

circuit

(Various)

making equipment

(Sargrove)

(Danco

circuits

&

Abramson)

Thermo compression bonding techniques

(Anderson

1951

'Tinkertoy' automatic assembly system

(Nat. Bur. Standards)

1953

Wire wrapping of connections

1953

Automatic assembly systems: Autofab, Mini-Mech,

1956

'Flowsoldering' of printed circuits

1958

Micro-module' assembly system

(US Army)

1960

Printed wiring multilayer boards

(Photocircuits)

1962

'Flat-Pack' integrated circuit

(Tao)

1964

DIP or DIL

(Rogers)

1964

Etch-back plated-through hole technique

(Autonetics)

1964

Beam

(Lepselter)

1966

'Flip-chip'

1971

Ceramic chip

1973

Dry etching technique

950

58

(dual in line package)

lead connections

bonding technique
carrier

et al

(Mallina et al
etc,

(General Mills et al

(Fry's Metal Foundries)

(Wiessenstern et al
(3

Co.)

(Mitsubishi)

List

2.

1826
1

843

of Inventions by Subject

Circuitry

Ohm's law

(Ohm)

Wheatstone bridge

(Wheatstone)

1848

Boolean algebra

(Boole)

1945

Kirchhoff s laws

(Kirchhoff)

1912

Regenerative circuit

(de Forest et al

1912

Heterodyne

1915

Filter

1918

Neutrodyne

1918

Shot effect noise

(Schottky)

1918

Multivibrator circuit

(Abraham

1918

Dynatron

circuit

(Hull)

1919

Retarded

field

1919

Flip-flop circuit

(Eccles, Jordan)

&

superheterodyne circuits

(Fessenden, Armstrong)

(Campbell, Wagner)

networks
circuit

(Hazeltine)

microwave

&

(Barkhausen

oscillator

Bloch)

&

Kurtz)

1919

Miller time base circuit

(Miller)

1921

Crystal control of frequency

(Cady)

1922

Negative resistance oscillator

(Gill,

1922

Super regeneration

(Armstrong)

1923

Squegger

(Appleton, Herd et al

1924

Linear saw-tooth time base circuit

(Anson)

1925

Johnson noise

(Johnson)

1926

Transitron oscillator

1926

Automatic volume control

circuit

Morrell)

(van der Pol)

(Wheeler)

circuit

1927

Negative feedback amplifier

1932

Energy conserving scanning

1933

Hard valve time base

1935

Constant

1936

Long

1939

Radio altimeter

(Bell Labs)

1942

Miller integrator circuit

(Blumlein)

1942

Phantastron circuit

(Williams

1942

Sanatron circuit

(Williams

1943

Magnetic amplifier

(A.S.E.A)

1947

High quality amplifier

1952

Darlington pair circuit

(Darlington)

1952

Digital voltmeter

(Kay)

1952

Negative feedback tone control circuit

(Baxandall)

1960

Neuristor circuit

(Crane)

1960s

Logic

(Various)

1960s

Linear circuits: microelectronics

(Various)

1967

Rotator circuit network

(Chua)

1968

Mutator

network

(Chua)

1969

Bucket-brigade delay circuit

1979

Satellite

1980

Fibre-optic laser driven superheterodyne

RC

(Black)

(Blumlein)

circuit

(Puckle)

circuit

(Blumlein)

stand-off circuit

tailed pair circuit

circuits:

circuit

(Blumlein)

Moody)
Moody)

(Williamson)

circuit

microelectronics

echo cancelling

&
&

(Sangster and Teer)

(Bell Labs)

circuit

3.

(Saito et al

Communications

1832

6-unit telegraph system

(Schilling and

1837

Telegraphy: Morse code

(Morse)

860

Microphone

(Reis)

865

Radio wave propagation

(Maxwell)

Cooke)

59

60
1866
1

876

879

List

of Inventions by Subject

Transatlantic telegraph cable

(T. C.

Telephone

(Bell)

&

M. Co.)

Diode detector

(Hughes)

Aerial

(Hertz)

Coherer

(Branley)

Waveguide: theory

(Thomson)

Wireless telegraphy

(Marconi)

1901

Radio: Heaviside/Kenelly layer

(Heaviside/Kenelly)

1906

Radio broadcasting

(Fessenden)

1906

Crystal detector

(Dunwoody)

1907

Crystal detector (Perikon)

(Pickard)

1912

Ionospheric propagation

(Eccles)

1915

Single sideband transmission

(Carson)

1916

Telex

(Markrum Co.)

1918

Alexanderson alternator

(Alexanderson)

1918

Ground wave propagation

(Watson)

1921

Short

1921

Crystal control of frequency

1925

Short

1925

Ionosphere layer

(Appleton)

1926

Yagi aerial

(Yagi)

1928

Diversity reception

(Beverage

1928

Frequency standards: quartz clock

(Horton, Morrison)

1929

Microwave communication
Meteor scatter (burst) systems

(Clavier)

1930s

1933

Radio astronomy

(Jansky)

1933

Frequency modulation

(Armstrong)

1934

Frequency standards: atomic clock

(Cleeton, Williams)

1887
1

890

1893
1

896

wave

radio (amateur)

wave

radio (commercial)

(Amateurs)

(Cady)
(van Boetzelean)

(Shanker

et al

et al

Waveguides

(Southworth

1937

Pulse code modulation

(Reeves)

1939

Frequency standards: caesium beam

(Rabi)

1945

Satellite

1948

Information theory

(Shannon)

1950s

MODEM

(MIT, Bell Labs)

1950s

Global positioning system

(Getting)

Transistor radio set

(Regency)

1956

Transatlantic telephone cable

(Various)

1956

Radio paging

(Multitone

1957

SPUTNIK

1958

EXPLORER

1958

VANGUARD

1958

PIONEER

1958

SCORE

1959

(USSR)

1959

LUNIK satellite
DISCOVERER satellite

1960

TIROS

(USA)

1960

ECHO

1960

COURIER satellite
TRANSIT satellite
VENUS satellite

936

954

1960
1961

communication theory

satellite

(USA)

satellite
I

satellite

(USA)

(USA)

(USSR)

1962

TELSTAR

(USSR)

satellite

(USA)
(USA)

satellite

1961

1961

(USA)
(USA)

satellite

VOSTOK satellite
MERCURY-ATLAS
OSCAR satellite

1961

(USA)

satellite

(Clarke)

(USSR)

satellite

satellite

el al

(USA)
(USA)
(USA)

List of Inventions

1962

MERCURY-ATLAS 6
OSO satellite
RELAY satellite
MARINER satellite

1962

MARS

satellite

(USSR)

1962

ARIEL

satellite

(UK)

1963

SYNCOM

1964

NIMBUS

1964

VOKSHOD

1964

Packet-switching

(Baron)

1965

PEGASUS

(USA)

1965

INTELSTAT

1965

1966

PROTON satellite
SURVEYOR satellite

1966

ESSA

1966

LUNAR ORBITER

1962
1962
1962

(USA)

satellite

(USA)

(USA)

(USA)

(USA)

satellite

(USA)

satellite

(USSR)

satellite

satellite
I

(International)

satellite

(USA)

(USA)

by Subject

(USA)

satellite
I

(USA)

satellite

1966

ATS

1966

Optical fibre communications

(Kao, Hockham)

1967

SOYUZ

(USSR)

1968

IRIS

1969

Internet

(Arpanet)

1969

Aerial matching unit

(Gordon)

1969

(UK)

1970

SKYNET A satellite
AZUR satellite
TUNG-FANG-HUNG
NATO satellite

1971

DSCS

1971

1973

SALYUT
LANDSAT
SKYLAB

1974

Information technology

(Various)

1974

WESTAR

(USA)

1974
1975

PRESTEL
VIKING

satellite

1975

RADUGA

1976

MARISAT

1976

Spread-spectrum techniques

(Dixon

1978

Integrated optoelectronics

(Yariv et al

1978

Tamed frequency modulation

(Philips)

1988

Fibre optic transatlantic cable

(DGT, BT, AT&T)

1995

Lasercom

1995

Inter-satelite

1969

1970

1972

(USA)

satellite

satellite

(ESRO

(USA)

I) satellite

(Germany)
(China)

satellite

(NATO)

(USA)

satellite

(USSR)

satellite

(USA)

satellite

(USA)

satellite

satellite

system

(Fedida)

(USA)

satellite

(USSR)

satellite

(USA)
et al

(Thermotrex, Motorola)

(US Air Force)

communications

4.

Components

1800

Volta's pile

(Volta)

1803

Accumulator

(Ritter)

1839

Magnetohydrodynamic generation

(Faraday)

1839

Fuel cell

(Grove)

1860

Lead-acid

1868

Dry

1870

Clark standard

(Plante)

cell

cell

(Leclanche)
cell

(Clark)

61

62

of Inventions by Subject

List

1884

Zinc mercuric-oxide

1891

Weston standard

1900

Nickel-iron cell

1900

Nickel-cadmium

1954

Solar battery

cell

cell

(Clark)

(Weston)
(Edison)

cell

(Junger and Berg)

(Chapin, Fuller et al

CAPACITORS
1745

Leyden

1874

Mica capacitors

(Bauer

1876

Rolled paper capacitors

(Fitzgerald)

1900

Ceramic capacitors

(Lombardi)

1904

Glass tubular capacitors

(Moscicki)

1956

Solid electrolyte capacitor

(McClean and Power)

1956

Semiconductor diode junction capacitor

(Giacoletto et al

(von KJeist

jar

et al

et al

FILTERS
1915

electromagnetic

Filters,

(Campbell and Wagner)

GALVANOMETERS
1820

Electromagnetism (galvanometer)

(Oersted)

1828

Moving

(Schweigger)

1828

Astatic

coil

(Nobilli)

GONIOMETERS
1907

(Artom)

Goniometer

INDUCTORS
1772

Iron dust cores

(Knight)

1909

Ferrites

(Hilpert,

1956

Magnetic material (YIG)

(Bertaut and Forrat)

1977

Anisotropic permanent magnet

(Matsuschita Elec.)

Snoek)

MOTORS
1837

(Davenport)

motor

Electric

1888

Induction motor

(Tesla)

1902

Synchronous induction motor

(Danielson)

RECTIFIERS
1926

Copper oxide

(Grondahl and Sieger)

RELAYS
1837
1950s

Telegraph

bell

and signal

(Cooke, Davy

et al

(Bell Labs)

Ferreeds

RHEOTOME
1868

Waveform

(Lenz)

plotter

RESISTORS
1850

Thermistor

(Faraday)

1885

Moulded carbon composition

(Bradley)

1897

Carbon

(Gambrell

1913

Sputtered metal film

(Swann)

1919

Spiralled metal film

(Kruger)

1925

Cracked carbon

(Siemens and Halske)

1926

Sprayed metal film

(Loewe)

1931

Oxide

(Littleton)

1957

Nickel-chromium

film

film
film

tAlderton

et al

et al

1958

Field effect varistor

(Bell Labs)

1959

Tantalum film

(Bell Labs)

SWITCHES
1884

Quick break

(Holmes)

1887

Quick make and break

(Holmes)

1950s

Ferreed switch

(Bell Labs)

List

of Inventions by Subject

63

TRANSFORMERS
1831

Transformer

(Faraday)

1885

Distribution

(Deri)

1885

Power

(Zipernowski

et al

WAVEGUIDES
1893

Theory

(Thomson)

1936

Waveguides

(Southworth

et al

et al

WIRES AND CABLES

1729

Wire conductor

(Gray)

1812

Cable insulation

(Sommering

1845

Metallic sheathing

(Wheatstone)

1847

Submarine cable insulation

(Siemens)

1905

Insulated sodium conductor

(Betts)

1933

Polythylene insulation

(ICI)

1949

Microwire

(Ulitovsky)

1965

Wiegand wire

(Wiegand)

1965

Smooth-surfaced wire drawing

(Olsen

5.

et al

Computers

1642

Calculating machine

(Pascal)

1672

Calculating machine

(Leibniz)

1833

Calculating machine

(Babbage)

1848

Boolean algebra

(Boole)

1854

Calculating machine

(Scheutz)

1889

Tabulating machine

(Hollerith)

1931

Differential analyser

(Bush)

1938

Information theory

(Shannon)

1939

Bell Labs

1939

Digital

1942

'Velodyne' analyser

(Williams

1943

COLOSSUS

(Newman, Turing

1943

ENIAC

(Moore School)

1945

Whirlwind
Computer theory

(MIT)

(Williams)

1948

CRT storage
ACE
EDVAC
UNIVAC
SEAC
EDSAC

1950

Computer graphics

(Burnett)

1950

(IBM)

1950s

IBM 650
IBM 701
Hamming code
APL language

1951

Microprogramming

(Wilkes)

1952

SAGE

(IBM, MIT)

1953

IBM

(IBM)

1956

Transistorised computer

(Bell Labs)

1957

Plated wire memories

(Gianole)

1960

Honeywell 800

(Honeywell)

1960

UNIVAC

(IBM)

1945

1946

1946
1947
1947
1948

1950
1950

complex computer

computer

computer

704, 709 and 7090

solid state 80/90

(Stibitz et al

(Aitken)

&

Uttley)
et al

(von Neuman)

(Turing)
(Penn. University)
(Eckert,

Maunchly)

(NBS)
(Wilkes)

(IBM)

(Hamming)
(Iverson)

64

List

of Inventions by Subject

1960

CD

1961

Minicomputer

(Englebert)

1965

The mouse

(Digital Equip. Co.)

1969

Semiconductor memories system

(Agusta

1969

Magnetic bubble memories

(Bobeck

1970

Charge coupled device memories

(Boyle, Smith)

1970

Floppy-disc recorder

(IBM)

1970

UNIX

(Bell, Univ. Cal.)

1971

Microprocessor

(Hoff)

(Control Data Corp.)

1604

random access memory

et al

et al

1972

1024

1973

Logic-state analyser

(House)

1973

Logic-timing analyser

(Moore)

1974

16 bit single chip microprocessor

(National)

1975

4096

1975

16 384

1976

One board computer

1976

Polysilicon resistor loaded

1977

CCD

1978

Integrated optoelectronics

(Yariv et al

1978

One megabit bubble memory

(Intel

1980

256

K dynamic RAM
MS-DOS

(NEC, Toshiba

1981

1984

Digital optical disc

(ATG)

1985

Hard disc card

(PLUS Dev.

1985

Digital video recorder

(SONY)

1985

CD-ROM

(Philips)

1985

Windows

(MICROSOFT)

1985

Tactile screen

(Zenith)

1991

Photonic crystals

1995

Biological

1996

Superfast switch

bit

(Intel)

RAM
bit RAM

(Fairchild)

bit

(Intel)

with programmable 1/0

(Intel)

RAM

(Mostek)

(GE

analog-to-digital converter

memory

Corporation)

&

Texas)
et al

(Eli

Corp.)

Yabionovitch)

(Mitsubishi Electric and Santory)

chip

(Argonne N. Lab)

Industrial

6.

and Medical

1839

Microfilming

(Dancer)

1843

Facsimile reproduction

(Bain)

Electrocardiograph

(A

1908

Geiger counter

(Geiger, Rutherford)

1912

Tungar

1913

Reliability standards

887

Waller)

(Langmuir)

rectifier

(ASDIC,

(AIEE)

SONAR)

(Langevin)

1914

Ultrasonics

1914

Thyratrons

1916

Reliability, control

1918

Induction heating

(Northrup)

1920

Ultra-micrometer

(Whiddington)

1926

Copper oxide

(Grondahl

1926

Electron microscope

(H Bosch)

1931

CRO

(Rijant)

1931

Reliability

1933

Ignitron

(Westinghouse)

1937

Xerography

(Carlson)

940

Cybernetics

1943

(Langmuir)
system

rectifier

cardiograph

Reliability

(Gates)

quality control charts

(Bell/Western Elec.)

Geiger)

(Shewhart)

(R Weiner)
sequential analysis

&

(Wald)

List

of Inventions by Subject

(ASIA)

1943

Magnetic amplifier

1944

Reliability

1950s

Ultrasound imaging

(Donald

1951

Quality control handbook

(Juran)

1958

Pacemaker
Computer aided design

(A Senning)

1960
1961

Electronic clock

(Vogel et Cie)

1962

Electronic watch

1962

Duane

1963

Ink jet process

(Sweet)

1963

Electronic calculator

(Bell

1964

Telemedicine

(Various)

1964

Word

processor

(IBM)

1965

Electronic typewriter

(IBM)

1967

Ion

1971

Electronic digital watch

(Time Computer Corp)

1972

Video games

(Magnavox)

Bar codes

(Dawson)

974

sampling inspection

reliability

beam

1975

LASER

1977

MRI

65

tables

&

(Doge

(USA

Romig)
et al

Military)

(Vogel et Cie)

growth theory

(Duane)

Punch Co.)

&

(Chopra

coating

Randlett)

(IBM)

printer

magnetic resonance imaging

(G Houndsfield)
(Hosiden Elec)

1978

All electronic clock face

1979

Seven-colour ink-jet printer

(Siemens)

1982

Bubble-jet printing

(CANON)

1986

Scanning tunnelling microscope

(IBM)

1991

Plastic electronics

(Philips)

1995

Glass laser

(Song-Tiong Hoctal, Northwestern

Univ.)

7.

(See also

12. Transistors

Microelectronics

and Semiconductor Devices)

1852

Thin film sputtering process

(Grove)

1913

Sputtered metal film resistors

(Swan)

1940

Thick film

(Centralab)

1949/50

Ion implantation

1952

Semiconductor integrated

1952

Zone melting technique

(Pfann)

1957

Nickel chromium thin film resistors

(Alderton, Ashworth)

1959

Semiconductor integrated

(Kilby)

1959

Tantalum

1959

Planar process

(Hoeni)

1960

Epitaxy: vapour phase

(Loor

1960

Digital and linear integrated circuits

(Various)

1961

Epitaxy: liquid phase

(Nelson)

1961

Minicomputer

(Digital Equip. Co.)

1962

MOS

(Hofstein

1963

Surface acoustic wave devices

(Rowen

1967

Laser trimming of thick film resistors

(Various)

1967

Ion

1968

C-MOS

1968

Aluminium

1969

Collector diffusion isolation

circuits

(Ohl
circuit

concept

circuit patent

thin film circuits

integrated circuit

beam

coating

integrated circuit
metallisation of ICs

&

Shockley)

(Dummer)

(Bell Labs)

et al

&

&

Helman)

Sittig)

(Chopra and Randlett)

(Various)

(Noyce)
(Bell Labs, Ferranti)

66

List

of Inventions by Subject

1970

X-ray lithography

(Feder et al

1971

FAMOS

integrated circuit

(Frohman-Bentchowsky)

1971

Bumped

tape automatic banding

(Lin and Fraenkel)

1971

Liquid crystal study of oxide defects

(Keen)

1972

Microcomputer

(Intel)

1972

1024

1972

Nitrogen-fired copper wiring

1972

Two-layer

1972

V-MOS

1972

Integrated injection logic

(Hart

1973

Dry etching technique

(Mitsubishi)

1974

16 bit single chip microprocessor

(National)

1974

Electron

1975

Thin film

1975

LOCMOS

bit

random access memory

(Intel)

(Grier)
(Bell Labs)

technique

resist

(Rodgers)

technique

beam

&

Slob)

(Bell Labs)

lithography

direct

bonded copper process

(Burgess

et al

(Philips)

integrated circuit

(Reinhart, Logan)

1975

Integrated optical circuits

1975

4096

1975

Silicon anodisation

(Cook)

1976

Microelectronic versatile arrays

(Philips)

1976

One board

with programmable 1/0 computer

(Intel)

1976

16 384 bit

random access memory

(Intel)

1977
1977

H-MOS
TRIMOS

1977

CCD

1978

Laser annealed polysilicon

(Texas Instruments)

1978

Integrated Schottsky logic

(Philips)

1981

Hydrogenated amorphous

1995

Atomic beam lithography

(Harvard, NI of Standards)

(NEC

random access memory

bit

(Fairchild)

(Intel)

(Stanford University)

device

(G E Corporation)

analog/digital converter

1996

Atomic holography

1996

Electron

1996

Surface

1996

Direct laser writing

beam
flat

(Grasso

silicon films

projection System

et al

Japan)

(Bell Labs)

(IBM)

chips

(Mikroelektronik Centre)

8.

Physics

1780

Galvanic action

(Galvani)

1800

Infra-red radiation

(Herschel)

1807

Ultra-violet radiation

(Ritter)

1808

Atomic theory

(Dalton)

1820

Electro-magnetism

(Oersted)

1821

Thermloelectricity

(Seebeck)

1826

Ohm's law

(Ohm)

1828

Fourier analysis

(Fourier)

1831

Electromagnetic induction

(Faraday)

1832

Self-induction

(Henry)

1834

Electrolysis

(Faraday)

1839

Photovoltaic effect

(Becquerel)

1840

Thermography

(Herschel)

1847

Magnetostriction

(Joule)

1851

Relation between theory of magnetism and electricity

(Kelvin)

1858

Glow

(Plucker)

1878

Cathode rays

(Crookes)

1879

Hall effect

(Hall)

discharges

List

Piezo electricity

(Curies)

1882

Wimshurst machine

(Wimshurst)

1895

X-rays

(Rontgen)

1897

Electron

(Thomson)

1897

Cathode ray oscillograph

(Braun)

1900

Quantum

(Planck)

1902

Spontaneous atomic change

(Rutherford

1905

Theory of relativity

(Einstein)

1911

Superconductivity

(Onnes)

1911

Atomic theory

(Rutherford)

1912

Cloud chamber

(Wilson)

1915

Atomic

(Bohr)

1918

Atomic transmutation

(Rutherford)

1921

Ferroelectricity

(Vasalek)

1929

Cyclotron

(Laurence)

1930

High

880

theory

orbit theory

field

superconductivity

&

&

(de Haas

Soddy)

Voogd)

van de Graaf accelerator

(van de Graaf)

1932

Neutron

(Chadwick)

1932

Transmission electron microscope

(Knoll, Ruska)

1932

Cockroft-Walton accelerator

(Cockroft

1934

Liquid crystals

(Dreyer)

1934

Trans-uranian atoms

(Fermi)

1934

Scanning election microscope

(Knott et al

1935

Superconducting switching

(Casimir-Jonker

1937

Xerography

(Carlson)

930

1938

Nuclear fission

(Fritsch

1941

Betatron

(Kerst)

&

&

Walton)

et al

1947

Molecular beam epitaxy

(Sosnowski

Holography

(Gabor)

1953

MASER

1955

Infra-red emission

1955

Cryotron

1956

YIG magnetic

1958

LASER

1958

Mossbauer

1959

Intrinsic 10/1

1960

Sub-millimetre photoconductive detector

(Putley)

1961

Transferred electron effect

(Ridley, Watkins)

1961

Transferred electron device

(Hilsum)

1962

Semiconductor laser

(Hall et al

1962

Josephson effect

(Josephson)

1962

LED

(Holonyak)

1963

Ion plating

1963

Gunn diode

1963

Surface acoustic wave devices

(Rowen

1964

'IMPATT' diode

(Johnston

1970

X-ray lithography

(Feder

1972

X-ray scanner

(EMI)

1972

Automatic crystal growth control

(Bardsley

1972

Deep

(Dymeut

et al

&

(Townes

Meitner)

1948

from GaSb

67

of Inventions by Subject

Weber)

(Braunstein)

(Buck)
materials

(Bertaut, Forrat)

(Schalow, Townes)
effect

photoconductor

(Gallium arsenide phosphide)

(Mossbauer)

(Lawson

et al

also Nathan

&

Lasher)

(Mattox)
oscillator

proton-isolated laser

(Gunn)

&

et al

et al

Scanning acoustic microscope

(Quate)

1975

GYROTRON

(Gapanov)

1977

FLAD

(Inst.

1978

Light bubbles

(IBM)

de Loach)
)

et al

1973

display system

Sittig)

&

Appl. Solid State Phys.)

68

of Inventions by Subject

List

1978

OMIST

1979

Laser enhanced plating and etching

1979

Amorphous

1981

Plane-polarised light optical fibre

(Hitachi)

1982

Fission track autoradiography

(AERE)

thyratron

silicon

(Nassibian et al

(RSRE & Dundee

LCD

9.

1924

Radar systems

1937

Radar aiming

(IBM)
Univ.)

Radar
(Appleton, Briet et al

anti-aircraft

guns

(Pollard)

1938

'Gee' navigation

(Dippy)

1938

Klystron

(Hahn

1939

Magnetron

(Randall

&

1940

Plan position indicator

(Bowen,

Dummer

Skiatron

(Rosenthal)

1940

'Oboe' navigation system

(Reeves

1941

Radio proximity fuse

(Butement)

1941

'H 2 S' navigation system

(Dee, Lovell et al

1942

'Velodyne' analyser

(Williams

1942

LOR AN

(MIT)

1942

Phantastron circuit

(Williams and

Moody)

1942

Sanatron time base circuit

(Williams and

Moody)

1940

&

Varian Bros)

Boot)

et al

&

et al

Uttley)

1942

Miller integrator circuit

(Blumlein)

1943

Ultrasonic radar navigation training device

(Dummer and

1945

DECCA

(O'Brien and Schwartz)

1947

Chirp technique

(Bell Labs)

1971

Hologram matrix radar

(Iizuka,

navigation system

10.

Nguyen

Speech synthesis

(Kratzenstein)

1817

The optophone

(d'Albe)

1860

Microphone, diaphragm type

(Reis)

876

Telephone

(Bell)

877

Phonograph

(Edison)

1877

Microphone, carbon

(Edison)

1877

Loudspeakers, moving coil

(Siemens)

1878

Carbon granule microphone

(Hunnings)

1887

Gramophone

(Berliner)

889

Strowger auto telephone exchange

(Strowger)

896

Telephone

(Keith et al

dial

et al

Sound Reproduction

1779

Smart)

1898

Magnetic recording (wire)

(Poulsen)

1908

Electronic organ

(Cahill)

1912

Relay auto telephone exchange

(Betulander)

1914

ASDIC

(Langevin)

1915

Acoustic mine

(Wood)

1915

SONAR

(Hunt)

1916

Crossbar telephone exchange

(Roberts and Reynolds)

1917

Microphone, condenser

(Wente)

1919

Crystal microphone

(Nicholson)

1920

Plastic

magnetic tape

(Pfleumer)

List

of Inventions by Subject

1924

Reisz carbon microphone

(Neumann)

1925

Loudspeaker, electrostatic

(Various)

1926

Films, sound-on-disc system

(Warner Bros.)

1927

Films, sound-on-film system

(Fox Movietone News)

1930s

Radiophonic sound and music

(Grainger)

1931

Stereophonic sound reproduction

(Blumlein, Bell Labs)

1933

Stereo record

(EMI)

1936

Vocoder

(Bell Labs)

1937

Pulse code modulation

(Reeves)

1948

Films: magnetic recording

(RCA

1950s

MODEM

(MIT, Bell Labs)

1950

Floppy discs (patent)

(Nakamata)

1957

Full frequency range loudspeaker

(Walker)

1958

Video tape recorder

(Ampex)

1960

Telephore electronic switching

(Bell Labs)

1961

Tape cassette

(Philips)

1964

Packet switching

(Canon)

1965

Synthesizer

(Moog

1967

Audio noise reduction system

(Dolby)

1969

PARCOR

(NTT, Japan)

1972

Video discs

(Philips)

1973

Scanning acoustic microscope

(Quate)

1974

PRESTEL

(Fedida)

1978

Lightwave powered telephone

Bell Labs)

1978

Laser recording system

(Philips)

1979

satellite

1979

Compact

1982

Camcorder

1987

DAB

1991

Very high density diskette

(Insight, P)

1995

DVD

(International)

speech synthesis

system

et al

(Bell Labs)

echo-cancelling circuit

(Philips)

disc

digital

et al

(Sony)

(Eureka 147)

audio broadcasting

(digital versatile disc)

11. Television

1884

Nipkow

1897

Cathode ray oscillograph

(Braun)

1908

Electronic system: theory

(Campbell-Swinton)

1919

Electronic system

(Zworykin)

1923

Iconoscope

(Zworykin)

1925

Mechanical system

(Baird)

1927

Cable

1929

Colour television

(Bell Labs)

1932

Scanning

(Blumlein)

1933

(Puckle)

1936

Time base circuit

Long tailed pair circuit

1938

Shadow-mask

(Flechsig)

1950

TV tube
Large screen TV projector
VIDICON TV camera tube

(RCA)
(MIT)

1939

television system

TV

(Nipkow)

(Bell Tel. Co.)

circuit

(Blumlein)

(Fischer)

1951

Image animation

1957

PLUMBICON TV

1958

Colour video recorder

(Ampex)

1965

Virtual reality

(USA

1965

Integrated photodiode arrays

(Weckler)

camera tube

(Philips)

Military)

69

70

List

of Inventions by Subject

1968

TRINITRON

1968

High

(Sony)

colour tube

TV

definition

(Nippon)

Video cassette recorders

(Japan, Europe)

1974

PRESTEL

(Fedida)

1975

VHS

970

system

(JVC)

recorder

(Sony)

1975

Betamax video recorder

1977

Pocket

1979

CCD

1980

Large screen colour display

(Mitsubishi)

1987

Compact

(JVC)

987

1988
1

995

TV

(Sinclair)

receiver

colour

TV

(Sony)

camera

disc video

Programme control of video recorders

(Matsushita)

Video Walkman

(Sony)

VHS

(Hitachi,

bit

stream recorder

12. Transistors

(See also

7.

Thomson)

and Semiconductor Devices

Microelectronics)

1917

Crystal pulling process

(Czochralski)

1930

MOS/FET

(Lilienfeld)

1935

Field effect transistor

1948

Single crystal fabrication:

1948

Transistor

(Bardeen et al

1949/50

Ion implantation

(Ohl and Shockley)

1950

PIN diode

(Niskizawa)

1950s

Thermo-compression bonding

(Anderson

1952

Zone melting technique

(Pfann)

concept

(Heil)

germanium

(Teal and Little)

)

et al

1952

Single crystal fabrication: silicon

(Teal, Bueler)

1952

Alloyed transistor

(RCA)

1953

Surface barrier transistor

(Philco)

1953

Floating zone refining process

(Keck, Emeis et al

1953

Unijunction transistor

(GEC)

1954

Transistor radio set

(Regency)

1954

Silicon solar battery

(Chapin, Fuller et al

1954

Interdigitated transistor

(Fletcher)

1955

Infra-red emission

1956

Diffusion process

(Fuller, Reis)

Semiconductor diode junction capacitor

(Giacoletto and O'Connell)

956

from GaSb

(Braunstein)

1957

Oxide masking process

(Frosch)

1958

Pedestal pulling of silicon

(Dash)

1958

Tunnel diode

1958

Technetron'

1958

Field effect varistor

959

(Esaki)

FET

(Teszner)
(Bell Labs)

Planar process

(Hoerni)

(LED)

&

1960

Light emitting diode

1960

Epitaxy (vapour phase)

1961

Epitaxy (liquid phase)

(Nelson)

1962

LED

1963

Gunn diode

(gallium arsenide phosphide)

oscillator

(Allen

Loor

Gibbons)

et al

(Holonyak)

(Gunn)

1963

Silicon-on-sapphire technology

(Various)

1964

IMPATT

(Johnston, de Loach)

1964

Transistor modelling

(Gummel)

1964

Overlay transistor

(RCA)

diode

List

of Inventions by Subject

1965

Self-scanned photodiode arrays

1966

Nitride-over-oxide semiconductors

(Horn)

1967

TRAPATT

(Prager,

1968

Amorphous semiconductor switches

(Ovshinsky)

1968

BARRITT

(Wright)

1969

Magnetic bubbles

(Bobeck, Fischer

1969

Magistor magnetic sensor

(Hudson, IBM)

(Weckler)

diode

diode

Chang

1970

Charge coupled devices

(Boyle, Smith)

1970

X-ray lithography for bubble devices

(Feder et al

1971

Carrier-domain magnetometer

(Gilbert)

1972

Auto control of

1974

CATT

1976

Amorphous

1977

FLAD

crystal

growth

Cady

et al

(RCA)

silicon solar cell

display system

Appl. Solid State Phys.)

(Inst.

1979

FLOTOX

(Intel)

1980

Magnetic avalanche

transistor

(IBM)

1980

MCZ

growth

(Sony)

1981

Hydroplaning polishing of semaiconductors

(MIT)

1982

Amorphous photosensors

(Sony)

1982

Recrystallisation silicon process

(Texas Instruments)

process

silicon crystal

13. Hibes,

Lamps,

etc

1855

Cold cathode discharge tube

(Gaugain)

1856

Low

(Geissler)

1857

Mercury

1878

Carbon filament lamp

(Swan, Stearn

1901

Fluorescent lamp

(Cooper-Hewitt)

1904

Two

1906

Three electrode tube

(de Forest)

pressure discharge tube

arc

et al

(Quantronix)

978

(Bardsley et al
(Tu,

triode

et al

Laser cold processing semiconductors

71

lamp

(Wray)
et al

(Fleming)

electrode tube

1910

Neon lamp

(Claude)

1912

Tungar

(Langmuir)

1914

Thyratron

1919

Retarded

1919

Housekeeper

1922

Negative resistance oscillater

(Gill,

1926

Screened grid tube

(Round)

1928

Pentode tube

(Tellegen; Hoist)

1931

CRO

(Rijant)

1933

Ignitron

1935

Travelling

rectifier

(Langmuir)
fieid

microwave

oscillator

(Barkhausen, Kurtz)

(Housekeeper)

seal

cardiograph

Morrell)

(Westinghouse)

wave microwave

oscillator

(Heil)

1935

Multiplier phototube

(Zworykin

1936

Cold cathode

(Bell Labs)

1937

Polar co-ordinate oscillograph

(von Ardenne et al

1938

(Flechsig)

1939

Shadow-mask tube
Double-beam oscillograph

1939

Klystron

(Hahn and Varian Bros)

1939

Magnetron

1940

Skiatron

1943

Travelling

1941

Cold cathode stepping tube

(Remington Rand)

1950

VIDICON TV camera

(USA)

trigger tube

et al

(Fleming-Williams)

(Randall and Boot)

CRO

(Rosenthal)

wave tube

(Kompfner

tube

et al

72

List

of Inventions by Subject

1956

Vapour cooling of tubes

1957

1960

PLUMBICON TV camera tube

FEMITRON microwave amplifier

1968

TRINITRON

1975

Static induction thyristor

colour tube

(Beutheret)
(Philips)

(Dyke)
(Sony)

(Nishizawa)

Chapter

Concise Description of Each Invention in Date

Order

642

COMPUTER

(Mechanical Calculating Machines)

EDITOR'S NOTE: Although

non-electronic this item

Pascal (France)

included as an essential part of computer

is

history.

The invention of

the

first

been generally credited

on the basis of

mechanical device capable of addition and subtraction

to Pascal,

letters sent to

who

Kepler

built his first

machine

The

preserved in museums.

still

number wheels by

pin gearing.

two wheels on the extreme

the

sums read through windows

number wheels were geared

in their

covers.

which were coupled

for

to the

decimal reckoning but the

had twenty and twelve divisions, respectively for sous and deniers.

right

The

carry ratchet coupled each wheel to the next higher place.

now

which

His machines had number wheels with parallel, horizontal

horizontal telephone-dial like wheels

Most of

in

who at the age of 19 had wearied of

Rouen, made a number of calculators, some

positions of these wheels could be observed and

Numbers were entered by means of

manner has

Pascal,

adding long columns of figures in his father's tax office in

axes.

in a digital

This claim has been contested

1623 and 1624 by Wilhelm Schickhardt of Tubingen,

in

the latter describes the construction of a calculator.

of which are

in 1642.

stylus-operated pocket adding machines

widely used are descendants of Pascal's machine.

SOURCE: 'The evolution of computing

IREp 1041 (May 1962)

machines and systems' by

Serrell, Astrahan, Patterson

and Pyre

Proc.

SEE ALSO:
10,

'The inventor of the

first

desk calculator' by

V P

Czapla Computers and Automation vol

p 6 (September 1961)

The Computer from Pascal

to

von

Neuman by H H

Goldstine (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press)

p 7 (1972)

The Origins of Digital Computers edited by B Randell

1672

COMPUTERS

(Berlin: Springer) (1973)

(Mechanical Calculating Machines)

W Leibniz (Germany)

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz invented the 'Leibniz Wheel' which enabled

machine which surpassed Pascal's

in that

it

him

to build a calculating

could do not only addition and subtraction fully automatically

but also multiplication and division.

SOURCE: The Computer from

Pascal to von

Neuman by H H

Goldstine (Princeton, NJ: Princeton

University Press) p 7 (1972)

SEE ALSO: The

Origins of Digital Computers edited by

Randell (Berlin: Springer) (1973)

73

A Concise

74
1729

WIRE CONDUCTOR

It

He found

was well known

Gray found

paper.

He used

that electricity

that
that

a metal ball

some

some

would flow along

when rubbed,

materials would,

such as pieces of

attract light objects

materials held the attractive charge and

some

did not.

suspended from a charged rod by means of a thin wire. This 'conducts' the charge

identified conductors (metallic substances)

SOURCE:

wires.

which thus picks up the pieces of paper.

to the ball,

Gray

S Gray (UK)

Stephen Gray (1696-1736) discovered the difference between electrical insulators and

1729,

In

conductors.

1745

Description of Each Invention in Date Order

and insulators (non-metallic substances).

British Library

CAPACITOR (LEYDEN JAR)

von Mushenbrock and Cunaeus

(Germany) and von

Kleist

(Pomerania)

was discovered almost simultaneously by Dean von

Kleist

of the Cathedral of Camin, Germany, in October 1745 and Peter von Muschenbrock, Professor

in the

According

to the literature, the

Leyden

Jar

University of Leyden, in January 1746, over 200 years ago.

or vial with inner and outer electrodes of various things

As described by them,

it

was

water, mercury, metal foil etc.

a glass

jar

The modern

miniature glass dielectric capacitor differs in form and structure from the 200-year-old Leyden Jar, but
the principle of operation

SOURCE:
IRE

is

the same.

and future developments of electronic components' by P S Darnell

'History, present status

Trans, on

Component Parts p 127/8 (September 1958)

SEE ALSO: Janus C Dorsman

and

C A Crommelin,

'Observations on the manner in which glass

R. Soc.

vol 77, p

is

vol 46, p

274 (1957)

charged with electric

fluid'

by E

Gray

Phil.

Trans.

407 (1788)

'Residual charge of the Leyden jar-dielectric properties of various glasses' by

Phil.

Mag.

moulded and

fired.

Hopkinson

Part 5, vol 4, p 141 (1877)

1772

IRON DUST CORES

Iron dust cores consisted of iron filings churned in water,

They were used

in a

Navy compass.

Knight (UK)

bound with linseed

oil,

Apparently, Knight was a secretive person and details of his

process were not actually published before 1779.

SOURCE:

Note from British Science Museum.

SEE ALSO:
B Wilson
1

779

'The early history of the permanent magnet' by Andrade Endeavour p 27 (January 1958)

Phil.

Trans, vol 69, p 51 (1779) (giving details of the process).

SPEECH SYNTHESIS
One of

the earliest

Kratzenstein (Russia)

documented attempts

at

speech synthesis was made

in

called Kratzenstein constructed a set of five acoustic resonantors which,

reed,
a

1779 when a Russian

when

scientist

activated by a vibrating

produced imitations of the vowels. In 1791 Wolfgang Von Kemplen, a Hungarian, constructed

more elaborate machine which could be made

a large bellows

tube (resonator).

much more

which supplied

stream of

to

air to a

speak whole words and phrases.

It

consisted of

reed which, in turn, excited a hand-held rubber

Extra tubes and whistles were added to imitate the nasal and fricative sounds.

recent mechanical speech synthesiser

the speech articulators

was constructed by Reisz

was simulated by pressing keys

to vary the

in

1937.

The motion of

shape of mechanical vocal

tract.

It

could produce connected speech when operated by a skilled person.

SOURCE:

Signal Processing of Speech by F

Owens

(Basingstoke: MacMillan

New

Electronics) p 88

(1993)

NOTE: A comprehensive

history of speech synthesis

may be found

in the

book by Linggard (1985).

A Concise
1780

Description of Each Invention in Date Order

GALVANIC ACTION

Galvani

75

(Italy)

Luigi Galvani began his studies on the subject of animal electricity in

When

1780.

performing

experiments on nervous excitability in frogs, he saw that violent muscle contractions could be observed
if

lumbar nerves of the frog were touched with metal instruments

the

presence of distant electrical

in the

discharges.

The word

'electricity'

von Humboldt

was reserved

word 'Galvanism' was proposed by

for static electricity and the

for direct (continuous) current.

SOURCE: 'From

torpedo to telemetry' by

& Power

Hill Electronics

pp

10-1

(27

November

1975)

1800

DRY BATTERY

Volta (1800),

Zamboni
Volta' s invention of the electric battery

was announced

of the Royal Society and described his 'Volta's

by a moistened cloth

These were

electrolyte.

manganese dioxide on

Pile'

later

in a letter to Sir

De Luc

(1809)

and

(1812) (Italy)

Joseph Banks, the President

consisting of copper and zinc discs separated

improved

the other, stacked to produce 0.75

to consist

between

of paper discs tinned one side.

in

diameter discs.

Note by Science Museum, London:

Scyffer described experiments with dry cells carried out by Ludicke (1801) Einhof, Ritter (1802)

Hachette and Desornes, Biot and

to

his

many

have been achieved by De Luc

paper was entitled:

analisi

1800

de

in 1809.

the best performance before

Zamboni (1812) himself ascribed

priority to

Zamboni

De Luc

since

'Descrizione della colonna elettrica del Signore de Luc e considerazione

Fatta della pile Voltiana'.

lui

and ascribes the

others. Scyffer regarded these as experimental

Marechaux but considered

effective pile to Behrens and to

first

Work on

early dry batteries was, therefore,

sull

done from about

to 1812.

SOURCE:

'On the

Phil. Trans,

electricity excited

vol 90, p

SEE ALSO: A

by the mere contact of conducting substances of different kinds'

403 (1800)

Biographical Dictionary of Scientists by

Williams p 535 (London:

Adam

and Charles

Black) (1969) (Volta)

Scyffer Geschichtliche Dartellung der Galvanisms pp 135-48 (1848)

1800

W Herschel (UK)

INFRA-RED RADIATION

William Herschel, during research into the heating effects of the visible spectrum, discovered

In 1800,
that the

maximum

concluded

heating was not within the visible spectrum but just beyond the red range. Herschel

sun emits certain invisible ones. These he called infra-red

that in addition to visible rays the

rays.

SOURCE:

Electronics Engineer's Reference

Book (London:

Newnes-Butterworth) chapter

4,

p 4-2

(1976)

1801

ULTRA-VIOLET RADIATION
In 1801 the

German

physicist Ritter

with silver chloride and placed

a prism. After a while he

most

just

beyond

SOURCE:

it

made

a further discovery.

on top of

a visible

examined the paper

Electronics Engineer's Reference

He

took a sheet of paper freshly coated

spectrum produced from sunlight falling through

in bright light.

the violet range of the spectrum.

W Ritter (Germany)

These

It

was blackened, and

it

was blackened

invisible rays Ritter called ultra-violet rays.

Book (London:

Newnes-Butterworth) chapter

4,

p 4-2

(1976)

1803

ACCUMULATOR
Ritter's charging or

W Ritter (Germany)

secondary pile consists of but one metal, the discs of which are separated by circular

pieces of cloth, flannel or cardboard, moistened in a liquid which cannot chemically affect the metal.

A Concise Description of Each

76

When

the extremities are put in

Invention in Date Order

communication with the poles of an ordinary

and can be substituted for the

electrified

SOURCE:

and

latter

it

voltaic pile

becomes

it

will retain the charge.

&

Biographical History of Electricity and Magnetism by Mottelay (London: Charles Griffin

Co) p 381 (1922)

1808

ATOMIC THEORY

Dalton (UK)

Dalton conceived the idea that the atoms of different elements were distinguished by differences in

particles of matter called

All

propounded the theory

In 1808, he

their weights.

atoms and

atoms of one element, he

The atom of hydrogen was

were compared with

said,

chemical elements are composed of minute

that all

atoms, as the

that these

name

implies, cannot be cut

up any

further.

were alike but atoms of different elements had different weights.

the lightest

atom (1.66 x 10~ 24 of

gram) and the weights of

other atoms

all

it.

SOURCE: New

System of Chemical Philosophy by

SEE ALSO: A

Biographical Dictionary of Scientists by

Dalton (1808)

Adam

Williams (London:

and Charles

Black) p 128 (1969)

1812

UNIVERSAL ELECTRONIC CALCULATOR

C Babbage (UK)

(DIFFERENCE ENGINE)
Charles Babbage (1791-1871)

and print mathematical tables

first

conceived the idea of an advanced calculation engine

wanted

in 1812, as he

to

eleminate

all

with compiling mathematical tables by hand. The engine was built

Joseph Liement, a skilled toolmaker and draughtsman.

a

number represented by

the position of toothed wheels

of Charles Babbage's Difference Engine

SOURCE: The
1812

was

was

in that

year (1812) that

the objective

first

was

development was

SOURCE:

'cable'

Sommering and

in

was

front detail

(See also entry of 1833.)

(SCM/CCM/C1001

&

Schilling

1ZH).

(Germany)

submarine telegraphy.

feasibility of

For

at

least another

in a

Curiously

sense a power cable as

50 years, however,

practically

all

be concerned with telegraphy.

by S

E Goodall

Proc.

1EE

vol 106, Part B,

E E
is

1832 by

used for insulating wire, following a suggestion made

1795 concerning the

OPTOPHONE
Stroud, Limited,

in

the value of

marked with decimal numbers. The

developed by Sommering and Schilling was

'Electric cables'

The instrument

Schilling conducted a series of experiments in which a

first

the detonation of mines.

to

1824 and assembled

Sommering

by a Spaniard, named Salva,

this

in

decimal digital machine

Science Museum/Science and Society Picture Library

soluble material, said to be indiarubber,

enough,

in figure 11.1.

CABLE INSULATION
It

1817

shown

is

It

to calculate

the sources of inaccuracy associated

the invention of

Glasgow

No

25, p

(January 1959)

Fournier d'AIbe (UK)

Dr E E Fournier d'AIbe, and has been developed by Messrs Barr

(see figure 11.2).

It

of selenium, a chemical element (discovered

depends

in

for

its

action

upon

a very

&

remarkable property

1817 by the Swedish chemist Berzelius) which,

in its

grey crystalline form varies greatly in electrical conductivity in accordance with the amount of light to

which

it is

exposed, though the resistance

is

always high.

Instruments can therefore be constructed that can detect pulsations of light of periods corresponding to
those of the vibrations in audible sounds.
a battery

properly prepared selenium bridge connected in series with

and a telephone receiver and exposed to illumination and eclipse alternating some hundreds

of times per second, causes corresponding pulsations of current through the telephone, and produces
audible sound of corresponding pitch and quality.

SOURCE: The

British Encyclopaedia vol 7, p

498 (Gotham Press) (1933)

A Concise

Figure 11.1. Front

detail

Description of Each Invention in Date Order

of Charles Babbage's difference engine (The Science

Picture Library).

Optophone

tn uie

Figure 11.2. The Optophone.

Museum/ Science

77

&

Society

A Concise

78
1820

Description of Each Invention in Date Order

ELECTROMAGNETISM
In

HC

(Galvanometer)

Oersted (Denmark)

1820, Oersted reported the discovery of electromagnetism, and this led him to develop the

galvanometers.

was John Schweigger who constructed

It

the

(1828) an Italian physicist, developed a sensitive astatic galvanometer and compared

that

first

moving-coil instrument and Nobilli

first

sensitivity with

its

of the most sensitive galvanometers then available.

SOURCE: 'From
SEE ALSO:

torpedo to telemetry' by

Hill Electronics

& Power pill

(27

November 1975)

'Experiments on the effect of a current of electricity on the magnetic needles' by

H C

Oersted Annals of Philosophy vol 16, p 273 (1820)

1821

THERMOELECTRICITY
The discovery of
although there

Cummings

is

thermoelectricity

some evidence

is

J Seebeck (Germany)

usually attributed to Professor

that he

Seebeck of Berlin

might have been anticipated by Dessaignes

of Cambridge also discovered the effect independently and published his findings

Following Seebeck's work,

C A

Pettier

completed Seebeck's discovery by showing

in

1821,

Professor

in 1815.

in

1823.

that the passage

of electricity through a junction of two different metals (antimony and copper) could produce a rise in

temperature

at the

junction

when passing

in

one direction and

drop

in

temperature when passing in

the contrary direction.

The

introduction of the

first

successful thermopile in the sense of an array of thermocouples (analogous

to the galvanic pile) is attributed to Nobilli. Nobilli's thermopile

SOURCE:
1828

Note from British Science Museum, London

(1st

was subsequently improved by Melloni.

and 3rd paragraphs), author (2nd paragraph)

FOURIER ANALYSIS

J-B-J Fourier (France)

Jean-Baptiste-Joseph Fourier laid the basis for the analysis of complicated waveforms more than 150
years ago

when he showed

Scientists

and engineers have learned

that

provides great insight into the

any waveform

way

is

the

sum

of single-frequency, or sinusoidal, components.

that looking at the

frequency spectrum of a signal's components

The

signals behave with time.

analysis

is

possible only with a

powerful Fourier transform, which maps a time-varying signal into the frequency domain and thus
causes the spectral distribution of

its

sinusoidal

components

to

become

visible.

See figure

1.3.

2000

1500 -

Discrete Fourier

transform

1000 -

500

20

Number

of

30
samples

Figure 11.3. Fourier analysis.

Since the Fourier transform requires evaluation of the integral of the input waveform,

performed exactly on a waveshape with a known equation. But

too

complex

to

in real life,

it

can only be

most waveforms are

far

be readily defined. The discrete Fourier transform, however, approximates the actual

transform by sampling the waveform and operating on each point.

It

can therefore be computed

digitally.

A Concise
but the numbers of operations

it

requires

Description of Each Invention

so huge

is

Date Order

in

number samples

the square of the

79

even a

that

reasonable approximation taxes the largest computers.

In 1942, a

method was devised

was before

the days of high-speed digital computers and

for reducing the

number of operations from

few people cared

N\nN

to

but as this

DFT

through the

to grind

by hand, the work of Danielson and Lanczos lay dormant for nearly twenty years.

Then
J

1960s interest

in the early

came

be known as the

to

fast

Fourier transform again picked up.

in the

Cooley on the development of

a transform algorithm suitable for the

the graph shows, the difference in the

enormously

SOURCE:
1826

that requires

N\nN

number of operations required

'The ubiquitous FET' by

R Capace

Electronics (16

the

Department of Mathematics and Physics

the law bearing his

and the FFT grows

Ohm

at the

(Germany)

Polytechnic Institute of Cologne

name.

E = IR

R =

E
-

E
= -

SEE ALSO: Die

DFT

March 1978)

was Head of

Galvinische Kette Mathemalisch Gearbeitet by

Ohm

(Berlin: Springer) (1827)

1828

MOVING COIL GALVANOMETER

J Schweigger (Germany)

1828

ASTATIC GALVANOMETER

C L

Nobilli (Italy)

him

In 1820, Oersted reported the discovery of electromagnetism, and this led

galvanometers.

It

was John Schweigger who constructed

the

torpedo to telemetry' by

SEE ALSO: 'Comparison

entre

les

W Hill

& Power

Electronics

deux galvanometres

les

plus

pp

its

(27

sensibles,

multiplicateur a deux aiguilles, suivie de quelques resultats nouveaux' by

sensitivity with

C L

la

November 1975)
grenouille

et

le

Nobilli Chim. et Pins.

pp 256-8 RS( 1828)

vol 43,

ELECTROMAGNETIC INDUCTION
SELF INDUCTION

(see also
In 1831

the iron ring

was

on the opposite side of the ring was

current. Thus,

SOURCE: A

Faraday (UK)

1832)

Faraday wound an iron ring with two

the primary vibration

coil

first

most sensitive galvanometers then available

SOURCE: 'From

1831

develop the

to

moving-coil instruments and Nobilli

first

(1828) an Italian physicist, developed a sensitive astatic galvanometer and compared

that of the

As

referred to as the FFT.

is

for the

numbers of samples.

for large

when he discovered

Tukey worked with

computer, and the result

variations exist on the original

operations

OHM'S LAW
Ohm

many

Fourier transform. Today, though

Cooley-Tukey algorithm, any transform

coils: one,

connected to a voltaic battery, was

to concentrate the lateral vibrations

to convert these

from

this

to create

and

another

secondary vibrations into another electric

on 29 August 1831, Faraday discovered electromagnetic induction.

Biographical Dictionary of Scientists by

Williams (London:

Adam

and Charles Black)

(1969)p 174

1831

TRANSFORMER
A

Faraday (UK)

contrivance was used by Michael Faraday in his experiments on electromagnetic induction.

device
'Expts.

is

described

in his diary

on the production of Electricity from Magnetism,

iron) iron

round and 7/8 inch thick and ring 6 inches

wire round one half, the coil

is

This

under the date of 29 August 1831:

etc.

etc.

Have had an

in external diameter.

iron ring

Wound many

made

coils of

(soft

copper

being separated by twine and calico there were three lengths of wire

A Concise Description of Each

80

each about 24

Invention in Date Order

By

long and they could be connected as one length or used as separate lengths.

feet

with a trough each was insulated from the other. Will

separated by an interval was

wound

On

of the ring A.

call this side

trial

the other side but

wire in two pieces together amounting to about 60 feet in length,

the direction being as with the former coils: this side call B.

Charges a battery of 10

pr.

plates

4 inches square. Made the

on

coil

one

side

and connected

coil

its

extremities by a copper wire passing to a distance and just over a magnetic needle (3 feet from iron
ring).

effort

Then connected
on needle.

the ends of

oscillated

It

one of the pieces on

and settled

side with battery; immediately a sensible

On

at last in original position.

breaking connection of

side

with battery again a disturbance of the needle.

Made
much

on

the wires

all

from battery through the whole. Effect on needle

side one coil and sent current

stronger than before'.

multi winding transformer and a transformer experiment are described

by these words of Faraday's.

SOURCE:

'History, present status and future developments of electronic components' by

IRE

on Component Parts p 125 (September 1958)

Trans,

SEE ALSO: Faraday's

& Co) pp52^t (1949)

Discovery of Electromagnetic Induction by

P S Darnell

Martine (London: Edward Arnold

Note by British Science Museum:

'The word 'transformer' was
rotating
first

first

used

two

to link

electric circuits

power appears

by a magnetic

No

be Jablochkoff's patent

to

really the first practical 'transformer'

1832

in the electrical

machines (motor generators). Previous

and

it

sense

circuit.

The

Henry

is

reported to have discovered the

to publish, priority

REFERENCE:

was given

to

Joseph Henry by

SEE ALSO: A

May

1877).

This was

'

which had existed since 1831.'

Henry (USA)

1831)

phenomenom

Michael Faraday

transformers and

earliest application of the device to transfer

utilized a piece of apparatus

ELECTROMAGNETIC INDUCTION

static

had been used. Faraday was the

1996 (date of application 22

SELF INDUCTION
(see

1883 for both

in

to this 'induction coil'

to

of self induction

1830

in

but,

through his failure

Henry's great mortification.

Coulson (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press) (1950)

Biographical Dictionary of Scientists by

Adam

Williams (London:

and Charles

Black) (1969)p 250

1832

FIVE-NEEDLE TELEGRAPH SYSTEM

In 1832,

Baron Schilling demonstrated

Schilling

a telegraph using five

system of

SOURCE:
1833

Cooke (1808-70) saw

was so

in 1836.

In that

same

year, William

inspired that he determined to invent

British Library

C Babbage (UK)

(Calculating Machines)

1833 Babbage conceived his analytical engine, the

He worked on
a

& UK)

own.

his

COMPUTER
In

Schilling's telegraph, and

Cooke (Russia

magnetic needles. Had Schilling not died,

he might have installed a system for Emperor Nicholas of Russia

Fothergill

&

it

with his

modern general purpose

The memory was

to hold

own money
digital

until his

first

1000 words of 50

form of

the elements of

digits each, all in counting wheels. Control

cards.

The very important

calculation according to the intermediate results obtained

in the

all

computer, namely: memory, control, arithmetic unit and input/output.

means of sequences of Jacquard punched

be incorporated

design for a universal automatic calculator.

death in 1871. Babbage's design had

now

ability to

was

called conditional branching

a procedure for slipping forward or

backward

to

be by

modify the course of a

a specified

was

to

number of

cards.
1

Jablochkoff's patent covered a lighting system which includes a mention of a transformer transferring power supply to a

number of lumps

A Concise

SOURCE: The

Description of Each Invention

Date Order

in

81

evolution of computing machines and systems' by Serrell, Astrahan, Patterson and

Pyne Prog. IRE p 1042 (May 1962)

SEE ALSO: The Computer from

Pascal

Neuman by H H

von

to

Goldstine (Princeton, NJ: Princeton

University Press) p 10 (1972)

'On the mathematical powers of the calculating engine' by Charles Babbage, 26 December 1837

(in

Randell's book p 17)

1834

ELECTROLYSIS
Faraday announced his two laws of electrolysis

amount of

required; for a given

1834 which made explicit the amount of force

in

electrical force,

chemical substances

equivalent were released at the electrodes of an electrochemical

was

electrical force acting

SOURCE: A

on the molecular

Faraday (UK)

in the ratio of their

chemical

put another way, chemical affinity

cell,

level.

Biographical Dictionary of Scientists by

Adam

Williams (London:

and Charles Black)

p 175 (1969)

1837

RELAYS

F Cooke, C Wheatstone and E

Davy (UK)

Telegraph Bell Relay

Telegraph Signal Relay

The

first

was taken out by Edward Davy

patent

No

1838 (British Patent

in

7719) i claim the mode

of making telegraph signals or communications from one distant place to another by employement of

No 7390)

relays of metallic circuits brought into operation by electric currents'. In 1837 (British Patent

Cooke and Wheatstone described an electromagnetic

sound an alarm

distant station into action to

relay device for bringing a local battery at the

bell there,

However, Davy was described by Fakie as

working on telegraphy as early as 1836 and entered an opposition

application for a patent, but the patent

(US Patent No 1647) which

SOURCE: Note
SEE ALSO: A

1837

granted.

Morse

in the

Dictionary of Scientists by

in the

Year 1837 by

credited with a patent in 1840

Williams (London:

Fakie (London, 1884)

Adam

and Charles Black) (Sir

Cooke) p 114 (1969)

TELEGRAPHY MORSE CODE

of Samuel

B Morse

develop the

to

electrical

B Morse (USA)

electrical telegraph principles,

1837-38 and put

it

with Washington

DC,

telecommunications.

into practice in 1844, after he obtained a

a distance

It

met

a real

SOURCE:

'Telecommunications

resume' by

Everitt Proc.

This was the

communications and spread

fast

first

No

9, p

system

his

in

connect Baltimore

to

development of

practical

the resource not depleted by use.

vol 64,

took the genius

demonstrated

first

need for

ELECTRIC MOTOR
earliest

He

government grant

of 37 miles.

IEEE

it

hardware and also recognise the essential elements for

a simple code adaptable to his on-off (binary) telegraph system.

The

is

by British Science Museum, London.

While Cooke and Wheatstone of England had proposed

1837

Cooke and Wheatstone's 1837

to

USA

apparently similar to Davy's patent.

History of Electric Telegraphy

A Biographical
Fothergill

is

was

electrical

rapidly.

and philosophical

historical

1293 (September 1976)

T Davenport (USA)

known examples of a patent for an electric motor is US

Thomas Davenport, of Brandon, Vermont, entitled:

February 1837 to

Patent

No

132 granted on 25

improvements

in

Propelling

Machinery by Magnetism and Electromagnetism'.

According

to the description contained in the specification, the motor,

by a 'galvanic battery',

is

which

constructed on sound electromagnetic principles.

is

intended to be driven

A Concise Description of Each

82

SOURCE:

Invention in Date Order

Patents for Engineers by

L H A Carr and

C Wood

Chapman and

(London:

Hall) p 87

(1959)

1839

MICROFILMING

Dancer (UK)

Shortly after the publication of Daguerre's invention of making photographs in

England photographs of documents of strongly reduced

The knowledge of

to store

839, Dancer produced in

prompted

the possibility to produce reduced-size photographs

astronomer John Herschel to suggest,

mm.

having a side length of about 3

size (1:160)

documents of general concern

1835 the English

in

reference works) in a

(e.g.

reduced form, provided the reduction does not involve any hazard for the original documents. The same
idea

was advanced

beginning of

at the

SOURCE: 'A brief

No 1, p4 (1976)
1839

BATTERY

century by

this

many

old handwritings or prints accessible to

members of

review on microfilming' by

historial

Scharffenberg and

(Magnetohydrodynamic)

The idea of producing

electricity

was proposed by Faraday

electromotive force

pumps and

is

in

839.

produced

from a moving

conducting

at right

a Belgian library, in order to

make

people. Unfortunately, this idea has never materialized.

which

fluid,

fluid is

angles to the

Wendell Jena Review

Faraday (UK)

MHD

the basis of an

is

passed between the poles of

field.

This principle

is

generator,

magnet and an

also used in electromagnetic

induction flow meters for conducting fluids. In recent proposals by Kantrowitz and Spron

(1959) the working fluid

is

a conducting gas at high temperatures.

The gas moving

at a

high velocity

is

passed through a magnetic field at right angles to the direction of florid electrodes placed on opposite
sides of the channel extract the

SOURCE:

power and

are connected to the external load.

'The magnetohydrodynamic generation of power' by

AEI Engineering p 62

Phillips

(March/April 1964)

SEE ALSO:

Experimental Researches

'Application of the

MHD

by

in Electricity

concept to large scale generation of electric power' by

Sporn (American Electric Power Service Corsoration and

839

Faraday (London, 1839)

AVCO

PHOTOVOLTAIC EFFECT
The photovoltaic
Smith

first

was discovered by Edmond Becquerel

effect

photoemissive effect of ultraviolet

SOURCE:

light

Kontrowitz and P

Becquerel (France)

as early as 1839.

observed the photoconductivity of selenium. In 1887,

Research Laboratory) (1959)

finally,

Willoughby

In 1873,

Heinrich Hertz described the

on metal electrodes.

'Beam-deflection and photo devices' by

Schlesinger and

Ramberg

IRE

Proc.

p 991

(May 1962)

SEE ALSO: 'On

Paris vol

9,

'Effect of light
5,

839?

electric effects

under the influence of solar radiation' by E Becquerel C.

Acad.

Sci.

J. Sci.

vol

p 561 (1839)

on selenium during the passage of an

electric current'

by

W Smith American

p 301 (1873)

BATTERY
The

W R Grove (UK)

(Fuel Cell)

fuel cell principle

that

the conversion of chemical energy to electric energy by a path that

is,

can avoid the thermodynamic limitation on efficiency imposed by the Carnot relation
scientists

the

first

produce

same

and engineers for more than a century.

fuel cell.

electricity.

catalyst,

He used
It

is

Langer made

has intrigued

1839-42, Sir William Grove probably invented

platinum-catalyzed electrodes to combine hydrogen and oxygen so as to

interesting to note that almost 123 years later the

though probably

that its voltage fell off

In

badly

in different

physical form.

when an appreciable

hydrogen-oxygen

cell

One major

current drain

was

Gemini

fuel cell

used the

trouble with Grove's cell

was

Mond

and

put

on

it.

In

1889,

with perforated platinum-sheet electrodes, catalysed by platinum

black. This cell produced 1.46 watts at 0.73 volt at about 50 percent efficiency.

However,

it

contained

A Concise Description of Each

Invention in Date Order

grams of platinum and required pure hydrogen and oxygen. Thus,

1.3

buy

In addition, to complicate things,

as an electric generator.

it

capital cost

its

83

made

it

poor

ran well only on pure hydrogen and

oxygen.

SOURCE:

'Hydrocarbon-air fuel

SEE ALSO: 'On

voltaic series in

C G

systems' by

cell

Peattie

IEEE Spectrum p 69

combination of gases by platinum' by

(June 1966)

W R Grove Phil.

Mag.

vol 14,

p 127 (1839)

'On a gaseous voltaic battery' by

NOTE. The
in

R Grove

Mag.

Phil.

principle of electrochemical fuel cells

is

by no means new,

1839 by Sir William Grove. This was a hydrogen

fuel

fuel cell

was

a 5 kilowatt unit

employed hydrogen-oxygen
development of

the

Pratt

&

this cell

in

at a

development

'Fuel cells and their

a modified version

UK' by

in the

first

Bacon, and

and sintered nickel electrodes. Rights

were obtained by Leesona-Moos Laboratories

from NRDC and

The

very small current.

1959 by the English engineer, F

fuel with an alkaline electrolyte

Whitney Aircraft Corp.

SOURCE:

demonstrated

was described

in fact the first cell

device with a sulphuric acid electrolyte and

blacked platinum electrodes, generating approximately one volt

power

417 (1842)

vol 21, p

was used

to

a research subsidiary of
in the

Apollo spacecraft.

Mitchell Design Electronics p 34

(February 1966)

1840

THERMOGRAPHY

J Herschel (UK)

William Herschel's famous experiment with thermometers and a prism

Sir

in

1800 showed the existence

of energy beyond the red end of the visible spectrum. As long ago as 1840 his son John demonstrated
thermal imaging and saw images in the dark.

Considering the sophisticated techniques

in

use today,

John Herschel's methods were both embarrassingly simple and successful. He took a blackened sheet
of paper, soaked

it

and focused radiation from a hot source onto the sheet. The infra-red

in alcohol

radiation selectively heated parts of the paper, evaporating the alcohol and lightening

its

colour to form

an image.
Variations on this

theme took place over

the next 100 years but not until 1940, with the pressing need

for military systems with real-time infra-red tracking,

detectors, amplifiers, signal processing

infra-red systems can

now produce
all

significant progress

made. Since then optics,

to the extent that

high-performance

television-quality pictures of a scene (at several kilometres' distance)

which contains temperature differences of only

resolution and frame time have

was

and displays have improved

a fraction of a degree.

Thermal resolution, angular

been improved by a factor of ten or greater, representing an overall

performance improvement of three or more decades.

SOURCE:

infra-red imaging systems' by

Blackburn Systems Technology (Plessey)

No

26, p 15 (June

1977)

843

WHEATSTONE BRIDGE
Wheatstone described

C Wheatstone (UK)

his bridge circuit

comprehensive paper on

electric

would have merited publication

which

it

which he

called the 'differential resistance measurer'

measurements presented
in Proc.

Royal Society

to the

in

IEE, had there been such a journal then, for the

presented solutions to electrical-engineering problems.

of electromotive force, current strength and resistance

at

The problems were

a time

the

in a

That paper

1843.

way

in

measurement

when galvanometers were

unstable

instruments and there was no sound method of calibrating them. Wheatstone found the theoretical basis
for solving these

there

The

was

problems

a simple

in

an obscure

German

publication of 1827 in which

Ohm

showed

that

mathematical relationship linking e.m.f. current and resistance.

basis of Wheatstone's

method of measurements

is

the use of a calibrated variable resistance to keep

the current constant and so avoid any need for calibration of the galvanometers

Wheatstone remarked

to make
'rheostat')
Ohm's work showed that the resistance of a conductor of uniform section was proportional to
length. He showed how to determine the value of an unknown resistance by a simple substitution

that

it

was easy

a calibrated variable resistance (for

which he devised the term

because
its

method. The unknown resistance

is

included in a circuit with a galvanometer whose reading

is

noted

A Concise Description of Each

84

Invention in Date Order

and then replaced by a rheostat which

The

on the rheostat gives

scale

SOURCE:

is

adjusted so that the galvanometer reading

is

unknown

resistance and hence the value of the

its

B P Bowers

'Wheatstone's contribution to electrical engineering' by

same

the

as before.

resistance.

Electronics

& Power

p 295 (May 1976)

1843

FACSIMILE REPRODUCTION
For the purpose of

review facsimile

this

is

Bain (UK)

considered to be a method by which printed, handwritten

and graphic data may be transmitted over communication channels and received
copy.

Its

when

origin dates back to 1843,

form of

in the

a hard

the Scottish inventor Alexander Bain patented an 'automatic

came Frederick Bakewell's

electrochemical recording telegraph'. Next

cylinder and screw arrangement

on which many of the present-day facsimile systems are based.

In

Europe facsimile equipment has been commercially available since 1946,

technology advances

electronics and

in

the

drastic

fall

in

recent years the

In

semiconductor prices have led

to

the

replacement of bulky separate facsimile transmitters and receivers by small transceivers

SOURCE:
vol 46, No
1845

'Facsimile

by

a review'

Malster and

Bowden The Radio and

METALLIC SHEATHING OF CABLES

The

earliest attempts at metallic sheathing

around the cable core and then joined

interesting similarity to a

it

modern method

C
were made

in

end and subsequently sinking the pipe

Wheatstone (UK)

in

who

1845 by Wheatstone,

with a longitudinal soldered seam.

which aluminium sheathing

The method was superseded by one which involved

strip.

Electronic Engineer

2 p 55 (February 1976)

soldering 50

into contact with the cable core

is

ft.

folded lead strip

This method bears an

applied using pre-formed

lengths of lead pipe end to

by means of a

die.

This again

has an interesting parallel in a present day method for aluminium sheathing.

In

1879 the

direct extrusion

first

pre-heated to 120 C.
possible thermal

It

on

was made from

to cable

was not then considered good

damage

to the insulation, so the process

of lead sheathed cable has since gone hand

in

Different types of press have been designed to

which technique
as

will ultimately

is

was limited

to a

one

billet

Development

charge.

overcome defects experienced with cable

By

in service but

contrast, the present

proceeding along three different lines and

it

development

hard to predict

is

prove most successful. The greater difficulty of extruding aluminium

compared with lead has undoubtedly favoured

SOURCE: The

billets

hand with the development of the lead extrusion process.

extrusion in one form or another has been universally adopted.

of aluminium sheathing processes

hollow

a Borel press using solid

practice to recharge with molten lead because of

metallic sheathing of cables' by

this

AV

more varied approach.

Garner AEI Engineering p 248 (September/October

1962)

1845

CIRCUITS KIRCHOFF'S LAWS

Two

laws that express the behaviour of an electrical network.

circuits,

1st

law:

In

Kirchhoff (Germany)
1845 he gave the laws for closed

extending these to general networks (1847) and to solid conductors (1848)

The

total current arriving at

2nd law: The sum of

drops around the

1847

GR

any point

in

an electric network must be zero.

the electromotive forces around any closed circuit

is

equal to the

of the IR

W Siemens (Germany)

SUBMARINE CABLE INSULATION

Telegraphic instruments had been developed, notably by Schilling, Morse and

for the transmission of signals over land lines;

Royal Society of Arts

in

London by Dr Montgomerie

properties of gutta percha, especially

Cooke and Wheatstone,

and a suitable material for insulating the conductor had

already been introduced into Europe. This was gutta percha, the
at the

sum

circuit.

when immersed

in

gum from
1843.

in sea water,

The

Malayan

electrical

were such

that

it

tree,

exhibited

and mechanical
had no

rival for

A Concise
over 70 years as an insulant

formed

in

1845-6

to exploit

Description of Each Invention

85

Moreover, the Gutta Percha Company had been

submarine cables.

in

Date Order

in

use, and primitive extruders had been constructed for the production of

its

rods and tubes.

many

Before 1849,

attempts had been

made

underground

to find a suitable insulant or protection for

and underwater cables, including tarred rope, glass tubes,

impregnated cotton and rubber,

split rattan,

but none of these lasted long in the sea. In 1847 Werner Siemens used gutta percha for an underground
line in

In

Germany, and some was

America

in the

same

1848 for the purpose of detonating mines.

laid in the Port of Kiel in

Armstrong experimented with gutta percha covered wire

year,

River, where Ezra Cornell had previously connected Fort Lee with

which worked

847

p4

is

J Joule (UK)

well-known phenomenon

altered as the magnetisation

dimension

as the

Hudson

Story of the Submarine Cable booklet published by Submarine Cables Limited (AEI,

Magnetostriction
is

in the

a rubber insulated line

(1960)

MAGNETOSTRICTION
material

York by

for several months.

SOURCE: The
London)

New

changed.

is

is

varied,

which the mechanical dimension of

in

and

in

Thus, an alternating current applied through a

specimen can induce mechanical vibrations

in

specimen can transform the mechanical energy

set

up

energy in a coil wound around

into electrical

magnetic
altered

is

wrapped around

coil

and alternately, mechanical vibrations

it;

which, conversely, the magnetisation

in

such a

Electro-

it.

mechanical interactions were observed as early as 1847 with Joules discovery of magnetostriction.

SOURCE:

'Solid state devices other than semiconductors'

by B Lax and

Mavroides Proc. IRE

p 1014 (May 1962)

SEE ALSO: 'On

Mag.
1848

vol 30, p

the effects of

226

magnetism on

BOOLEAN ALGEBRA
Formal

logic, so necessary for the

workings of

mathematically before George Boole.

logic.

digital

With the theories expounded

very simple algebraic systems.

algebra and has only

of

this binary

SOURCE:
1850

steel bars' J

P Joule

Phil.

or

computers could not be

answer

in

Laws of Thought',

in these writings,

X2 X

The equation

as an

Boole (UK)
satisfactorily explained

1848 the English logician published 'The Mathematical

In

Analysis of Logic' and in 1854 'An Investigation of the

now symbolic

and

the dimensions of iron

(April 1847)

for every

it

the foundation of

was possible
system

in the

what

is

to express logic in

is

basic to Boolean

numerical terms. Thus modern computers can make use

system, with their logic parts carrying out binary operations.

Electronics p 69 (17 April 1980)

THERMISTOR
The temperature-sensitive non-linear

resistors are

the Bell Telephone Laboratories (of the

known

USA). They

Faraday (UK)

generally as thermistors, a

are,

name coined by

however, over 100 years old, for Faraday

discovered that silver sulphide possessed a high negative temperature coefficient (although
the conduction

is

ionic and not electronic, and the material therefore suffers

Uranium oxide was used

A magnesium

in

Germany, but with

titanate spinet

was introduced

this

in

to possess negative temperature characteristics.

devoted many years of intensive research

to the

The

is

also ionic and operation

USA

From 1930 onwards

problem and showed

and nickel had valuable properties, They also found

nickel varied these properties

conduction

1923, and in the

unstable.

Telephone Laboratories

combined oxides of manganese

that varying the ratio

effects of adding small

is

case

effects).

about 1912, boron was found

the Bell

that

in this

from polarisation

between the manganese and

amounts of copper, cobalt and iron were also

investigated.

Today, these oxides, treated to become uniphase, are

in general use,

and are made into beads, rods,

blocks, etc.

SOURCE:

Affixed Resistors 2nd edition by

A Dummer

(London: Pitman) p 147 (1967)

A Concise

86
1851

Description of Each Invention

in

Date Order

RELATION BETWEEN THEORY OF MAGNETISM

AND ELECTRICITY
Introduced for the

first

time the vectors

Lord Kelvin (UK)

termed magnetic induction and magnetic force by Maxwell.

later

In a fundamental papers he derived a result expressing the energy of a system of

temporary magnets

SOURCE: A

in

permanent and

terms of a volume integral throughout space.

Biographical Dictionary of Scientists by

Adam

Williams (London:

and Charles Black)

p 512 (1969)

1852

THIN FILMS

W R Grove (UK)

(Sputtering Process)

Although the use of cathodic sputtering as

evaporation by
evaporation

is

some cases

SOURCE:

many

vacuum

for the deposition of thin films predates

been received

more widespread application because

far

materials and generally gives high deposition rates. In recent

has been found that certain materials are more conveniently deposited by sputtering.

it

impossible to deposit materials by any other means.

is

it

for

method

years, the latter has

more convenient

years, however,
In

many

'Thin-film circuit technology' by

A E

Lessor,

Maissel and

R E Thun IEEE

Spectrum

p 73 (April 1964)

SEE ALSO:
1

854

W R Grove

COMPUTERS

Trans. R. Soc. London. Series

Phil.

vol 162, p 87 (1852)

(Calculating Machines)

Scheutz (Sweden)

Pehr Georg Scheutz built a difference engine in Stockholm inspired by Babbage's ideas and displayed
it

in

London

in

The machine had

1854 with considerable help from Babbage.

fourteen places of figures and

was capable of

SOURCE: The Computer from

Pascal

printing

own

its

H H

von Neuman by

to

tables (Scheutz

four differences and

was

a printer).

Goldstine (Princeton, NJ: Princeton

University Press) p 7 (1972)

1855

COLD CATHODE DISCHARGE TUBE

Experiments with low-pressure glow discharges started very early

were

in

the fact that such a

glow tube having

from an induction

its

coil

two electrodes of

With the

was

as light sources.

availability of the rare gases

work function cathodes, glow tubes were developed

SOURCE:

for

'The development of gas discharge tubes' by

SEE ALSO:

Gaugain

C. R.

different size

Acad.

1856 Heinrich Geissler, an

artist

Sci.

and

was capable of

Most of them
recognition of
rectifying the

The

early

glow lamps

all

required

neon and argon and by means of low

Cobine Proc. IRE p 972 (May 1962)

Paris vol 40, p 640 (1855)

skilful glass

pressure discharge tubes that were to bear his name.

tubes, usually shortened

first

low voltage applications.

LOW PRESSURE DISCHARGE TUBES

In

The

appears to have been that of Gaugain in 1855. However, for

years, the only use for these discharges

high voltage excitation.

1856

in the electrical art.

small diameter glow tubes, often in the form called Geissler tubes.

oscillating current

many

Gaugain (France)

Geissler

(Germany)

blower of Bonn, Germany, originated the low

The Geissler tubes were

by the use of many coils and bends, which were

low pressures and originally excited by high-voltage alternating current.

long, small-bore glass

with various gases

filled

Many

at

beautiful effects could

with different gases and they were often used for decorations. As,

be produced by Geissler tubes

filled

for example, a display used to

commemorate Queen

of the electrodes together with gas clean-up resulted

Victoria's

Diamond

Jubilee.

in a short life for the tube.

However, sputtering

The

principal use

was

for spectral analysis and lecture demonstrations.

SOURCE:

'The development of gas discharge tubes' by

SEE ALSO:
(1949)

'The electric-lamp industry' by

A A

Bright Jr

Cobine Proc. IRE p 970 (May 1962)

(New

York:

MacMillan) p 218

et seq.

A Concise Description of Each

W
1857

DeLaRue, H

W Spottieswoode Proc.

Muller and

R. Soc.

MERCURY ARC LAMP

The

first

was

electric arc

T Wray (UK)

No

21

London on

Two

September 1860.

for illumination.

T Wray

British patents

used commercially for illumination

first

were used

arc 'tubes'

Patent

in

87

356 (1875)

vol 23, p

public demonstration of a mercury arc lamp was by Professor

Suspension Bridge

The

Invention in Date Order

on the Hungerford

were issued

Much

in Paris in 1863.

him

to

later,

1879 John Rapieff described mercury arc lamps

In

but there appears to be no evidence that they were built. Peter

in 1857.

low-pressure
in British

Cooper Hewitt showed

in

public his mercury-arc lamp on 12 April 1901. Georges Glaude, a French inventor, demonstrated the
first

in

Neon

sign, an

improvement of

the Geissler tube, at the

luminous tube discharges were made by Moore

Grand

Developments

Palais in Paris in 1910.

Since these tubes did not have a high light

in 1920.

output, they were largely confined to sign applications.

SOURCE:

'The development of gas discharge tubes' by

SEE ALSO:
1858

British Patents issued

Cobine Proc. IRE p 970 (May 1962)

1857

P Pleucker (Germany)

1858 Pleucker investigated experimentally the luminous effects of

In

low pressures. He observed

SOURCE: A Biographical
p422 (1969)

MICROPHONE

that the

glow was deflected

Dictionary of Scientists by

contact.

stretched

to

membrane made of metal

flat

microphones. This diaphragm

any desired tension by a threaded

SOURCE:

is

clamped

similarity to the
to actuate

at its

B B Bauer

Proc.

'Ueber Telephone durch den galvaniscen strom' Jahnesbericht

am

was

is

used

in

present-day

ci.

Physikalischen (Vereins

Main, Germany) p 57 (1860-61)

(Secondary)

Plante (France)

battery business dates back to Plante's discovery of the lead-acid system in 1860.

Secondary or storage

cells are electrochemical cells

which

after discharge

original chemical state by passing the current in the reverse direction.

of basic components as primary

the

eardrum

loose metal-to-metal

IRE p 720 (May 1962)

SEE ALSO:

requirement,

periphery by a ring and stretched

zu Frankfurt

The secondary

and Charles Black)

ring.

'A century of microphones' by

BATTERY

Adam

or very thin metallized plastic

typically

field.

P Reis (Germany)

among microphone diaphragms perhaps because of its

flat membrane (actually a sausage skin) used by Reis

electrostatic

magnetic

Williams (London:

(Diaphragm type)

through gases

electric discharge

in a strong

stretched

Earliest

1860

GLOW DISCHARGES
at

1860

in that the

cells, the

can be restored to their

Although they have the same

anodes and cathodes of secondary

cells

set

have a more stringent

electrode reactions have to be reversible. This requirement immediately limits

number of electrode

At present,

materials available for secondary cells.

lead,

cadmium,

iron and

zinc anode materials, and lead dioxide, nickel dioxide and silver oxide cathode materials are the only

ones used

SOURCE:

in

commercial secondary

'Batteries'

by

C K

cells.

Morehouse, R Glicksman and

S Lozier Proc. IRE p 1474/5 (August

1958)

1865

RADIO WAVE PROPAGATION

In his

first

C Maxwell (UK)

paper on electromagnetism 'On Faraday's Lines of Force' (1855-56) Maxwell

set

up

partial

analogies, between electric and magnetic lines of force and the lines of flow of an incompressible
fluid.

In a series of magnificent papers in

phenomena viewed
had become

fully

in the light

of the

1861-62 he gave

field

a fully

developed model of electromagnetic

concept of Michael Faraday of whose validity Maxwell

persuaded by 1858, Adopting the belief of William

Thomson (Lord

Kelvin) in the

A Concise Description of Each

88

Invention in Date Order

rotary nature of magnetism, a magnetic tube of induction

was represented by

a set of cells rotating

about the axis of the tube, interference between the rotations of neighbouring tubes being avoided by

rows of intervening

means of

manner of

cells (in the

model Maxwell was able

this

By
known

wheels) which corresponded to electric currents.

idle

to give an elegant qualitative interpretation of all the

phenomena of electromagnetism. By introducing

was then able

the notion of elasticity he

to give a

quantitative description of the propagation of a disturbance in the model. Reinterpreted in terms of the

electromagnetic

implied that a disturbance

field, this

in the

electromagnetic

should travel with a

field

speed equal to the ratio of the electrodynamic to the electrostatic units of electric force.

SOURCE: A

Biographical Dictionary of Scientists by

Adam

Williams (London:

and Charles Black)

p 358 (1969)

SEE ALSO:
vol 13,

866

'A dynamical theory of the electromagnetic

pp 531-6

(8

C Maxwell

TC &

successful Atlantic telegraph cables were

first

Proc. R. Soc.

London

December 1864)

TRANSATLANTIC TELEGRAPH CABLE

The

by

field'

made and

Co (UK)

1866 by The Telegraph Construction

laid in

and Maintenance Company, then newly formed by the amalgamation of the Gutta Percha Company

and Glass,

two cables by

Mr R A

and Company. The laconic telegram sent on 27 July 1866 by

Elliot

Managing Director of

Company, from

the

Valentia on the completion of the laying of the

famous 'Great Eastern', read simply

the

Glass, the
first

of the

and had the more modern two-letter

'All right',

abbreviation been available the message would doubtless have been even shorter.

few days

replying to

came

later

Queen

the report that a

Victoria,

message of 405

had been sent

at a

letters

speed of 37

from the President of the United

modest indeed compared with the modern speed of over 2000

States,

per minute. With this performance,

letters

letters

per minute, the efforts of the

were crowned with success and the submarine cable was firmly established as a

intrepid pioneers

commercial proposition for oceanic depths.

SOURCE:

'The Story of the Submarine Cable' booklet published by Submarine Cables Limited (AEI)

London (1960) p
1868

RHEOTOME

(Waveform

Heinrich Lenz (of Lenz's

to

sample

a periodic

plotter)

Law) developed

waveform

at

Lenz (Germany)

segmented commutator or rheotome which could be arranged

known

points of the cycle and thus feed a train of pulses, each

corresponding to the amplitude of the waveform

at that point, to a

plotting the deflections against the time in the circle at

slowly responding galvanometer.

By

which they occurred, the complete waveform

could be reconstructed, In 1868 Bernstein used a rheotome

to chart the

time course of the action

potential in a nerve fibre.

By 1876

the capillary electrometer of

were available with

Marey and Lippman and

a sufficient sensitivity

the string galvanometer of Einthoven

and speed of response

to record biolectric

However, preceding Einthoven's studies of the electrocardiogram, Marchand

in

1878 were able to chart the electrocardiogram using a rheotome.

SOURCE:

'From torpedo

SEE ALSO:

ALSO:

868

Lippmann' E

by

Hill Electronics

& Power

due couer an

et

pp

(27

November 1975)

particulier etudiees au

BATTERIES

(Leclanche

d.

The Leclanche dry

flashlights

ges. Physiol,

cell is

moyen de

Marey C. R. Acad. Sci. Paris vol 82, pp 975-7 (1876)

'Bettrage zur kenntnis der reizwelle und contractionswelle de herzmuskels' by

PI tigers Arch,

in

to telemetry'

'Des variations electriques, des muscles

l'electrometre de

events directly.

1877 and Englemann

in

R Marchand

vol 15, p 511 (1877)

cell)

perhaps the best

known

and other such equipment. This type of

cell

cell

in

was

Leclanche (France)

common

use today.

It

originally described by

1868 and has undergone many improvements since that time.

Basically,

it

is

widely used

in

Georges Leclanche

consists of a nearly

A Concise Description of Each

Invention in Date Order

89

pure (99.99 per cent) zinc negative terminal, a carbon positive terminal, and a mixture of
chloride,

manganese dioxide, acetylene black, zinc

chloride,

chrome

ammonium

The mixture

inhibitor and water.

hydrogen bubbles on the positive electrode as

acts as a depolarising agent to reduce the formation of

Improvements which have been made include leak proofing, longer shelf

discharge takes place.

life,

pepped-up depolarizers, improved insulation and miniaturisation.

SOURCE:

'Survey of electrochemical batteries' by

SEE ALSO:

L6clanch6

Les Mondes vol

N D

Wheeler Electro Technology p 68 (June 1963)

p 532 (1868) (also C.

16,

R.

Acad.

Paris vol 83, p 54

Set.

(1876))

1870

BATTERY
In about

L Clark (UK)

(Standard Clark Cell)

1870 Latimer Clark, an English engineer and

electrician, introduced a

new kind

of voltaic

cell

consisting of a positive electrode of mercury covered with a paste of mercurous sulphate and a negative

electrode of zinc.

The

electrolyte

Latimer Clark assigned

was

to the cell a

a saturated solution of zinc sulphate. After

mean

value of 1.457 volt

at

15.5 C.

(1200^V/C). However,

a very high temperature coefficient of e.m.f.

many

The Clark
in spite

of

determinations

from

cell suffered
this,

the

Chicago

International Electrical Congress in 1891 adopted the Clark cell together with the silver coulometer in
definitions of the

SOURCE:

ampere and

the volt.

'Standard cells by Muirhead' Muirhead Technique vol 18,

SEE ALSO:

Clark Cell Proc. R. Soc. vol

1874

also

p 19 (July 1964)

(1874)

Weston Cell (1891)

M Bauer (Germany)

CAPACITORS (MICA)
Mica sheet

3,

XX, p 444 (1872)

Clark Cell Phil. Trans. R. Soc. vol CIXIV, p

NOTE: See

No

as dielectric

because not only could

came
it

into

commercial capacitor manufacture only about 1914-18 very largely

stand up to the mechanical shocks of gunfire better than glass, but

it

also

enabled the size of the capacitors to be reduced substantially for the same effective performance. The
drive of war requirements pushed this developed to the fore, although the use of mica as a capacitor
dielectric

had been 'invented' more than 60 years

SOURCE:

'Electrical capacitors in

our everyday

earlier.

life'

by P

R Coursey ERA Journal No

6,

p 10 (January

1959)

SEE ALSO:

'Physical properties of mica' by

'Capacity of mica condensers' by

1876

Bauer

Zeleny Phys. Rev. vol 22, p 651 (1906)

ROLLED PAPER CAPACITOR

It

Ge. vol 26, p 137 (1874)

Z. duet. geol.

DG

appears that the rolled paper capacitor was

first

Fitzgerald

covered by a patent

filed in

(UK)

1876 by Fitzgerald, who

described:

'The construction of a condenser with layers of paper and conductor (usually

tin-foil)

alternately

interleaved with each other on to a cylinder, and the impregnation of such condenser with paraffin

wax

after rolling'

SOURCE:
IRE

'History, present status and future developments of electronic

Trans, on

SEE ALSO: 'Improvements in Electrical

No 3466/1876 (2 September 1876)
'Paper Condensers' by

Condensers or Accumulators' by

DG

Fitzgerald, British Patent

Boucherot Eclairage Electrique (12 February 1898)

'The manufacture of paper condensers' by

1908)

components' by P S Darnell

Component Parts p 124 (September 1958)

F Mansbridge J

Inst.

Elec.

Engrs.

vol 41. p 535

(May

A Concise

90

Description of Each Invention in Date Order

'The capacity of paper condensers' by

1876

Zeleny and Andrewes. Phys. Rev. vol 27, p 65 (1908)

TELEPHONE
It

A G

Bell

(USA)

momentous sound was made by Thomas Watson when

has been a hundred years since a faint but

he plucked a reed of a rudimentary transmitter. But that sound travelled over wire and was heard
another

room by Alexander Graham

apparatus to his ear. This was the

Later,

on 14 February 1876, Bell

had been working on

first

when

filed for the

Ma

Gray instead of

filed a

caveat with the Patent Office,

Had

it.

the timing been

Bell.

telephone patent was issued to Bell on March 7 1876 three days before the historic

the

first

human

intelligible

voice was transmitted over the

over his clothing, had called out, 'Mr Watson,

come

here.

Watson

patent on the apparatus that he and

one Elisha Gray

a similar device but had not yet perfected

a 'Ma'

new

moment

telephone. Bell, after spilling acid

want you'. Next year, the

first

commercial

telephone went into service

when

wooden box

both transmitter and receivers The talker had to alternately talk and

According

that contained

tentative agreement,
offer.

The

a Boston banker leased

and shortly afterwards a lawyer named Gardiner

three put into writing an agreement dated

'Alexander

27 February

later

listen.

merchant named

They reached

Hubbard made

875 and

Company, Gardiner

a simple

Bell a similar

signed a deed of trusts

Hubbard, Trustee.

December 1975)

Electronics p 91 (11

SEE ALSO:

a verbal offer to Bell to finance the telegraphic experiments.

dated 9 July 1877 forming the Bell Telephone

SOURCE:

two instruments, each consisting of

System was planted when

to the records, the seed idea for the Bell

Thomas Sanders made

in

reed-and-diaphragm

to be holding a similar

now famous

just three hours before

we might now have

different,

The

who happened

telephone signal.

first

was working on

declaring that he

Bell

Graham

Bell and the invention of the telephone' by

E Flood

Electronics

&

Power p 159 (March 1976)

Editor's Note: This issue of Electronics

'The marriage that almost was' by

'The telephone,

its

& Power

is

devoted

to the early history of the telephone.

F Wolff IEEE Spectrum p 41 (February 1976)

invention and development' by

Woolley Telecommunication Journal vol 43, p 175

111/1976
'Bell's great invention: the

Bell and Gray:

first

50 years' Bell Laboratories Record p 91 (April 1976)

'Contrasts in style, politics and etiquette' by

DA

Hounshell Proc.

IEEE

vol 64,

No

9,

p 1305 (September 1976)

877

PHONOGRAPH

T A

(Gramophone)

Alexander Graham Bell's invention of the telephone,

reproduction of speech.

One of

interested in the study of

sound because he was

wrapped

around a cylinder,

a sheet of tinfoil

in 1876,

those attracted was

Edison (USA)

drew

Thomas Alva

partially deaf.

attention to the problems of the

Edison,

Sometime

needle in contact with

set a

it,

little

date of invention

as to

how

the

more

rhyme

that begins:

'Mary

lamb'. After making a few changes, he cranked the cylinder again, and from the horn of

the instrument he heard a recognisable reproduction of his voice,

The

all

of 1877, Edison

turned a crank to rotate the

cylinder, and into a mouthpiece attached to the needle he shouted the nursery

had a

who was

in the fall

was

precise that date

later recollected
is.

We

Thus was born

the

by Edison as 13 August 1877, but there

know, however,

that the patent application

was

first

is

filed

phonograph.

some question
24 December

1877, and the patent was granted on 19 February 1878.

SOURCE: 'Disk
IREp 738 (May

recording and reproduction' by

SEE ALSO: US

Patent

1962)

No 200

521 (T

Edison)

S Bachman,

B B Bauer and P C Goldmark

Proc.

A Concise
1877

MICROPHONE
Among

Description of Each Invention in Date Order

T A

(Carbon)

Edison (USA)

was

the earliest devices intended for converting vibration into electrical impulses

metal-contact transducer which

This

intelligible speech.

is

Reis' loose

reported to have transmitted tones of different frequencies, but not

event seems

latter

91

have been achieved by

to

first

magnetic

Bell, using a

microphone, on 3 June 1875. However, Bell's microphone proved not to be sufficiently sensitive for
telephone work and the experiments of Berliner, Edison, Hughes and others soon thereafter introduced
a long era of
first

to

dominance

for the loose-contact carbon transducer.

To Edison goes

design a transducer using granules of carbonised hard coal,

The carbon granules

are

still

used

the credit of being the

present-day microphones.

in

of deep-black 'anthraxylon' coal ground to pass a 60-80 mesh, treated

made

chemically and roasted in several stages under a stream of hydrogen. This drives out volatile matter,

washes out extraneous compounds and carbonises the

The

coal.

last step

and air-stream screening to eliminate iron-bearing and flat-shaped

SOURCE:

'A century of microphones' by

SEE ALSO: T A
1877

Edison:

LOUDSPEAKER

US

(Moving

The motor mechanism

B B Bauer

No 474 230

Patent

Proc.

magnetic

is

IRE p 721 (May 1962)

27 April 1877. Also

filed

of the process

particles.

coil type)

US

Patent

No 474

231/2

W Siemens (Germany)

consisting of a circular coil located in a radial magnetic field

was

disclosed by

first

Siemens. Lodge, Pridham and Jenson and others contributed to the suspension system. However, there

were very few developments

breakthrough

in the

loudspeakers

in

twenty-seven years following Lodge's disclosure.

in the

dynamic loudspeaker was made by Rice and Kellogg

in

The success

1925.

of the development was due to their recognition of three physical factors with relation to the action

and design of a direct radiator loudspeaker. The

is

the product of the mechanical resistance

The second

the diaphragm.

system which

is

first is

to

that the

sound-power output of

a small vibrating

diaphragm gives

The

proportional to the square of the frequency.

is

mass controlled.

follows then that,

It

a loudspeaker

sound radiation and the square of the velocity of

sound radiation from

that

is

mechanical resistance which

due

if

rise to a

third is a vibrating

the fundemental resonance occurs

below the

lowest frequency of interest, the complementary variations of the second and third factors which control
the

sound output as given by the

factor conspire to provide a uniform response

first

region at which the assumptions begin to

fail.

continues to be the basic precept that guides the design of

SOURCE:

'Loudspeakers' by

SEE ALSO:

H F

Electroacoustics by

W Siemens:

S Pridham and P

German

Patent

Lodge: British Patent

1878

AIEE

vol 44,

pp 461-75

all

it

direct radiator loudpeakers.

filed

filed

Patent

new

14 December 1877

27 April 1898

No

1448 279

filed

28 April 1920

type of hornless loudspeaker' by

Rice and

Kellogg

(April 1925)

CATHODE RAYS
In his

frequency

Hunt (New York: John Wiley and Sons) (1954)

No 2355

'Notes on the development of a

Trans

US

to the

Olson Proc. IRE p 730 (May 1962)

No 9712

Jenson:

up

This was the contribution of Rice and Kellogg, and

Sir

W Crookes (UK)

Bakerian lecture of 1878 and his British Association Lecture of 1879, he announced various

striking properties of 'molecular rays' including the casting of

the deflection by a magnet.

The

title

Lecture of 1879 referred to ordinary matter in a

that collisions

SOURCE: A
p 120 (1969)

shadows, the warming of obstacles and

'Radiant Matter' employed by Crookes in his British Association

new

state in

which the mean

free path

was so

large

between molecules could be ignored.

Biographical Dictionary of Scientists by

Williams (London:

Adam

and Charles Black)

A Concise

92
1878

Description of Each Invention in Date Order

CARBON FILAMENT INCANDESCENT LAMP

W Swan, C H Steam, F Topham

and

CF

Cross (UK)

Swan

invented a carbon filament incandescent lamp and a squirting process to

fibres

for

lamp

who made

glass-blower

SOURCE:

filaments.

make

nitro-cellulose

Stearn was an expert in the production of high vacua and

Topham

the

the glass globes. Cross discovered the viscose process for the fibres.

'The Sources of Invention' by

Jewkes,

Sawers and

Stellerman (London: MacMillan)

p 59(1958)

NOTE: T A

Edison

Edison's main interest was to perfect the incandescent electric lamp, of which the construction was

now

being rapidly advanced by Swan.

'Edison'

After researches involving the examination of thousands of

he devised the cotton thread filament which, when joined with bulb patents, made the

alternatives,

lamp

SOURCE: A

commercial success.

Biographical Dictionary of Scientists by

Williams (London:

Adam

and Charles Black)

p 159 (1969)

1878

CARBON GRANULE MICROPHONE

To Hunnings goes

Hunnings (UK)

the credit for inventing a carbon transmitter using a multiple loose contact,

which

soon took the form of a disk electrode projecting into a contact cup containing granulated carbon

From

particles.

SOURCE:

that

time on, one improvement followed another in a seemingly endless parade.

Electroacoustics by

F V Hunt (New York: John Wiley and Sons) p 37 (1954)

SEE ALSO: Henry Hunnings (granulated-carbon microphone) British Patent No 3647 dated 16
US Patents No 246 512 (filed 14 May 1881) issued 30 August 1881, and No 250 250

September 1878;
(filed

1879

30 September 1881) issued 29 November 1881; both assigned to American Bell Telephone Co.

DIODE DETECTOR
In 1879,

D Hughes (UK)

David Hughes had performed a

truly

remarkable demonstration of transmitting and detecting

a series of recognised pulses of electromagnetic radiation over a distance of

Great Portland Street

in

some 450 metres along

London. Hughes was using the as yet undiscovered Hertzian waves, the radio

portion of the electromagnetic spectrum.

He was

using a microphonic detector device which

may have

functioned like a self- restoring coherer, or, possibly, in a manner closely resembling the rectifying
action of crystal detectors which

SOURCE:

into use in 1906.

'The birth pangs of radio' by

No 411

Publication

1879

came

AR

Constable Proc. on '100 Years of Radio', IEE Conference

p 15 (September 1995)

HALL EFFECT

E H

Hall (UK)

Hall voltage, linear function of magnetic flux.

If a
is

current of particles bearing charges of a single sign and constrained to

subjected to a transverse magnetic

both the current and the magnetic

SOURCE:

field, a potential

move

in a

given direction

gradient will exist in a direction perpendicular to

field.

The Encyclopaedia of Physics 2nd edn,

edRM

Besencon (New York: Van Nostrand) p 400

(1974)

1880

PIEZO ELECTRICITY
The

relation

SOURCE:

P Curie (France)

between voltage generated and mechanical pressure on crystallographic materials.

'Developpement, par pression, de

inclinees' by

J Curie and

Curie and P Curie C. R. Acad.

l'electricite polaire
Sci.

dans

les cristaux

hemiedres

a faces

Paris vol 91, pp 294-5 (July-December 1880)

A Concise
1882

Description of Each Invention in Date Order

WIMSHURST MACHINE
The

revolve in opposite directions.

peripheries of the discs are

Wimshurst (UK)

The Wimshurst machine generates

electrostatic electricity

discs are

made of an

by

friction.

It

two discs which

consists of

insulating material such as glass and near the

mounted small sections of sheet conductor. The charges

the conductor sections by the action of brushes

up by combs. These charges are stored

which graze the sectors

in capacitors

93

and are used

are generated

on

and are picked

as they rotate

produce a spark between a pair of

to

ball conductors.

REFERENCE:

Text

Book of Physics, Part 5: Magnetism and

& Co.) p 960 (1926)

Electricity by

Duncan and S C

Starling

(London: MacMillan

REFERENCE:

Encyclopaedic Dictionary of Electronics and Nuclear Engineering by

Sarbacher

(London: Pitman) p 1402 (1959)

1884

NIPKOW TELEVISION SYSTEM

The

first

television invention that had practical consequences

Nipkow

Paul

P Nipkow

in

was

1884. At the heart of his camera

the

equally spaced along a spiral near the periphery of the disk.

on a small region

As

at the

disk's periphery, and the disk

cell

would then produce

light

the 'electrical telescope', patented by

The image

was made

the disk rotated, the sequence of holes scanned the

image region collected the sequential

was

now famous Nipkow

image

disk.

It

to be transmitted

to spin at

had 24 holes

was focused

600 revolutions per minute.

in a straight line.

lens behind the

samples and focused them on a single selenium

each proportional

a succession of currents,

to the intensity

cell.

The

of the light on a

different element of the image.

At the receiving end, Nipkow proposed using

synchronously with the one

Nipkow

built

no hardware

a magneto-optic (Faraday-effect) light

To form

the intensity of the reconstructed image.

the transmitter,

at

which

is

modulator to vary

the image, a second disk, identical to and rotating

would be needed.

probably just as well, because the technology of the time would

not have permitted him to build his system; the light modulator alone would have required
watts of control power. His disk, however,
built,

model

for several later television

some 10

systems that were

most notably those of British inventor John Logie Baird.

SOURCE:
1884

was

Electronics pp 70 and 75 (17 April 1980)

SWITCH, QUICK BREAK

The loose-handle quick-break switch was invented by

granted British Patent

No 3256

circuit closers for electrical

SOURCE:

of 1884, under the

H Holmes

Holmes (UK)
1884.

in

'Improvements

title:

For

this

device he was

in or applicable to switches or

conducting apparatus'.

Patents for Engineers by

L H A Carr and

C Wood

(London: Chapman and Hall) p 95

(1959)

1884

BATTERY
The

alkaline zinc-mercuric oxide system

number of

C L

(Zinc-Mercuric Oxide Cell)

not until early in World

was

made over

additional attempts

War

II

that a

first

Clarke (USA)

suggested by Clarke

in 1884.

Although there were a

the years to design a practical cell using this system,

commercially usable mercuric oxide dry

cell

it

was

was invented by

Ruben.

SOURCE:

'Batteries'

by

C K

Morehouse, R Glicksman and

S Lozier Proc.

IRE p 1467 (August

1958)

SEE ALSO: C L

Clarke:

'Balanced alkaline dry

US

cells'

Patent

No 298

175

(May 6 1884)

by S Ruben Trans. Electrochem. Soc. vol 92, p 183 (1947)

A Concise Description of Each

94
1885

TRANSFORMER

Invention in Date Order

(Power)

Zipernowski,

Deri and

OT

Blathy (Hungary)

The

earliest patent

Max

covering the construction of the transformer appears to be that of Carl Zipernowski,

Deri and Otto Titus Blathy,

The

date of application

'Improvements

SOURCE:

all

of Budapest, and since

was 27 April 1885,

in Induction

was applied

this patent

and granted

for

in

can be quoted here.

this country, the British version

the patent being

numbered 5201

in that

year under the

title:

Apparatus for Transforming Electric Currents'.

Patents for Engineers by

L H A Carr and

C Wood

(London:

Chapman and

Hall) p 89/90

(1959)

1885

RESISTOR (Moulded Carbon

is

It

Composition Type)

S Bradley (UK)

of passing interest to note that the earliest moulded-rod composition-type resistor of which the

author has been able to trace any record dates back before the days of radio.

In 1885, a

moulded-

composition resistor was patented, comprising a mixture of carbon and rubber heated and moulded

to

shape and subsequently vulcanized to a hard body.

SOURCE:
Pt.

Ill,

'Fixed resistors for use in communication equipment' by

SEE ALSO: C

1885

S Bradley: British Patent

US

Slattery:

D C

P R Coursey.

IEE

Proc.

vol 96,

p 169 (1949)

US

Voss:

No 354

Patent

TRANSFORMER

8076/1885.

275 (1885)

No 573 558

Patent

No

(1896)

(Distribution)

For the

earliest patent

covering the use of the transformer

refer to

German

No

Patent

Deri (Austria)

system

in a distribution

it

is

33951 of 1885, since no corresponding patent was applied for

necessary to
in the

United

Kingdom.

Max

This application was made on 18 February 1885 by

under the

title

SOURCE:

(translated) of

'Improvements

L H A Carr and

Patents for Engineers by

Deri (in this case described as being of Vienna)

in the Distribution

of Electricity'.

C Wood

Chapman and

(London:

Hall) p 91

(1959)

1887

GRAMOPHONE
On 4 May
it

(Phonograph)

1887, Emile Berliner applied for a patent on what he called a 'Gramophone' to distinguish

from Edison's phonograph of ten years

year earlier.

The

first

support but by 1888,

groove

Berliner (USA)

in this record

figure of the

when he introduced
had

earlier

drawings

others.

This

movement,

lateral

wound on

a record

as against the vertical

a cylindrical

flat-disk record.
'hill

The

and dale' system

recording process was reminiscent of Leon Scott's

phonoantograph, which used a diaphragm and hog

lamp-blacked paper some

shows

model, he had changed to a

his first

a lateral side-to-side

which had been employed by

and from Bell's and Tainter's Graphophone of one

in Berliner's patent

bristle to trace a record

of sound vibrations on

thirty years earlier.

Berliner also used lamp-black as the recording

medium, and combined

this

method with an etching

process which permitted transfer of the original engraving to copper or nickel. Thus Berliner achieved
a

permanent master recording, and

longer did

By

artists

for the first time

1895, Berliner had developed a system utilising

groove, his

own

mass duplication of records was

possible.

No

have to repeat each number endless times.

flat

disc,

and

a coating of Bell's

many

ideas of his

own and

and Tainter's wax.

others:

Scott's lateral

The system stood up

as the

industry standard for half a century, thus Berliner deserves the mantle as the father of disk recording

and reproduction.

A Concise

SOURCE: 'Disk recording

IREp 738-9 (May 1962)
SEE ALSO:

and reproduction' by

first

R. Soc. Arts,

vol LVI,

633^9

pp

May

(8

Proc.

1908)

A D

human electrocardiogram was recorded

London

physiologist from

Waller (UK)

1887 by Augustus Desire Waller (1856-1922), a

in

University, born in Paris.

Willem Einthoven, professor of physiology

In 1901

B Bauer and P C Goldmark

S Bachman, B

ELECTROCARDIOGRAPH
The

95

'The gramophone and the mechanical recording and reproduction of musical sounds' by

L N Reddie /
1887

Description of Each Invention in Date Order

at the

University of Leiden in Holland, and former

colleague of the physicist and 1908 Nobel Prize-winner Gabriel Lippmann (France), developed the loop

galvanometers. This
that

weighed 661

lb

made him

the true inventor of the electrocardiograph

and required

Carrying out an electrocardiogram

now

possible for a pregnant

The

heart.

result

people to operate

five

is

woman

(ECG),

a piece of

it.

very straightforward, though interpreting the results

on her abdomen

to place an ultrasound probe

can then be sent by the

woman by

equipment

to

who can

telephone to her doctor,

is not.

It

is

monitor her baby's

then assess the

health of the baby, thus saving everyone a great deal of time and effort.

SOURCE:
(New
1887

AERIALS
It

Inventions

and Discoveries 1993

Wave

(Radio

first

to prove the existence of electric

true antenna appears to

have been used by Hertz

1887, His antenna consisted of two

long.

The two rods were placed

balls separated

HR

Propagation)

remained for Heinrich Hertz

The

edited by Valerie-Anne Giscard d'Estaing and

Mark Young

York: Facts on File) p 172

in the

by a spark gap about

metallic plates,

flat

same

7-mm

waves

in

space as predicted by Maxwell.

in his classical

experiments

40 cm square, each attached

straight line,

long.

Hertz (Germany)

and were provided

at their

The spark gap was energised by

at

Karlsruhe

to a rod

in

cm

30

nearer ends with

Ruhmkorff

coil.

In

order to detect the radiated waves, Hertz employed a receiving circuit consisting of a circular loop of

wire broken by a microscopic gap.

to

be the proper size to be

SOURCE:

The

radius of the loop

was 35 cm which was found by experiment

resonance with the oscillator.

'Early history of the antennas and propagation field until the end of

I antennas'
SEE ALSO:
(Wiedeman)
1887

in

by P S Carter and

H H

'Ueber sehr schnelle elektrische Schwingungen' by

NF

vol 31, pp

SWITCH, QUICK

World War

I,

part

Beverage Proc. IRE p 680 (May 1962)

Physikund Chetnie

Hertz Ann.

421-448 (15 May 1887)

MAKE AND BREAK

Following Holmes' invention of the quick-break switch (see 1884) a

Holmes (UK)
later variant

provided for

a loose-

handle operating a spring over a dead centre by means of a toggle action, so that both quick-make and
quick-break were obtained. (British Patent

SOURCE:

Patents for Engineers by

No 5648

of 1887.)

L H A Carr and

C Wood

(London:

Chapman and

Hall) p 95

(1959)

1888

INDUCTION MOTOR

Tesla's 'master' patent covering the polyphase induction motor

Britain; the British Patent
Its title

was improvements

was granted

and

it

The

specification

SOURCE:
(1959)

No

is

in the

Tesla (USA)

was taken

out, inter alia, in Great

6481 of 1888, may therefore be used as a reference.

relating to the electrical transmission of

name of Nikola

power and

Tesla of the City and State of

New

to apparatus therefore'

York,

USA.

long and detailed with 18 diagrammatic figures.

Patents for Engineers by

L H A Carr and

C Wood

(London: Chapman and Hall) pp 96-7

A Concise

96

889

Description of Each Invention

COMPUTERS
Hollerith

1889.

in

for tabulating population statistics for the

He used

a system of holes in a

was the

it

Hollerith

machine

such as male or female, black or white, age,

chose because

Date Order

(Tabulating Machinery)

worked on

he patented

in

be made. The machine

shown

in figure

cards were

6=j

Pascal

to

in the

USA

which

by 3^ inches
at

in size,

which he

which holes could

1.4.

Figure 11.4. Hollerith's tabulating machine (The Science Museum/ Science

SOURCE: The Computer from

1890 census

to represent various characteristics:

Each card contained 288 locations

size of a dollar bill.

is

The

etc.

punch card

(USA)

von Neuman by

H H

&

Society Picture Library).

Goldstine (Princeton, NJ: Princeton

University Press) p 7 (1972) (Reprinted by permission)

SEE ALSO:
B

edited by

89

'An

electric tabulating system'

Hollerith, reprinted

STROWGER AUTOMATIC TELEPHONE

EXCHANGE
The man who
to

is

is

Almon Brown

exchange would connect the

that

would work without

was

installed in the

SOURCE:

A B

generally given the credit of inventing the

be used commercially

Strowger's business was losing

first

money

call to

because,

filings,

He

Strowger (USA)

practical

system of automatic telephony

It is

said that

was determined

to invent a

system

patented his ideas in 1889, and three years later his equipment

public automatic telephone exchange, at La Porte, Indiana,

J

Edouard Branly, physics professor

TELONDE, No

at the

USA.

Povey (Post Office Publication) p 35 (1974)

2/1977, p 16

E Branly

to 'Hertzian

USA.

called him, the operators at the telephone

other undertakers instead, and he

operators.

Story of Telephone Switching'

when subjected

first

when people

COHERER
In Paris,

The Origins of Digital Computers

Strowger, an undertaker from Kansas City,

The Telephone and the Exchange by P

SEE ALSO: The

1890

by

Randell (Berlin: Springer) p 129 (1973)

(France)

Catholic University, observed in 1890 that metal

waves' behaved very strangely. Normally,

filings

do not transmit

A Concise
an electric current because there are

air

electromagnetic waves, the filings fuse a

current.

The

filings

Branly called the

remain a conductor

little

Description of Each Invention in Date Order

when placed with

spaces between them but

enough

together,

little

to offer a

97
the range of

conducting path to an electric

by shaking or tapping.

until they are disturbed

glass tube in which he placed his filings a 'coherer';

it

was

the

first

form of

'detector' for electromagnetic waves.

SOURCE:

'A History of Invention' by

Larsen (London:

Dent

&

Sons) and

(New

York:

Roy

Publishers) p 278 (1971)

1891

BATTERY
In 1891,

E Weston (USA)

(Standard Weston Cell)

New

Dr Edward Weston, an Anglo-American from

1893 disclosing a

cadmium

cell in

which the electrolyte of the Clark

cell

was

temperature coefficient of e.m.f. was only about

by various workers from 1893 onwards and

a definite

40

cell

finally the

SOURCE:

was assigned the value of 1.01830

cadmium amalgam,

London Conference held

result of the

work of

Patent

in

the depolariser

improvement on the Clark

cell since the

in

this

made

1908 authorised the

committee, Weston's

international volts at 20C.

'Standard cells by Muirhead' Muirhead Technique vol 18,

SEE ALSO: Weston cell USA

which was granted

a saturated solution of

p.V/C. Considerable improvements were

appointment of a special international committee. As a

1893

was replaced by

sulphate and the zinc negative electrode was replaced by

being mercurous sulphate as before. This

cadmium

Jersey, filed a patent

cell

No 494 827

No

3,

p 19 (July 1964)

(1893); also British Patent 640 812, 797 381

WAVEGUIDES

Thomson (UK)

J J

(See also page 140.)

Perhaps the
the

first

analysis suggesting the possibility of

book 'Recent Researches

in Electricity

waves

hollow pipes appeared

in

and Magnetism' by

J J

written as a sequel to Maxwell's 'Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism'

the hypothetical question of

what might

wall of a closed metal cylinder.

result if an electric

Even now,

with resonance in hollow metal chambers.

this

problem

A much more

in

1893

in

Thomson. This book, which was

examined mathematically

charge should be released on the interior

of considerable interest

is

in

connection

significant analysis, relating particularly

to propagation through dielectrically filled pipes, both of circular

and rectangular cross section, was

published in 1897 by Lord Rayleigh.

SOURCE:

'Survey and history of the progress of the microwave

arts'

by

G C

Southworth Proc. IRE

p 1199 (May 1962)

SEE ALSO:

Recent Researches

'On the passage of

Phil.

1895

Mag.

electric

in Electricity

and Magnetism by

waves through tubes or

Thomson p 344 (1893)

the vibrations of dielectric cylinders'

Lord Rayleigh

vol 43, p 125 (February 1897)

W K Rontgen (Germany)

X-RAYS
On

J J

November

1895, while experimenting with a Crookes's tube (see

opaque shield of black cardboard, Rontgen noticed

that,

when

Crookes) covered with an

a current passed through the tube, a

nearby piece of paper painted with barium platinocyanide fluoresced.

In a series of classical papers

(1895-7) he described the properties of the new, so-called X-rays, but

his attempts to detect their

interference by crystals were unsuccessful.

SOURCE: A

Biographical Dictionary of Scientists by

Williams (London:

Adam

and Charles Black)

p 448 (1969)

1896

TELEPHONE DIAL

E A

Keith,

J Erickson and J

Erickson (UK)

The

early

Strowger,

automatic telephone systems of Connolly, Connolly, and McTighe, of Sinclair, and of

all

used push-buttons which the caller was required to press a number of times depending

A Concise Description of Each

98

Invention in Date Order

When

on the number of the telephone he wanted.

numbers became

automatic exchanges beame larger, and telephone

was no longer

longer, this type of signalling

Erickson, and John Erickson invented the telephone

SOURCE: The
1896

Telephone and the Exchange by P

2 June 1896, Marconi took out

Marconi

United Kingdom the

in the

E A

in 1896,

Keith,

based on Hertz's discoveries, though exploiting radiations of a

at first

roof of the

patent for wireless telegraphy

first

much

longer wavelength. His apparatus

its

signals

transmitted over one hundred yards, a satisfactory demonstration being arranged from the

London General Post

when Marconi formed

year,

(Italy)

consisted of a tube-like receiver or 'coherer' connected to an earth and an elevated aerial,

were

Povey (Post Office Publication) p 60 (1974)

WIRELESS TELEGRAPHY
On

and

practical,

dial.

except

in all countries

Italy; this later

Telegraph

SOURCE: A

Company
in

suspended from a

aerial

London

in

developed world-wide

were made on 12 December 1901 from Poldhu

were received through an

communication was established

Office. Ship to shore

a Wireless

Cornwall

in the following

for the exploitation of his patents

His

affiliations.

first

transatlantic signals

Newfoundland, where they

to St John's,

kite.

Biographical Dictionary of Scientists by

Adam

Williams (London:

and Charles Black)

p 352 (1969)

897

ELECTRON
By improving

Thomson (UK)

J J
the

vacuum of Hertz's cathode

ray experiments,

Thomson

got deflections which,

combined

with the long-known deflections by a magnet determined the ratio of the charge to the mass of the

supposed

particles.

This ratio e/m was over 1000 times larger than the ratio for hydrogen, the lightest

atom known. Thomson considered

that this

was due

smallness of the mass and that particles

to the

with this small mass were universal constituents of matter, since they were the

same whatever

chemical nature of the gas carrying the discharge and the electrodes through which

He examined two

charged particles with the same e/m

ratio as the

drops from their rate of

as far as this

fall.

The

cathode rays, and

on the

the actual charge by condensing drops of water

particles to

was then known. Thomson

SOURCE: A
p 51

in the

form

In both he

light.

second was able

to

found

measure

a mist, finding the size of the

supposed value of the charge on a hydrogen

results agreed with the

called these

adopted the word 'electron' invented a few years before by

atom regarded

the
left.

other cases of the discharge of electricity, namely, those from a hot wire negatively

charged and from a negatively charged zinc plate illuminated by ultra-violet

atom

entered and

it

new
J

light particles 'corpuscles' but later

Stoney for the charge on

hydrogen

as a natural unit of charge.

Biographical Dictionary of Scientists by

Adam

Williams (London:

and Charles Black)

(1969)

SEE ALSO: The

D L

Discovery of the Electron by

Anderson (New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold)

(1964)

'The

897

first

subatomic

particle'

by

Frisch

New

Scientist p

408 (17 November 1977)

CATHODE RAY OSCILLOGRAPH

The cathode-ray oscilloscope
by Ferdinand Braun
the electron by

its

in

F Braun (Germany)

for the study of the time variation of electron currents

1897, the

same year

in

which

J J

Thomson measured

deflection in electric and magnetic fields.

cathode-ray oscillograph

at the

Ferdinand Braun constructed the

first

University of Strassbourg in 1897.

Just like the early X-ray tube, the 'Braun tube' used gas discharge

formation of an electron beam.

ray tubes by Wehnelt in

was developed

the specific charge of

Even

phenomena

after the introduction of a thermionic

mm

1905 an argon atmosphere of about 10~ 3

commercial oscilloscopes for another 25 years.

The

for the emission

and

cathode into cathode-

Hg was

still

retained in

effect of ion focusing facilitated the formation

of long, filamentary, electron beams.

SOURCE:

'Beam-deflection and photo devices' by

995 (May 1962)

Schlesinger and

Ramberg

Proc.

IRE

p 991,

A Concise Description of Each

SEE ALSO: 'On

Wiedemann's

method

552 (1897)

Thomson

J J

and study of currents varying with time', by F Braun

for the demonstration

Alln. vol 60, p

'Cathode rays' by

99

Invention in Date Order

Phil.

Mag.

vol 4, p 293 (1897)

'Ferdinand Braun and the cathode ray tube' by

Shiers Scientific

American

vol 230. p 92

(March

1974)

1897

RESISTOR (Carbon
The

T E Gambrell and A F

Film Type)

of carbon-film resistor was also used

earliest type

when

apparently forgotten

the greater

demand

arose.

Harris (UK)

many years before broadcasting and it was

Some of these carbon-film resistors, notably

those formed by spraying or otherwise applying the conducting coating and then baking on to a glass
filament,

were enclosed inside a glass tube with metal end-caps sealed on

for terminal connections

and

with terminals connected to the filament coating by casting into a metal such as type-metal.

SOURCE:
Ill,

'Fixed resistors for use in communication equipment' by P

SEE ALSO: T E Gambrell and A F

1898

Harris: British Patent

one

really

he found
'It

Proc.

IEE

vol 96,

pt.

No 25412/1897

MAGNETIC RECORDING
No

R Coursey

p 170(1949)

knowns how

Poulsen (Denmark)

the idea of magnetic recording occurred to Poulsen. During his experiments

that:

would be possible

recorded on

it

to

magnetize a wire

to different

degrees so close together that sound could be

by running the current from a microphone through an electromagnet and by either drawing

the wire rapidly past the electromagnet or drawing the electromagnet rapidly past the wire.'

This invention had several things to

by de-magnetizing
Poulsen invented
1900.

He

filed

commend

it:

the wire or tape could be used over and over again

and recordings could be played thousands of times without destroying the quality.

it

this

Telegraphone

in

1898; with

an application for a Danish patent

he

it

won

the

Grand Prix

Paris Exposition in

at the

1898 and within two years he had

in

filed additional

patent applications in the United States and most European countries. These early patents suggested,
as recording media, steel wires

though he himself used only

Poulsen are

still

SOURCE: The

applied in

and tapes and discs of material coated with magnetisable metallic dust,

steel

all

wire and tape in his machinery. The basic principles enunciated by

types of

Source of Invention by

modern magnetic
J

Jewkes,

recorders.

Sawers and

Stillerman (London:

MacMillan

&

Co.) p 326 (1958)

SEE ALSO:
1900

'The development of the magnetic tape recorder' Engineer (18 March 1949)

CAPACITORS

L Lombardi

(Ceramic)

Ceramic materials have been used

for

many

years as electrical insulators.

severe working conditions because they are vitrified by firing

Being completely

inert they will withstand their rated

at

(Italy)

They

are able to withstand

temperatures of the order of 1200 C.

working voltage indefinitely and

retain their shape

and physical characteristics under normal conditions.

SOURCE:

Fixed Capacitors (2nd edn) by

SEE ALSO: 'An improved

'Dielectric losses

by

A Dummer

(London: Pitman) p

process for manufacturing thin

applicable for use in electrical condensers'

'Permittivity of titania'

L Lombardi,

homogenous

British Patent

Schmidt Ann. Phys. Lpz. vol

4, p

No

15 (1956)

plates,

9133,

more

filed

particularly

May

17 1900.

959 (1902)

and breakdown strength of porcelain' by F Beldi Brown Boveri Rev. vol

18. p

172

(May 1931)
'Insulating materials of the steatite group' by

E Schonberg

Elektrotech. Z. vol 54, p 545 (June 1933)

A Concise Description of Each

100

Invention in Date Order

No 440951/1934

Tubular metallized ceramic capacitors. Porzellanfabrikkahla, Germany. British Patent

1900

BATTERY

TA

(Nickel-Iron Cell)

The nickel-iron-alkaline

form

to

same

batteries as they exist today are essentially the

around 1900 and marketed

grouped together

Edison (USA)

1908.

in

The negative electrode

as discovered

by Edison

consists of pockets of active material

a plate, while the positive plate is an

assembly of perforated nickel tubes

with nickel hydroxide and nickel.

filled

SOURCE:

by

'Batteries'

C K

Morehouse,

R Glicksman

and

IRE p 1478 (August

S Lozier Proc.

1958)

SEE ALSO: The

Edison nickel-iron-alkaline

by F

cell'

C Anderson

Electrochetn.

J.

Soc.

vol 99,

p 244C(1952)

1900

QUANTUM THEORY
Max

Planck had propounded

always

1900 the theory

in

of packets of

in a collection

the distribution of the energy found in the light

at

energy

not emitted in a continuous flow, but

is

driven to accept this view

in

order to explain

from hot bodies such as the sun. His conception struck

the principle of continuity as the comprehensive basis of nature.

SOURCE:
1900

that

He was

finite size.

Planck (Germany)

Science at

BATTERY

War by

(Nickel-Cadmium

Crowther and

R Whiddington

Cell)

HMSO)

(London:

Junger

&

Berg (Sweden)

1900

is

closely related to the nickel-

The nickel-cadmium

battery discovered by Junger and Berg about

iron Edison battery.

Both are mechanically rugged and

will withstand electrochemical

they can be overcharged, overdischarged, or stand idle in a discharged condition.

from the Edison battery

battery differs

SOURCE:

by

'Batteries'

C K

in the

Morehouse,

use of

cadmium anodes

R Glicksman

(1947) p 124

and

abuse

in that

The nickel-cadmium

in place of iron.

IRE p 1478 (August

S Lozier Proc.

1958)

SEE ALSO:
1901

Storage Batteries by

Vinal 4th edn

(New

York: Wiley) (1955)

RADIO: HEAVISIDE/KENNELLY LAYER

Heaviside (UK) and

A Kennedy

(USA)

When Marconi
in

succeeded

first

in establishing radio

communication around the curvature of the earth

1901, Oliver Heaviside in England and Arthur Kennelly in the

might be due to the existence of an ionized layer

in the

USA

proposed

that the

phenomena

upper atmostphere surrounding the earth which

could reflect radio waves. However, another explanation was that the waves were detectable because

of diffraction around the earth's curvature, a phenomenon which would be more observable, the longer

bending of the wavefront which would

the wavelength used.

Another explanation could be

occur

constant of the atmosphere should progressively change with altitude due to the

if the dielectric

effects of temperature, density

The observation of

the

that of the

and moisture.

waves of high frequency drew renewed

attention to the proposals of Heaviside

and Kennelly. Their hypothetical layer was dubbed the Heaviside-Kennelly

Breit

layer.

and Tuve

in

1926, definitely confirmed the existence of several such layers by sounding the atmosphere with short
pulses sent from a transmitter on earth which were reflected from the layers back to a receiver adjacent
to the transmitter.

The time delay

identified the height of each reflection

and determined physical

characteristics of the nature of the reflection and the degree of penetration as a function of frequency.

The Breit-Tuve experiments were

a predecessor of later radar techniques.

the earlier experimenters began to be explainable and even predictable.

was renamed

the 'Ionosphere'

The vagaries observed by

The region of

and the individual layers designated the D, E,

F|

the several layers

and F2

layers, the

layer being the lowest.

SOURCE:

'Telecommunications

resume' by

Levitt Proc.

the resource not depleted by use.

IEEE

vol 64,

No

9,

historical

p 1297 (September 1976)

and philosophical

A Concise Description of Each

SEE ALSO:
28, p

1901

'A

test

Breit and

Tuve Phys. Rev.

vol

first

P Cooper-Hewitt (USA)

low-pressure mercury discharge lamp was introduced

American individual

by Peter Cooper-Hewitt, the

mercury early

effect of a discharge through

inefficient

inventor.

at the

beginning of the twentieth century

Humphrey Davy had discovered

Sir

by modern standards, though better than contemporary incandescent lamps;

It

differed

the

Cooper-Hewitt's lamp was

in the nineteenth century.

the characteristic bluelight of the mercury discharge lamp.

in

of the existence of the conducting layers' by

101

554 (September 1926)

FLUORESCENT LAMP
The

Invention in Date Order

also produced

it

from the modern fluorescent lamp

being designed to produce visible radiation, not ultra-violet. In 1901 he used rhodamine dye, which

fluoresces red, to improve the light's colour, but the rhodamine deteriorated too rapidly for this to be
a success.

The Moore and neon discharge lamps, introduced

much

at

Hewitt, also contributed to the development of the fluorescent lamp.

individual inventor,

was

the

first

in constructing lasting electrodes.

modify

its

to

apply to hot cathode used on

the

same time

as the

Cooper-

McFarlan Moore, an American

and he also anticipated Wehhelt

it,

Georges Claude's introduction of the neon tube, and the desire

powders and

colour, stimulated interest in fluorescent

to

in

means of employing them with

Stellerman (London: MacMillan)

lamp.

SOURCE:

The Sources of Invention by

Jewkes,

Sawers and

pp 298/9 (1958)

SEE ALSO:
1902

'Lighting by luminescence' by

Claude Light and Lighting

INDUCTION MOTOR (SYNCHRONOUS)

Danielson's synchronous induction motor
invention which was complete at
It

was not patented

in

its first

is

June 1939)

Danielson (Sweden)

an excellent example of the sudden appearance of an

inception.

Great Britain, but the

694092 of 25 February 1902 granted

(3

to Ernst

information

full

is

available in United States Patent No.

Danielson of Westeras, Sweden

After relating the advantages of the over-magnetised synchronous motors for eliminating lag (of current)

and referring

to the difficulty

of starting such machines, the specification proceeds:

'The invention consists, briefly,

combination with an ordinary induction-motor and a suitable

in

resistance for connecting to the secondary element of said motor, a source of continuous electric

currents (and) a switch arrangement so connected that the secondary part of the motor

may by means

of said switch arrangement either be connected to the said resistance or to the said source of continuous
currents'.

With reference

'When

to the self-synchronizing action, the specification states:

the exciting current

is

supplied, the motor

one, provided, however, that the exciting-current

The drawing and diagram of connections (showing

to the specification are completely up-to-date,

is

is

changed from an asynchronous

to a

synchronous

strong enough to pull the motor in step.'

a three-phase-secondary

and were

it

not for the

winding) which are attached

somewhat archaic

outlines of the

machines, might have been taken from a present-day text book or manufacturer's pamphlet.

SOURCE:

Patents for Engineers by

L H A Carr and

C Wood

(London: Chapman and Hall) (1959)

pp 97/8
1902

SPONTANEOUS ATOMIC CHANGE

Very swift and

brilliant analysis

of the

six years after the original discovery

of atoms.

They

E Rutherford and F Soddy (UK)

phenomena

led Rutherford

and Soddy

to

announce

in 1902,

only

of radioactivity, their theory of the spontaneous disintegration

asserted that atoms, the very foundation of matter and nature, were exploding, and

not according to any rule, but merely by chance. Einstein has said that he 'could not believe that the

Almighty had organised the world according

chance as the

first

to the

throwing of dice'.

It

needed

a bold spirit to adopt

principle in the explanation of the transmutation of the fundamental atoms of matter.

A Concise

02

Description of Each Invention in Date Order

Rutherford forthwith bent his

He proved

atoms are not

that

planets round the sun of a miniature solar system. Nearly

the nucleus,

little

few distant electrons circulating round a

structures, consisting of a

made

genius to the task. Within nine years he had

full

the general structure of the atom.

which carried a positive

the

all

the rays reveal

hard balls, but very spacious

relatively

heavy nucleus,

like the

mass of the atom was concentrated

electric charge exactly balancing the

sum of

in

the negative electric

charges carried by the circulating electrons.

SOURCE:
1904

War by

Science at

Crowther and

R Whiddington

TWO ELECTRODE TUBE

Fleming received

(1947) p 123

Fleming (UK)

London, where he attended London University;

his early education in

was appointed

four years at Cambridge, and he

HMSO)

(London:

later

Edison Electric Light

'electrician' to the

he spent

Company

in

1882. During a visit to the United States in 1884 he visited Edison to discuss electric lighting problems,

and

it

moment

of particular

is

made

discovery he had

had been sealed, Edison found

plate

when

that

He used

was very

showed
It

interested in the

that 'the space

was on 16 November 1904

No 24850

Specification

SOURCE:

plate

'Fleming and de Forest

1

an

was

glass dielectric capacitor

immersed
to

stations.
in

to

Fleming

which he

street for electricity'.

in

British Patent

appreciation' by Captain

manufactured

later

modified form, using

in a

C F Booth IEE Pub.

Thermionic Valves

for

in tubular

Moscicki (UK)
form known as the Moscicki tube

Marconi's early experiments

in practical wireless

glass plates interleaved with zinc sheets and

flat

all

continued to provide the condensers for the spark wireless transmitting apparatus up

in oil,

and including part

SOURCE:

one-way

to the

(1955)

which provided the only form of capacitor available

communication; and

power

Fleming (1849-1945) described

CAPACITORS: GLASS (TUBULAR)

The

is

a metal

a two-electrode valve for the rectification of high-frequency alternating currents.

1904-1954 (London: IEE) p

1904

that Professor J

which

home, carried out researches

his return

between the filament and the metal

in

galvanometer

when connection was made

the device to regulate the supply voltage in

phenomenon, and, on

lamp

was connected through

the plate

positive terminal of the filament a current flowed, but no current flowed

the negative terminal.

Edison demonstrated a

to the story of the valve that, during the visit,

a year before the Edison effect. Using a carbon-filament

at least

of the 1914-18 war period.

'Electrical capacitors in

our everyday

by P

life'

R Coursey ERA Journal No

6,

p 10 (January

1959)

SEE ALSO:

Moscicki 'Improvements

in electric

condensers', British Patent

No

1307, filed 18 January

1904

1905

INSULATED SODIUM CONDUCTOR

The concept of using sodium
patent

was issued

issued to
that 'the

Anson

as an electrical conductor

for this purpose. In 1905

Betts,

who

sodium be enclosed

A G
is

hardly a

Betts

new

(USA)
Back

one.

and 1906, French and American

in 1901, a basic

Swiss

patents, respectively,

were

recognised the favourable economics of the metal. His patent specified

prefereably hermeticallyby

a sheathing of substantially nonoxidizable

reinforcing material.'
In 1927,

H H Dow and R H Boundy

in steel pipes,

and

in

1930,

Dow

of the

Dow

Chemical Company began

constructed a line 10

together 6-metre lengths of sodium-filled steel pipe.

plant in Midland, Mich,
current.

The

SOURCE:

'Insulated

(November 1966)

in

sodium conductors
J

Steeve,

a future trend'
I

experiment with sodium

long, by joining

This uninsulated conductor operated

work have been published

Schneider,

to

diameter by 260

for about ten years at currents ranging

results of this experimental

E Ruprecht, P H Ware, E

cm

by

from 500

to

at

4000 amperes

Dow's
direct

in considerable detail.

L E Humphrey, R C

F Matthysse and E

Scoran

Hess,

Addis,

IEEE Spectrum p 73

Concise Description of Each Invention

SEE ALSO: 'Sodium in pipe successful

No 26, p 852 (24 December 1932)

R H Boundy

'A 4000-ampere sodium conductor' by

by

as electrical conductor'

in

Date Order

R H Boundy

103

Elec. World, vol 100,

Soc pp 151-60 (September

Trans. Electrochemical

1932)

Cooling Electrical Machines and Cables by

T De

Koning (The Hague, Netherlands: Groothertoginne)

pp 202-32 (1955)

1905

THEORY OF RELATIVITY
The

constant under

is

of nature, and

it

began

to

From

line

this

were

conditions.

all

released,

Space and time, which according

there

Mass could be conceived

would be

in a unit

of mass.

If a

to turn nearly

that

it

Science at

mass of one ounce of matter could be transformed

a vast

into energy,

War by

Crowther and

R Whiddington

(London:

applied for a patent on 23

H C Dun woody

distinction of being used in

March 1906.

It

HMSO)

one of the

first

Henry

this

crystal rectifiers.

form of holder and battery bias

its

for

first

Ironically,

the

He was never compensated

for

good

results,

'The crystal detector' by

Douglas IEEE Spectrum p 66 (April 1981)

Fessenden (USA)

documented successful broadcasting of speech and music was conducted by

Fessenden

at

kw

Modulation was accomplished by means of

belived to have been water-cooled and which

at

many

was connected

antenna

in the

New York City, in

in New York City.

1908 from the

Eiffel

SOURCE: 'AM

(1938)

microphone which
Clear reception

Tower

in Paris,

and

in

in

1907 from

his laboratory in

1910 from the Metropolitan Opera House

These experiments, which were conducted with arc transmitters of about 500 watts

power, modulated by microphones

by the high noise

circuit.

locations including ships at sea.

Subsequently, Dr Lee de Forest conducted experimental broadcasting

SEE ALSO:

Reginald

of power and which was built by the General Electric Co., under the

W Alexanderson.

Dr E F

was obtained

Dr.

Brant Rock, Mass., on Christmas Eve, 1906, utilizing a 50 kc radio-frequency alternator

which produced about

direction of
is

after a lengthy legal

practicable.

newly invented carborundum, showing

RADIO BROADCASTING
The

The

H C Dunwoody, who

consulting work.

SOURCE:
1906

was not yet commercially

Forest's Audion, only recently invented,

the proper

(1947) p 125

saved the day for de Forest's company, which had just

was Pickard who helped de Forest's company use

company

would produce

it

(USA)

been enjoined from infringing on the electrolytic detector of Reginald Fessenden

it

energy was

and proportionate

one million tons of water into steam.

carborundum the

Silicon shares with

When

would be enormous.

use of carborundum was discovered by an associate of de Forest, Gen.

De

seemed

and he even calculated how

as congealed energy;

He found

CRYSTAL DETECTOR (CARBORUNDUM)

battle.

motions

to all the

to the old ideas

mass disappeared. The annihilation of mass would be accompanied by

SOURCE:
1906

was extended

relativity

of development, Einstein showed that mass and energy were one of these pairs of

output of energy.

enough

The theory of

of relativity seen to be two different aspects of one underlying unity.

in the light

interchangeable aspects.

much energy

(USA)

be evident that many apparently different things were the same fundamental

thing seen from different points of view.

utterly different,

Einstein

of relativity was proposed by Einstein in 1905 to explain the observed fact that the

brilliant theory

speed of light

in the

antenna-ground system, while successful, were handicapped

level inherent in arc transmitters.

and

FM

Broadcasting' by

'History of radio to 1926' by

R F Guy

G L

Proc.

IRE p

81

(May 1962)

Archer (New York: The American Historical Society)

A Concise

104

1906

Description of Each Invention

in

Date Order

THREE-ELECTRODE TUBE
While Fleming was developing
on somewhat similar

States

electrode valve a triode

L
his two-electrode valve,

de Forest (USA)

Dr Lee de Forest was working

in the

as a device for amplifying feeble electric currents, the amplification being

achieved by using a voltage on the intermediate electrode (grid) to control the plate current.

months

later

United

and on 25 October 1906, de Forest applied for a patent for a three-

lines,

few

de Forest extended the patent to cover the use of the valve as a detector. The introduction

of the third electrode to provide an amplifier as compared with the two-electrode

extended the potential applications of the thermionic valve, and much credit

very greatly

rectifier

due

is

to

de Forest for his

achievement.
Unfortunately, the invention of the triode led to considerable bitterness and litigation involving Fleming

and de Forest, the former insisting

on

his

own

two-electrode valve.

to the

On

end of

aware of Fleming's patent before taking out

addition of the grid

when

1943,

until

his long life that de Forest's

the other hand, de Forest has

his

own.

Initially the

was dependent on Fleming's work. The

the United States

Supreme Court decided

work was dependent

always maintained

American courts held

that

he was not

that

de Forest's

story of the patent litigation did not end

that the original

Fleming patent had always

been invalid.

SOURCE:

'Fleming and de Forest

1904-1954 (London: IEE) p

1907

an

appreciation' by Captain

GONIOMETER
The

direction of aircraft on long-distance routes can be plotted

making

possible,

SOURCE:

Booth lEEPub. Thermionic Valves

A Artom

to the invention of the radio-goniometer

is

CF

2 (1955)

the old,

cumbersome

by

Italian

(Italy)

more accurately than ever before, thanks

Alessandro Artom.

Now

navigation by radio waves

slide-rule calculations obsolete.

The Timetable of Technology (London:

Michael Joseph and Marshall Editions) p 26

(November 1982)
1907

CRYSTAL DETECTOR (PERIKON)

W Pickard (USA)

In addition to the silicon detectors, Wireless Specialty sold detectors using other minerals discovered

Pickard in

November

1907: Pyron (iron pyrite) and Perikon (zincite in contact with chalcopyrite).

name Perikon was coined from PERfect pIcKard cONtact. Each mineral had
most

sensitive, but

heavy

to

own

its

field:

Perikon was

be readjusted often, whereas silicon was very stable and able to withstand

static discharges.

SOURCE:
1908

had

by

The

'The crystal detector' by

Douglas IEEE Spectrum p 66 (April 1981)

ELECTRONIC ORGAN

Beginning with the 1900s there were many attempts

vacuum tube

(USA)

to offer electric or electronic substitutes for organs,

but none enjoyed any degree of commercial success.

electrostatic prerecordings,

Cahill

They were based on

photo-optics, magnetic or

or neon lamp oscillators, or amplified

blown

reeds, etc.

of these, called the Telharmonium, was invented by Thadius Cahill and demonstrated
size of a small power-generating station,

the frequencies of the scale.

it

in

1908.

One
The

consisted of almost a hundred alternator generators for

Then through

all

console of switches, synthesised musical signals were

transmitted over telephone lines without benefit of amplifiers.

In

1935

Mr

Laurens

Hammond, based on

his

synchronous

electric clock, invented the first

successful mass-produced electric organ that started an industry.

over the world have joined

this industry, offering

instruments

Since then,

in a variety

commercially

many manufacturers

all

of sizes and prices that have

transformed modern music

SOURCE:

Electronics Engineer's Reference

Book (London:

Newnes-Butterworth) chap.

(1976)

SEE ALSO: T

Cahill:

US

Patent

No

1295691 (25 February 1919)

17,

p 17-2

A Concise
L Hammond: US
1908

Patent

No 1956350

Description of Each Invention

this time,

105

E Rutherford and H Geiger (UK)

experiments were being conducted with the collection of current by a positive wire

and negative cylinder arrangement

were reported

Date Order

(24 April 1934)

GEIGER COUNTER
About

in

that

were

have a profound effect on science. These experiments

to

paper by Rutherford and Geiger, which showed that the number of charges of an

in a

ionizing event could be multiplied several thousand times by the ionising action of electrons in the high
field

region near the wire.

tubes and

now

This was the

start

simply Geiger counter tubes.

of what for a time were called Gieger-Muller counter

The technique of

was

the proportional type of counter

established in 1928, and the following year, schemes for determining the coincidence of ionising events

were presented. Thus direction,

scattering, absorption, etch types of

experiments were possible and the

modern era of cosmic-ray and nuclear research developed.

SOURCE:

'The development of gas discharge tubes' by

SEE ALSO: E
1908

Rutherford and

TELEVISION

Geiger Proc.

A, vol 81, p 612 (1908)

R. Soc.

A A Campbell-Swinton (UK)

(Electronic)

Boris Rosing, of the

St.

Petersburg Technological Institute, seems to have been the

As

thought of using Braun's tube for the reception of images.

remote

Cobine Proc. IRE p 971 (May 1962)

Nipkow

electric vision, with a

tube as the receiver. At about the

first

physicist

who

early as 1907 he suggested a system of

disc for scanning the scene to be transmitted and a cathode-ray

same time

AA

the English inventor,

Campbell-Swinton, also proposed

a system of electronic television, but with cathode-ray tubes for transmission as well as for reception.

He published

his ideas in the scientific

and 1920, explaining

that the

magazine Nature

image transmitted

from, about 400 000 points of different light value within

SOURCE: A
p323
1909

History of Invention by

Larsen (London:

1908, and elaborated them again

in

way could be

in this

up

split

in

1911

and reassembled

into,

of a second.

&

Dent

Sons)

(New

York:

Roy

Publishers)

(1971)

FERRITES

(HF)

Hilpert (Germany) and J

L Snoek

(Holland)

The

first

proposal for high-frequency application was

synthesised such

come about

until

ferrites.

However,

Snoek from

the practical

made

in

Germany

in

1909 by Hilpert,

who

first

development and exploration of these materials did not

the Philips Laboratories in Holland carried out extensive investigations

on the high-frequency properties of such materials

as

manganese and nickel

ferrite

well into the

UHF

region.

SOURCE:

B Lax and

'Solid-state devices other than semiconductors' by

Mavroides Proc IRE

p 1012 (May 1962)

SEE ALSO:
Ferriten

'Genetische und konstitutive

und Eisenoxyden' by

New Developments
1910

in

Zusammenhange

Ferromagnetic Materials by

The majority of cold cathode tubes use

Sir

the

den magnetischen Eigenschaften bei

L Snoek (New

NEON LAMP
Development of

in

Hilpert Berichte deutsch chemisch, Gesell vol 42, p

a gas

filling

William Ramsay discovered neon.

Ten years

later

Claude (France)
is

the

principal

constituent.

said to date from 1898, the year in

Georges Claude began

quantities of a helium-neon mixture and in 1910 Claude exhibited

the precursors of the familiar

York: Elsevier) (1947)

of which neon

modern cold cathode tube may thus be

2248-61 (1909)

two

38-ft.

neon sign and decorative lighting tube of today,

which

to isolate substantial

neon tubes. These were

in

which the

light

comes

principally from the long positive column.

Filament lamps and electric power were both expensive

incentive to develop a cheap and robust

at that time.

There was accordingly

lamp of low power consumption and

a strong

suitable for use

on

A Concise

106

Description of Each Invention

H E Watson

domestic supply voltages. Professor

of the domestic neon lamp,

first in

Germany

has described the work which led to the appearance

1918 and

in

neon

substantially reduced, the design of a 'beehive'

110

Date Order

in

The

fall.

USA

activity in the

Holland.

Once

sputtering had been

supplies presented few problems. For

was required

supplies, however, an alloy or activated cathode

the cathode

later in

220

for

in

order sufficiently to reduce

successful development of such a tube by Philips in Holland stimulated renewed

and eventually,

1929, the General Electric Co., produced a miniature neon

in

indicator.

SOURCE:

'A survey of cold cathode discharge tybes' by

Neale The Radio and Electronic

Engineering p 87 (February 1964)

SEE ALSO: 'The development of the neon glow lamp

No 4793, p 1040-1 (9 September 1961)
1911

(1911-61)' by

ATOMIC THEORY
The general model of

H E Watson

Nature vol 191,

Lord Rutherford (UK)

the

atom was

proposed by Rutherford

first

in

1911 and consisted of a nucleus

of protons and neutrons, about which rotated electrons in orbits. Such a system appears not unlike our
solar

system

SOURCE:
1911

in a scale relative to the size

'Semiconductor electronics

1.

of the components.
Solid-state physics' Electro-Technology p 95 (October 1960)

SUPERCONDUCTIVITY
The discovery of superconductivity

dates back to 1911

Onnes (Netherlands)

when Kamerlingh Onnes was

carrying out a

systematic investigation at Leiden of the electrical resistivity of metals in the range of low temperatures

opened up by

helium

his recent liquefaction of

in

resistance below

SOURCE:

that temperature; in short, the metal

415 K, and was unable

to detect

any remaining

had become superconducting.

Materials for Conductive and Resistive Functions by

Book Co.) p

measurements he

In the course of these

1908.

observed a sudden drop in the resistance of mercury at

A Dummer (New

York: Hayden

121

H K Commun. Phys. Lab., University of Leiden, No 119b ('Further

No 120b (The resistance of pure mercury at helium temperatures.
Further experiments with liquid helium'); No 122b ('Disappearance of the electrical resistance of
mercury at helium temperatures'); No 124c

SEE ALSO:

1911 Onnes

experiments with liquid helium');

1913 Onnes

1914 Onnes

H K Commun.
H K Commun.

resistance in supra conductors

1912

No

Phys. Lab. University of Leiden,

Lab., University of Leiden,

Phys.

when brought

into a

magnetic

133b, Suppl.

No

No

34

139f ('Appearance of galvanic

field')

TUNG AR RECTIFIER

Langmuir (USA)

During the spring and summar of 1912, Dr. Irving Langmuir of General Electric became interested and
active in the development of the gas-filled, tungsten-filament, incandescent lamp. These early laboratory

lamps were constructed with heavy-coiled tungsten-spiral filaments

bulb space around the filament was relatively small so that

few drops of mercury were placed

it

that operated at

would operate

at

low voltage. The

high temperature and a

There was usually another portion of the bulb where

in the bulb.

the mercury vapour condensed and ran back into the filament portion.

These lamps were frequently

As one of

tested

by operation from a 110

was

the objects of these tests

to study the life

temperatures, there were frequent burnouts.

out during operations, an arc formed
In all of this early

on the arc as a

work

rectifier

at

dc line through a series resistance.

was noticed

that,

when

the filament

at

very high

sometimes burned

the break.

the primary interest

were made

It

and characteristics of the lamp

at that

was

time.

in the arc as a

source of light and apparently no

However, one of the men sketched

filament and a separate anode plus liquid mercury.

tests

a tube with a hot

A
In the early part of
it

became

in

Date Order

107

1915 the possible need for a garage battery charger was considered and during 1916

a going concern.

SOURCE:
1912

Concise Description of Each Invention

'Early history of industrial electronics' by

CLOUD CHAMBER

W C White Proc.
CT R

(For Revealing the Ionisation

IRE p

130 (May 1962)

Wilson (UK)

Tracks of Radioactive Particles)

His intention was to produce an
to

occur

that

was then believed

it

even

artificial

that

cloud by the adiabatic expansion of moist

air.

For condensation

each droplet required a nucleus of dust. However, Wilson showed

complete absence of dust particles some condensation was possible, and

in the

He was

greatly facilitated by exposure to X-rays.

much

the necessary nuclei (1896-7). After

labour he produced, in 191

showed up

the paths of single charged particles

that

it

was

led to conclude that charged atoms (or ions) were

1,

his

Cloud Chamber,

which

in

as trails of minute water droplets.

The Wilson Cloud Chamber, sometimes modified

modern

or refined, has been an indispensable tool of

physics ever since.

SOURCE: A

Biographical Dictionary of Scientists by

Williams (London:

Adam

and Charles Black)

p 564 (1969)

1912

RELAY AUTOMATIC TELEPHONE EXCHANGE

GA

N G Palmgren

Betulander and

(Sweden)

The

idea of using relays as switching circuits in a telephone exchange

conceived

in

1912 by

Although

selector.

to the selector

RADIO

Betulander and

name

is less

N G

known, Betulander

well

was by no means new;

it

was

first

Palmgren of Sweden who also developed the crossbar

the relay

is to

exchange what Strowger

is

exchange.

SOURCE: The
1912

his

GA

Telephone and the Exchange by P

Povey (Post Office Publication) p 84 (1974)

W H Eccles (UK)

(Ionospheric propagation)

Following Marconi's success

in

1901 in transmitting signals across the Atlantic, Kennelly and Heaviside

postulated the existence of a conducting (ionized) layer in the earth's upper atmosphere and suggested

might cause the waves

that such a layer

to follow the curvature of the earth.

After

it

became

clear that

diffraction could not explain the substantial field strengths actually received at great distance, increased

attention

was directed

to this proposal of

an ionised region.

The theory of radio-wave propagation through

on the ionizing

Larmor

effect of solar radiation,

the ionosphere

based on work by Eccles

1924 re-examined the work of Eccles and others and ascribed the major

in

effect to the presence of free electrons in large numbers.

and developed by Appleton, Hartree and others

magnetic

is

field, is

work was

later

now

in

1912,

and on the effective refractive index of an ionized medium.

The Eccles-Larmor

to include the effect

part of the refractive

theory, as later extended

of anisotropy due to the earth's

considered the basic theory of radio-wave propagation in the ionosphere. This

extended by Booker and others

to

cover oblique propagation

in a

nonhomogeneous

ionosphere.

SOURCE:

'Radio-wave propagation between World Wars

and

II'

by S S Attwood Proc. IRE p 689

(May 1962)

SEE ALSO: 'On

the diurnal variations of the electric

of electric waves round the bend of the earth' by

waves occurring

in nature

Eccles Proc. R. Soc.

and on the propagation

vol 87,

pp 79-99 (June

1912)

1912

CIRCUITRY

The regenerative

circuit

was invented

States and by Meissner in

finally

decided

E H Armstrong and I
Langmuir (USA) and A Meissner
(Germany)

de Forest,

(Regenerative)

in

Germany.

de Forest's favour.

in

1912 by de Forest, Armstrong and Langmuir

After 20 years of litigation, the United States

in the

United

Supreme Court

A Concise Description of Each Invention

108

RF

In the regenerative detector circuit

give positive feedback

at

energy

Date Order

in

is

fed back from the anode circuit to the grid circuit to

the carrier frequency, thereby increasing the sensitivity of the circuit.

Regenerative receivers marked a big step forward

providing greatly increased sensitivity. Inherently

in

By 1922

they provided large amplification of small signals and small amplification of large signals.

they had reached the high point in their development and had almost entirely superseded crystal

SOURCE:

'The development of the

art

sets.

of radio receiving from the early 1920s to the present' by

WO

Swinyard Proc. IRE p 794 (May 1962)

SEE ALSO: 'Some

recent developments of regenerative circuits' by

E H Armstrong Proc IRE

vol 10,

pp 244-60 (August 1922)

'The regenerative

1912

circuit'

by E

H Armstrong

Proc. Radio Club of America (April 1915)

CIRCUITRY(Heterodyne and Superheterodyne)

HM

(see

Fessenden and

E H Armstrong

(USA)

figure 5.2)

Professor Fessenden, in his search for an improved receiver, invented the heterodyne system in 1912.

Previous receivers had merely acted as valves, detecting by turning a direct current on and off

amounts proportional

to the received signal.

joint action of the received signal and a local

in

In contrast, the heterodyne system operated through the

wave generated

receiving station. Combination of

at the

these two alternating currents resulted in an audio beat-note, the difference frequency between the

two

waves. Although Fessenden's local oscillator was an arc source, very bulky and troublesome,

was

it

nevertheless the forerunner of superheterodyne and single-banded reception.

The next advance

in

double-detection technique involved amplification of the beat-note or intermediate

frequency. Several parallel developments took place in the United States and in Europe.

name an
at

about the same time. The works of

E H Armstrong

SOURCE:

H Hammon, A

in the practical application

'Radio receivers past and present' by

SEE ALSO:

'The superheterodyne

Armstrong Proc. IRE vol

RELIABILITY
At the

difficult to

risk of

Meissner, Lucian Levy,

12, p

Alexanderson, and

its

origin,

of the superheterodyne system.

Buff Proc. IRE p 887 (May 1967)

development and some recent improvements' by E

AIEE (USA)

(Standards)

some controversy,

it

can be stated that the

AIEE

Standard No.

was 'General Principles upon which Temperature Limits

and Apparatus'. This Standard started the
electrical materials.

first

first
1

step in the

this

new

field

published in 1913. The

are

Based

in the

of

title

reliability

can be

of this document

Rating of Electric Machines

cycle of appreciation for the chemical composition of

During the subsequent development of the

been a cyclic recurrence of

549 (October 1924)

traced to discussion generated by the

mechanism of

EF

stand out. Armstrong fully appreciated the problem and obtained a patent in 1920 that

was of major importance

1913

It is

inventor since the superheterodyne system as a basic idea seemed to appear from several sources

electrical

and electronic

field,

emphasis which can be recognised today as 'analysis

failure in materials used in highly reliable electronic parts'.

However,

there has

for the basic

in all fairness,

should be stated that the element of time-dependent degradation was not a part of the referenced

document. This element did not become a formally recognized factor

until the great

it

first

upsurge period for

reliability in the 1950s.

SOURCE:
Proc.

1913

IRE

'The

reliability

p 1323

and quality control

field

from

ATOMIC ORBIT THEORY

In

inception to the present' by

C M

Ryerson

N Bohr (Denmark)

1913 Bohr proposed certain changes

orbits in

its

(May 1962)

which the electrons do not

number times some

constant; (3)

if

in the earlier

atomic concept. These were: (1) there are stable

radiate; (2) in these orbits the angular

momentum

is

an electron changes from one orbit to another, energy

an integral
is

emitted

or absorbed corresponding to the difference in energy between those orbits. Thus, various stable orbits

correspond to various permissible energy levels.

A Concise

SOURCE:
1913

'Semiconductor electronics

RESISTORS
Since

1.

review

article

W F G Swann

meeting over sixty years ago

Swann measured

necessary to refer to

it

is

is

the paper that

example

typical

Date Order

in

Solid-state physics' Electro-Technology p

(Thin Metal Film)

this is a

thin films.

Description of Each Invention

which

in 1913,

Dr

some of

G Swann

how

illustrates

95 (October 1960)

(UK)

the earlier papers

on

the subject of

presented to the British Association

our ideas have changed

little

109

in this period.

the resistivity of sputtered platinum films as a function of the sputtering time and

hence of the film thickness; he also recorded the temperature coefficient of resistance of these films

between liquid nitrogen temperature and 100

and observed the abnormally high

resistivity associated

with very thin films and also a negative temperature coefficient of resistance in the thinnest films.

SOURCE:

'Resistive thin films and thin-film resistors

Electronic

Components p 737 (September 1964)

SEE ALSO:
1914

G Swann

Phil.

Mag.

vol 28 p

history, science

1914 Dr Langmuir

first

Bennett

Langmuir (USA)

suggested a method of controlling the arc in a mercury-pool tube by means

He showed how

of a grid.

467 (1914)

THYRATRONS
In

and technology' by

main arc

a grid voltage could be used to control the starting of the

in

each rectifying cycle. Thus, the average arc current through the tube was controlled when an ac anode
voltage was used.
In

1922 Toulon, a French

improved on

scientist,

this

method of control by varying

voltage with respect to the anode voltage rather than to

start at

any point

in the

anode voltage cycle and

the phase of the grid

made

amplitude. Thus, the arc could be

its

this resulted in a very practical

to

and convenient method

of controlling the average value of a rectified anode current.

In

1936 Dr

gas or vapour.

dropped

to a

positive-ion

SOURCE:
1914

Hull developed the idea of operating a hot-cathode diode in a low pressure of an inert

As

a result, the space charge effect

low and more or

bombardment of

less constant value

the cathode

is

was eliminated and

of 5 to 10

low arc drop voltage, the

this

not destructive.

'Early history of industrial electronics' by

CG

White Proc. IRE p

ASDIC
The

the voltage drop of the discharge

At

volts.

132 (May 1962)

(UK)

British traced their sonar

waves

the sound

Committee),

set

in a

up

system

to

World War

I,

when

a piezoelectric oscillator

was used

to

emit

system called the ASDIC, named for the Allied Submarine Detection Investigation

At the outbreak of World War

in 1917.

II,

Britain outfitted

its fleet

ASDICs

with

that

had the quartz-steel transducer. In the US, meanwhile, work on the magnetostriction-tube transducer

was being done under contract by

SOURCE:
1915

the

Submarine Signal Company of Newport,

Electronics p 174 (17 April 1980)

ACOUSTIC MINE
The

RI.

acoustic mine

Wood (UK)

was invented by Wood,

later

Deputy Superintendent of

the Admiralty

Research

Laboratory, in the war of 1914-18.

The
31

first

encounter with a

German

acoustic mine in the recent

August 1940, when one was exploded by a motor

twice

in a

week mines had exploded

away. One suggestion was

that the

boat.

war occurred

Then

in the Firth

of Forth on

the cruiser 'Galatea' reported thai

well ahead of her. Destroyers began to explode mines half a mile

phenomenon was due

to

unexploded bombs. Even

at

the end of

September, some experts doubted the existence of acoustic mines.

The mine contained

a reed tuned to vibrate

up and communicated by
which operate

on

a frequency of

the reed to a carbon microphone.

like a telephone

The

240 per second. The noise was picked

later

exchange. The mine will not go off

forms of mine contained counters

until

it

is

called up, so to speak, for.

A Concise

10

Description of Each Invention in Date Order

The

say, the seventh time.

six ships will pass

first

over

safely and

it

The mines contained clocks which could keep them disarmed

SOURCE:
1915

SONAR

Science at

War by

R Whiddington

Crowther and

will

it

many

for

explode under the seventh.

days, until a fixed date.

(London:

HMSO)

p 172 (1947)

P Langevin (France)

(Submerged Submarine Detection by

Ultra-Sonics)

(See also chapter

The

6.)

detection of submerged submarines by sound has been particularly highly developed by British

The method has been evolved from

scientists.

liner Titanic

by collision with an iceberg.

a suggestion

British engineer

made

in

1912, after the sinking of the

named Richardson suggested

might be detected by the echo of a pulse of sound waves emitted from the approaching
of short sound waves which can be readily 'beamed' like a searchlight
precise definition of the direction of the berg.

In

is

that icebergs

ship.

The use

necessary in order to secure

1914 the only known practical way of obtaining

such short or supersonic waves was from oscillators made of mica and caused to vibrate by electrical
stresses.

An

Allied

Committee was

at this

Boyle of Canada, Professor

time formed to develop anti-submarine technique.

included Dr

It

William) Bragg, Professor P Langevin of France and

(later Sir

Rutherford. Langevin succeeded in 1915 in producing ultra-sonic waves by applying the piezo-electric

they produce an electric charge.

to vibrate

way

Thus an

alternating electric potential applied to a quartz crystal causes

and these vibrations are of the type that produces sound waves. Hence by suspending a

quartz crystal in water, and applying to

crystal will be

made

to vibrate

a pulse of alternating current of appropriate frequency, the

it

and communicate

length. This will be transmitted through the water

is

quartz crystals are cut in the appropriate

expands or contracts them; and conversely when mechanically stretched or compressed

electrification

it

When

by Jacques and Pierre Curie.

effect discovered

water a pulse of sound waves of the desired

to the

and be reflected by any obstacle.

If

such an obstacle

of sufficient size an echo can be received on the quartz which sent out the transmission. The echo

creates a

weak pulse of alternating

of 1918, scientists
this

which can be detected by

current

Admiralty Experimental Station

at the

at

kind in securing super-sonic echoes from a British submarine

SOURCE:

Science at

SEE ALSO:

War by

R Whiddington

Crowther and

electrical instruments. In the spring

Harwich succeeded with an apparatus of

range of a few hundred yards.

at a

(London:

'Uses of ultrasonics in radio, radar and sonar systems' by

HMSO)

p 153 (1947)

P Mason

IRE p 1374

Proc.

(May 1962)
Electroacoustics by

1915

Hunt (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press) chapter

FILTERS (ELECTROMAGNETIC)
In

Campbell

&K

(1954)

W Wagner (UK)
Some

1831 Michael Faraday formulated the law of electromagnetic induction and self-induction.

84 years
the

first

later,

in

1915,

Campbell and

electromagnetic or

followed rapidly,

LC wave

until today, filters

of a modern world without them.

some kind of

signal

filter,

Wagner

utilized Faraday's

Significant advances in

filter.

filter

and, in the past,

industrial,

LC

filter

in their invention

of

theory and technology then

have so permeated electronic technology

Consumer,

law

that

it is

hard to conceive

and military electronic systems

networks provided one of the most

all

require

efficient

and

economical methods of implementing them.

SOURCE:

inductorless

SEE ALSO:

filters:

a survey'

by

S Moschytz

'The golden anniversary of electric wave

IEEE Spectrum p 30 (August

filters'

by

1970)

Zverev IEEE Spectrum vol

3,

pp 129-31 (March 1966)

'Introduction to

1915

RADIO
The

(Single

filters'

by

Zverev Electro -Technol (New York) pp 63-90 (June 1964)

Sideband Communication)

military and international

companies with

J
a

need

and by the 1950s designers were hunting for ways

transmission appeared to hold great promise.

to

Carson (USA)

communicate abroad leaned heavily on

to

ease spectrum crowding.

radio,

Single-sideband

A Concise
Like so

many

1915,

R Carson

other radio techniques,

AT &

of

needed for transmitting

showed

that

it

major application

SOURCE:
1916

Three years

intelligence.

at

had been developed originally for use

later the first

in

first

'Communications' by

Command became known,

Air

in the Strategic

making

teleprinter,

RELIABILITY

Press,

in 1916.

it

was invented

possible to send written messages through telephone lines,

&

Macdonald

name

telex

1928 and was extended

in

from

at a

teleprinter exchange.

Co.) (1990) p 243

Bell/Western Electric (USA)

first

clear-cut

The Western

planned programme

to

examples of what would now be called

Electric

Company and

the Bell

programme

a reliability-control

Telephone Laboratories co-operated

in a

produce good performing and trouble-free telephone equipment for public use.

The following elements of

good

reliability

programme were

involved:

R&D programme considering the system needs.

(1)

An

(2)

Development programmes leading

ably planned, forward-looking

to

mature designs verified by design reviews and engineering

tests.

(3) Part

improvement projects using

test-to-failure

methods, consideration of tolerances and performance

stress loading.

and simplification

(4) Standardization

Product evaluation under

(6) Quality control during

Feedback from the

(7)

November 1972)

Gilder Electronic Design vol 24, p 96 (22

(Control)

Perhaps one of the

(5)

its first

The Book of Inventions and Discoveries Associate Editor Valerie-Anne Giscard d'Estaing

(UK: Queen Anne

under

the mid- 1930s single-

Markrum Co (USA)

SOURCE:

model

By

single-sideband really caught on.

1916 by Markrum Co. of Chicago. The system became operational

occurred

telephone systems. In

high radio frequencies had proved successful. In the late 1950s, after

national level by the Bell Laboratories in 1931 under the

1916

commercial application of single-sideband

use this technique to increase channel capacity.

to

TELEX
The

in

T's Development and Research Dept. had proved that only one sideband was

was possible

sideband transmission

it

Description of Each Invention in Date Order

in design.

field application

conditions for prototypes and pilot production models.

manufacture to assure achieving the

field to

SOURCE: 'The reliability and

IREp 1323 (May 1962)

reliability inherent in the design.

provide information for the designers.

quality control field from

its

inception to the present' by

G M

Ryerson

Proc.

1916

'CROSSBAR' TELEPHONE EXCHANGE

Roberts and J

Reynolds

(USA)
The

first

'crossbar' based

but the idea needed

system.

system

years of development

and by Gotthelf

mechanism. The

first

work before

system but

it

used

SOURCE. The

it

was more expensive. At

One

Roberts, of the

USA,

exchange was

where

it

installed in

Sweden

in 1926.

could offer several advantages over

that time, crossbar, like Strowger,

was

a step-by-step

kind of selector.

Telephone and the Exchange by P

CONDENSER MICROPHONE

could be transformed into a practical

N Reynolds of the USA, who patented the

G Palmgren of Sweden who designed the first

fully operational crossbar

a totally different

it

Roberts, and John

Betulander and Nils

the late 1930s, crossbar had been developed to the point

Strowger, although

1917

on an idea conceived as long ago as 1901, by Homer

This was done by John

in 1916,

satisfactory

By

many

Covey

(Post Office Publication) p 75 (1974)

E C Wente

(USA)

electrostatic device chat has earned a secure place for itself in the transducer art

is

microphone. Wente's 'uniformly sensitive instrument' of 1917 probably represents the

design in which sensitivity was deliberately traded for uniformity of response, and

the condenser
first
it

transducer

was almost

A Concise

112

certainly the

Description of Each Invention

first

Date Order

in

which electronic amplification was

in

relied

on

to gain

back the ground

by

lost

eschewing resonance.

SOURCE:

Electroacoustics by

F V Hunt (Cambridge, Mass': Harvard University

SEE ALSO: 'The sensitivity and recision of the electrostatic

E C Wente Phys. Res. vol 19, p 498 (May 1922)

Press) p 169 (1954)

transmitter for measuring sound intensities'

by

1917

CRYSTAL PULLING TECHNIQUE

Most of

The
is

the single crystal silicon used for p-n junction devices

oldest of these

grown from

was

J Czochralski

is

the pulling process

a charge

of

commonly

of

a vertical rod

region

is

been commercially exploited,

formed on the end of

The

some

SEE ALSO:

the crystal

movement of

narrow molten zone up or

a crucibleless pulling technique

and the crystal

is

it

growth technique, which has only

third crystal

whereby

seeded and pulled from

the molten
this

molten

extent, features of Czochralski and float-zone growth.

'Microinhomogeneity problems

Trans, on Parts, Materials

is

a thick silicon rod

pool in a manner combining, to

SOURCE:

whereby

This technique has been widely used because

initially polycrystalline silicon.

eliminates the problem of crucible contamination.

relatively recently

produced by one of three techniques.

melted in a crucible (usually quartz). Historically, the next development

Si

the float-zone technique of crystal growth, involving the

down

is

called the Czochralski technique

and Packaging

H F

by

in silicon'

vol

PMP-2, No

3,

John,

Faust and

Stickler

IEEE

p 51 (September 1966)

'Measuring the velocity of crystallisation of metals' by

Czochralski

Z.

Phys. Chem. vol

92, p 219 (April 1917)

1918

ALEXANDERSON ALTERNATOR

E F

Alexanderson tested special Swedish iron

the iron capable of satisfactory operation

However Fessenden
iron

would melt

it

magnetic

for his tests

magnetic

1.5 mills thick in strong

and found

fields,

100 kHz, so he designed the alternator with an iron core.

rejected the design and insisted

in a strong

By mid- 1906 General

used

strips
at

W Alexanderson (USA)

field at

on the use of

wooden core

was sure

as he

wooden core

Electric had built an alternator with a

and Fessenden

as specified,

from Brant Rock, Mass. on Christinas Eve, 1906. He succeeded

in

broadcasting

However

both speech and music, and the transmission was heard as far away as Norfolk, Virginia.

Dr Alexanderson did not give up

authority from
to

GE

to build a

model

Fessenden he was convinced of

his idea of using

alternator to his
its

that

100 kHz.

potential

an iron cored armature, and was able

own

design.

When

this

to obtain

machine was demonstrated

and placed an order for two 100

kW

alternators using

iron cores.

By 1915
modulate

was

a
it

50 kW, 50 kHz experimental alternator was being tested and Dr Alexanderson was able

to

with voice, using a DeForest Audion valve to control a magnetic amplifier. Dr Alexanderson

also responsible for the design of a multiple tuned antenna for use with the alternator.

By 1917

the 50

kW

alternator

was ready

to

be tested

in the

NJ, but by this time America had entered the war and

American Marconi

all

station at

New

Brunswick,

radio stations were taken over by the

US

government.

SOURCE:

'The Alexanderson Alternator, a 'near-perfect' system of

WAT

transmission' by

K Weedon

lEEConf. Publ. 411 p 69 (September 1995)

SEE ALSO:
p 626

1918

'Transatlantic radio communication' by

E F

Alexanderson Proc. IEEE vol 72, no

5,

(May 1984)

INDUCTION HEATING
The production of

(High Frequency)

heat by induced currents

was recognised

E F Northrup (USA)
as early as 1880.

The heating of transformer

cores due to eddy currents was, of course, understood at an early date. Probably the real engineering

and developmental pioneer

in

induction heating with frequencies above the power range

was Professor

A Concise
E F Northrup of Princeton

1918

RADIO
At

all

kW

'Early history of industrial electronics' by

C White

frequencies, electromagnetic energy

is

and usable signal strengths

134 (May 1962)

shadow of an

obstacle, the

In the radio-frequency range, diffraction yields significant

the geometric field strength in the

many mathematicians over

significant break-through

was produced by Watson

shadow zone

The numerical values of

to be far

The

15 years with resultant divergent answers.

1918,

in

who showed

that

waves radiated by

an antenna on the surface of a perfectly conducting sphere would be attenuated exponentially

distances.

10000

Watson (UK)

diffracted into the geometric

shadow zone beyond

in the

IRE p

Proc.

GN

(Ground Wave Propagation)

of the earth was attacked by

using a spark gas oscillator.

amount increasing with decreasing frequency.

first

University. In 1918 he built practical 'furnaces' for frequencies above

cycles and powers as high as 60

SOURCE:

Description of Each Invention in Date Order

great

at

by Watson under these conditions proved

field strength predicted

lower than known experimental values. This discrepancy promoted increased

interest in the

ionosphere as a mechanism that might explain the wide divergence in the mathematical and experimental
values of field strength, particularly

SOURCE:

in the

kilocycle range of frequencies.

'Radio-wave propagation between World Wars

and

by S S Attwood Proc. IRE p 688

II'

(May 1962)

SEE ALSO:

'The diffraction of electric waves by the earth' by

pp 83-89 (October 1918) and

1918

pp 546-63

vol 96,

THE DYNATRON

The dynatron possesses

same purposes and,

G N

Watson Proc.

vol 95,

Hull (USA)

substantial advantages over other types of oscillator that are available for the

in additions

has applications for which other types are not available. For example, a

two-terminal oscillatory circuit, with one terminal 'earthy' can be maintained

no necessity

R. Soc.

(July 1919)

for tappings, or auxiliary circuit elements.

The

being

in oscillation, there

oscillators are in general

more

stable in

frequency than those maintained by triodes and are under more precise control.

SOURCE:

'Applications of the dynatron' by

MG

Scroggie The Wireless Engineer vol X, no 121. p 527

(October 1933)

SEE ALSO:

'The dynatron' by

Hull Proc.

IRE

pp 5-35 (February 1918)

vol 6,

'The dynatron detector' by Hull, Kennelly and Elder Proc. IRE p 320 (October 1922)

1918

ATOMIC TRANSMUTATION
When

Lord Rutherford (UK)

atoms explode, they release some of

certain radioactive

the atomic fragments flung out in the explosion.

of helium.

They

are flung out with

Some

when

the

the

its

war of 1914 began. He was called by

struggle against the

nucleus.

the British

German submarines and was very busy with

atom going. While

his laboratory at

the

Germans were

to

it

Why

not

Rutherford was preoccupied with

this

Government
this

to assist in the scientific

work. But he kept the attacks on

shelling Verdun, Rutherford

was bombarding

the nucleus in

Manchester, when he could find the time.

In 1918 he failed to appear at the meeting of an important

colleagues asked him

it

energy by communicating

immense speed and hence high energy of movement.

direct these against the citadel of an atom, against

idea

their

of these fragments consist of nuclei of atoms

might be possible

why

war science committee.

When one

of his

he had failed to appear, he said that he had just got definite evidence that

to disintegrate an

atom

at will,

and that

if this

proved

to

be true

'it

was

far

more

important than the war'.

Immediately

and

in

after the conclusion

of the war, while

1919 published a conclusive proof

that

still

in

Manchester, he completed

with atomic projectiles from natural radioactive substances; and

at

Manchester.

by Chadwick,

who had been one

Cambridge, he extended

later, in

investigations to the study of the artificial disintegration of the atoms of

assisted in this especially

this investigation

atoms of nitrogen could be transmuted by bombardment

many

light elements.

his

He was

of his most brilliant pupils and collaborators

A Concise

14

SOURCE:
1918

Description of Each Invention in Date Order

Science at

War by

R Whiddington

Crowther and

H Abraham & E

MULTIVIBRATOR CIRCUIT
The

multivibrator, described by

many purposes

for

HMSO)

(London:

Abraham and Bloch

(see figure 11.5).

In

its

p 126 (1947)

Bloch (France)

very important circuit, and

in 1918, is a

original form, however,

is

it

use

is in

more commonly used

for the

generation of pulses than as a time base or discharger circuit.

oHTt

Figure 11.5. Multivibrator

The

multivibrator consists of two valves, each having the anode coupled to the grid of the other via

a condenser,

when

the

and with

in

one valve increases,

anode current

R2

still

in the first

it

drop across the anode

reduced, which results in the grid of the

current of this valve

The method of operation of

a leak resistance to earth.

anode current

to the increased voltage

off.

circuit.

further.

It

first

will thus

load..

sufficiently to permit

anode current

The anode

to flow

maximum
charge

when

is

thus

is

cumulative one and that the

while the anode current

in the

once more

in the

second

cut

is

condenser C| has leaked away through

second valve.

in the

in the reverse direction.

unstable limiting conditions wh/ch occur

as follows:

current of the second valve

be apparent that the effect

until the

cumulative effect again takes place, but

is

valve becoming more positive and increases the anode

valve rapidly reaches a

This circuit condition then remains

the circuit

passes a negative signal to the grid of the other, due

The

either of the valves

When

this

occurs the

multivibrator, therefore, has

is at

two

cut-off and the other at zero

grid potential.

SOURCE: Time
SEE ALSO:

Bases by

S Puckle (London: Chapman

&

Hall) p 25 (1944)

'Notice sur les Lampes-valves a 3 Electrodes et leurs applications' Publication

No

27 of

the French Ministere de la Geurre (April 1918)

1918

CIRCUITRY

The neutrodyne

circuit

was invented

(TRF) amplifier which employed

circuit

L A

(Neutrodyne)

was fed back

in

Hazeltine (USA)

1918 by Hazeltine. Basically

into the grid circuit in the proper

this

a specific type of neutralisation.

magnitude and phase

the effect of grid-to-plate capacitance inside the tube, and thus

it

was

a tuned radio-frequency

current obtained from the plate

to

balance out, or neutralise,

achieved

stability

and prevented

oscillation.

SOURCE:

'The development of the

art

of radio receiving from the early 1920s to the present' by

WO

Swinyard Proc. IRE p 794 (May 1962)

SEE ALSO:

'Tuned radio frequency amplification with neutralisation of capacity coupling' by L

Hazeltine Proc. Radio Club of America vol 2 (March 1923)

A Concise
1918

NOISE
The

first

realisation

tube amplifiers.

unwanted random noise was a factor

that

was soon found

It

in

Date Order

when

that there

was

to

contend with

attempts were being made

to

the

in

being amplified. In his classic paper Schottky

in the plate current

field

of

design high-gain vacuum-

number of stages which could be cascaded

a limit to the

weak

quest for high gain due to an unacceptably high background noise which masked the

random component

15

W Schottky (Germany)

(Shot Effect)

communications came during World War

in the

Description of Each Invention

signals

explained one of these effects and formulated the

first

of a vacuum tube.

Schottky ascribed the random fluctuations in the plate current to the fact that

composed

this current is

not of a continuous but rather of a sequence of discrete increments of charge carried by each electron
arriving at the plate at

random

of the plate current on which

He

The average

superimposed

phenomenon

referred to this

SOURCE:

times.

is

of charge arrival constitutes the dc component

rate

component

a flucuation

as each discrete charge arrives.

as 'schroteffekt' or 'shot-effect'.

'Noise and random processes' by

Ragazzini and

SSL Chang

IRE p

Proc.

146 (May

1962)

SEE ALSO:

'Theory of shot effect' by

Schottky Ann. Phys. vol 57, p 541 (December 1918)

1919

TELEVISION

(Electronic System)

V Zworykin (USA)

1927

TELEVISION

(Electronic System)

P Farnsworth (USA)

It

was already recognised

work was

complete cathode-ray system provided the answer, but no experimental

that a

and the idea lay dormant

started

the Westinghouse

Company.

until, after

going to America

1919, Zworykin joined

in

His major difficulty centred on the electronic camera tube.

He, like

Campbell-Swinton, had conceived the idea of charge storage by 1919. Zworykin lacked the necessary
funds to carry his ideas forward into practical form

at the

time he conceived them, and

it

was

several

years before he could concentrate on their elaboration. Westinghouse took him on to their research staff
but their laboratory devoted itself mainly to radio research, and, since

Zworykin was given no freedom

to

pursue his ideas on television, he resigned to join a development company

to

Westinghouse

in

in

Kansas.

Returning

1923, he drew up an agreement whereby he retained the rights to the television

inventions he had disclosed in 1919, while Westinghouse acquired the exclusive option to purchase the
patents at a later date.

Philo Farnsworth was essentially an individual inventor who, though fortunate enough to find substantial
financial backing,

always retained his autonomy

in research.

on

a small scale with relatively simple equipment.

in

San Francisco he was able

his

first

to

Largely self-taught, he appears

He was of

age to have conceived a completely electronic system.

Working

in laboratories in

demonstrate a complete electronic system

patent application, including his

image dissector

tube,

at

which prefers

the type

an early
to

work

Los Angeles and

later

when he

filed

in

1927,

which constitutes

his

most important

inventive contribution After long-drawn-out patent interference proceedings, Farnsworth and Zworykin

each received basic patents on their different systems of television transmission.

SOURCE: The

Sources of Invention by

Jewkes,

Sawers and R Stillerman (London: MacMillan

&

Co.) p 385/6 (1958)

SEE ALSO:
vol

1919

'The history of

TV

by

GRM

Garratt and

A H Mumford

Proc. 1EE; Part

111

A, Television

99 (1952)

RETARDED FIELD MICRO- WAVE OSCILLATOR

Barkhausen

&K

Kurtz

(Germany)
In

1919

it

was noted by Barkhausen and Kurtz, during

tests for the

presence of gas in transmitting

valves in which the grid was held at a high positive potential and the anode at a negative one, that
oscillation could be maintained in a circuit connected

between grid and anode, or between other

pairs

of electrodes.

The explanation was given

that electrons are accelerated

from the cathode

to the positive grid

through

A Concise Description of Each

116

which some of them

pass.

Invention in Date Order

These are then retarded

some of them again passing through, and being

anode space and turn back

in the grid

to the grid,

reflected at the cathode to repeat the behaviour.

SOURCE: 'Microwave valves: A survey of evolution, principles of operation

C H Dix and W E Willshaw J. Brit. IRE p 578 (August 1960)

and basic characteristics'

by

SEE ALSO:

1919

'The shortest waves obtainable with vacuum tubes' by

CIRCUITRY

to scale

most important single device

innumerable modifications the original form of

in

and Jordan. During the

all

Barkhausen and

Kurtz

Z. Phys.

down

late

1930s

which the

possible 16 states.

its

coded readout for each decade.

In

to provide a scale-often circuit.

resistors arranged to light
in

tandem

was developed

tandem connection began

flip-flops in

last 'carry'

to

in

Used

1919 by Eccles

be used by nuclear physicists

by factors of 2n. These devices were

pulse was used as the output to a mechanical

In 1944, Potter described a scale-of-ten counter in

skip six of

the bistaple circuit or 'flip-flop'.

is

this circuit

the counting rate from Geiger-Muller counters

essentially binary counters in

register.

decades

Eccles and Jordan (USA)

(Flip-Flop Circuits)

In digital circuitry probably the

today

pp 1-6 (1920)

vol 21,

which feedback caused

neon lamp indicating the

state

a binary counter to

of each flip-flop provided a binary-

1946, Grosdoff described another binary counter with feedback

Grosdoff's circuit featured a direct readout obtained by a matrix of

one often neon lamps for each stablestate of the counter. By connecting such

direct reading decimal counting registers of arbitrarily large capacity

were achieved

and the way was cleared for the widespread application of high speed electronic counting.

SOURCE:

'Digital display of

measurements

by

in instrumentation'

Oliver Proc.

IRE

170 (May

1962)

SEE ALSO:

'A highly accurate continuously variable frequency control system' by

Instruments and Methods vol

1919

7,

WG

VALVES HOUSKEEPER SEAL

The breakthrough came
Before

through glass.
this invention

it

in

1919 when

this the

was possible

to

which has high conductivity, and

7
165 x 10~ /C and that of a

C H

Vincent

p 325 (1960)

Houskeeper patented

Houskeeper (USA)
method of sealing base metals

With

leads brought through the glass had to be wires or ribbons.

make
is

large diameter seals using metals such as high purity copper

easily

common

worked

glass

is

into

any desired shape. The expansion of copper

52 x 10" 7 /C so a matched

seal is not possible.

is

The

technique developed by Houskeeper was to taper the metal to a feather edge and then seal the glass
to the thin

copper

edge of the

taper.

Tie copper

is

cleaned, oxidised and then sealed to the glass.

sufficiently flexible to equalise the difference in

is

The

thin

expansion and contraction between the glass

and metal.
With

this

development

outer surface directly.

it

became possible

to

make

vacuum envelope and

the anode part of the

By 1925 valves with water cooled anodes were

in

cool

its

commercial production and

they mark the beginning of the era of high-power broadcast transmitters.

SOURCE:

Electronics Engineer's Reference

Book (London:

Newnes-Butterworth) chap.

7,

pp 7-31

(1976)

SEE ALSO:

'The

art

of sealing base metals through glass' by

Houskeeper

J.

Am, IEE

vol 41,

p 870 (1923)

1919

CRYSTAL MICROPHONE
The
is

crystal

made

microphone, destined to be widely used

in the

USA

Nicholson (USA)
in

home

tape recorders and public address systems,

by Nicholson. The mike works on the piezo-electric principle, by which small

voltages are produced on the surface of a solid such as a crystal.

Sound

quality

is

good, and costs low,

but the mike reacts adversely to heat, humidity and rough handling.

SOURCE: The
1982)

Timetable of Technology (London: Michael Joseph, Marshall Editions) p 61 (November

A Concise
1919

Description of Each Invention

'MILLER' TIME BASE CIRCUIT

There
Valve,

is a

family of time bases (see figure

i.e,

a valve circuit with a

condenser

1.6)

is

C(A +

1) in series

and the cathode, where

amperes per

Miller (USA)

device

known

from the anode of the valve

volt.

This

with a resistance equal to

its

is

grid.

When

such a

substantially the

same

/g had been connected between

the gain of the valve stage and g

is

known

usually

is

as a Miller Capacitance

to

provided with a resistive anode load the effect on the grid circuit

as if a capacitance of

the grid

utilize the

117

connected directly between the grid and the anode. The

insertion of this condenser results in feed-back

valve circuit

which

Date Order

in

is

the mutual conductance in

as the 'Miller Effect' (see figure 11.6).

HTt

Out

oHT-

Figure 11.6. Miller time base

SOURCE:

Time Bases by

1919

RESISTOR

&

Hall) p 158 (1951)

of the input impedance of a three-electrode

vacuum tube upon

SEE ALSO: 'Dependence

the plate circuit' by

circuit.

S Puckle (2nd edn) (London: Chapman

the load in

Miller Sci. Papers of the Bureau of Standards vol 15, p 367 (1919)

F Kruger (Germany)

(Metal-Film Type)

Proposals for the production of metallic-film resistors that will possess a high degree. of stability date

back over 25 years, but mostly they could be prepared only with comparatively low resistance values.

By

spiralling the coating in a

manner similar

possible to increase the resistance of resistors

SOURCE:
Ill,

used for high-stability resistors,

made with gold

films

up

'Fixed resistors for use in communication equipment' by P

to

it

has been found

200000 ohms.

R Coursey

Proc.

IEE

vol 96,

pt.

p 173 (1949)

SEE ALSO: F
1920

to that

Kruger: British Patent

No 157909/1919

PLASTIC MAGNETIC TAPE

Dr Pfleumer (Germany)

Magnetic tape recording becomes possible outside the laboratory. The reason

is

Austrian researcher Dr Pfleumer, of plastic tapes in place of steel wires or tapes.

marketed by the Germans

SOURCE: The

the introduction, by

The magnetophones

1930s will incorporate these plastic tapes.

in the

Timetable of Technology (London: Michael Joseph, Marshall Editions) p 65 (November

1982)

1920

ULTRA-MICROMETER
Few would

suspect that one of the

published in the

November 1920

Cavendish Professor of Physics

The

title

R Whiddington (UK)
first

authentic disclosures of practical electronic instrumentation

issue of

was
The Philosophical Magazine by R Whiddington MA, DSc,

in the University

of Leeds.

of Professor Whiddington's communication

Thermionic Valve

to the

is

The

Ultra-Micrometer; an Application of the

Measurement of Very Small Distances'. The summary of

circuit consisting of a parallel-plate

condenser and inductance be maintained

the paper reads:

in oscillation

'If

by means of

A Concise Description of Each

118

Invention in Date Order

a thermionic valve, a small change in distance apart of the plates produces a change in the frequency of
the oscillations

which can be accurately determined by methods described.

small as 1/200 millionth of an inch can easily be detected.

The name

shown

It is

that

'ultra-micrometer'

changes so
tentatively

is

suggested for the apparatus'.

SOURCE: Letter: 'A pioneer of

No 11, p 687 (November 1975)
SEE ALSO:

'The ultra-micrometer

small distances' by

1921

an

Whiddington

by F

electronics'

Diver The Radio and Electronic Engineer vol 45,

Mag. Series

While working with a quartz

that the

634 (November 1920)

62, vol 40, p

W G Cady (USA)

CRYSTAL CONTROL OF FREQUENCY

Cady discovered

measurement of very

application of the thermionic valve to the

Phil.

crystal connected in the circuit of a self-excited

vacuum-tube

oscillator,

frequency of self-oscillation could be stabilized over a small range by the

vibration of the quartz crystal. In retrospect

it

many

appeared that a good

made

other experiments had

use of crystals associated with vacuum-tube circuits with which they might have observed this stabilizing
action; but

most of them sought

of resonance in the crystal, and

a

to avoid the 'anomalous' effects that occurred in the

it

remained for Cady to discover

high-Q resonator. Cady extended these

results

this

neighbourhood

remarkable stabilizing action of

by applying two pairs of terminals to the crystal and

connecting these as a feedback path for a three-tube amplifier

in

such a way that the circuit would

oscillate but only at the resonance frequency of the crystal.

Cady described and demonstrated

his crystal circuits (January 1923) to Professor

W Pierce of Harvard

University.

Pierce took up the study of such crystal-oscillator circuits immediately, and within a few

months

experiments had led him to the invention of several improved forms of crystal oscillator

in

his

which a two-terminal

crystal could be

made

to control

uniquely the frequency of oscillation in a

single-tube circuit.

SOURCE:

Electroacoustics by

SEE ALSO:
Proc.

Inst.

Hunt (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press) p 53, 55 (1954)

'The piezo-electric resonator' by

Radio Engrs. vol

10,

W G Cady

Phys. Rev. A, vol 17, p 531 (April 1921)

pp 83-1 14 (April 1922); also Piezoelectricity (New York and London:

McGraw-Hill Book Co.) (1946)

Walter

Cady

(crystal resonator)

US

Patent

No

1450 246

(filed

28 January 1920) issued 3 April

1923; also (crystal stabilization and a 3-tube oscillator controlled by a 4-terminaI crystal)

No
1921

1472 583

(filed

28

May

FERROELECTRICITY
Ferroelectricity
its

was

first

US

Patent

1921) issued 30 October 1923.

J Valasek

discovered by Valasek in 1921 in Rochelle

salt,

Curie point; however, the most important ferroelectric material today

discovered in 1942 and developed shortly thereafter

at

MIT

which
is

is

barium

piezoelectric above
titanate,

for ferroelectric applications.

which was
Since then,

other materials of the Perovskite structure and of other structures have been found to be ferroelectric.

SOURCE:

'Solid state devices other than semiconductors'

by B Lax and

Mavroides Proc.

IRE

p 1014 (May 1962)

SEE ALSO:

'Piezoelectric and allied

phenomena

in

Rochelle

salt'

by

Valasek Phys.

Rev.

vol 17,

p 475 (April 1921)

ALSO:

'High dielectric constant ceramics' by

von Hippel, R E Breckenridge, F E Chesley and L

Tisya Ind. Engrg. Chem. vol 38, p 1097 (November 1946)

1921

SHORT WAVE RADIO

One

Amateurs (USA and Europe)

of the main developments in radio after 1918 was the discovery of the usefulness of the shorter

wave-bands.

It

was generally considered

short distance transmission, though cases

that

wavelengths below 200 metres were useless except for

were known of long ranges being obtained on short waves.

A Concise
These were regarded

as freaks, however,

who encouraged by

to

amateurs

in

December 1921 on 200

Description of Each Invention

Date Order

in

and wavelengths below 200 metres were,

these 'freak' results, arranged

showed

metres. Their success

19

after 1918, allocated

broadcasts from America to England

trial

that

short-wave low-power broadcasts could

Stellerman (London: MacMillan) p 353

be heard over long distances

SOURCE:

Sources of Invention by

Jewkes,

Sawers and

(1958)

1922

CIRCUITRY

E H Armstrong (USA)

(Superregeneration)

E H Arrmstrong

Superregeneration was discovered by

during the defense of his patent case for the

regenerative receiver. In a superregenerative receiver, sustained oscillations are squelched by periodic

variation of the effective resistance of the input resonant circuit. Oscillations periodically build up in a

prevented by periodic application to

circuit resonant at the signal frequency. Sustained oscillations are

the grid of the superregenerative tube of a signal that

is

usually between

and considerable

20000 and 100000

used as transmitters

SOURCE:

was

sensitivity,
at

cps.

practical

the oscillations.

The superregenerative

and popular

when

earlier

The quenching frequency

detector, because of

its

broad tuning

unstable modulated oscillators were

frequencies above 30 Mc.

'Radio receivers past and present' by

SEE ALSO:

damps

'Super-regenerative receivers' by

Buff Proc. IRE p 887 (May 1962)

R Whitehead

(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press)

(1950)

1922

NEGATIVE RESISTANCE OSCILLATOR

W B Gill and J H Morell (UK)

Following the work of Barkhausen and Kurtz (1919) which for the
electrical oscillations

on the excitation of oscillatory currents

the starting point of the

Subsequent work on

time reported the generation of

first

depending primarily on the oscillatory motion of electrons

whole

this

field

tuned

circuit,

and

this

in a

vacuum, and not

discovery might be said to represent

of modern microwave valves.

device called generally the 'retarding

reported in 1922 and subsequently by

variants including one in

in a

many

others,

showed

which with adequate emission,

generator, by Gill and Morrell,

field'

that this simple type

of operation had many

a negative resistance could be provided

by the

tube over a frequency band.

SOURCE: 'Microwave valves: a survey of evolution, principles of

C H Dix and W E Willshaw J. Brit. IRE p 578 (August 1960)

operation and basic characteristics'

by

1923

E V

'SQUEGGER' CIRCUIT
The

first

Appleton, J F Herd and R A

Watson Watt (UK)

hard valve time base was of the transformer-coupled type and was developed about 1923 by

Appleton, Herd and Watson Watt. The circuit was

figure

The

known

as a 'squegging oscillator' or 'squegger' (see

1.7).

circuit consists of a transformer-coupled valve V|, oscillating fairly violently at a radio frequency

and having a condenser C|

in the

cathode-grid circuit. At each positive peak of potential

at the grid,

current flows from the transformer secondary winding through the valve V, from grid to cathode and
into the

condenser C| which thus accumulates a charge such

increasingly negative.

When

anode current and, hence, also the alternating potential

the charge
oscillation.

makes

on the condenser leaks away

While the anode current

SOURCE:

which

Time Bases by

SEE ALSO: E V

is

Appleton,

becomes

grid potential

is

the grid,

at

is

cut off and remains so until

sufficiently through the diode to permit the

cut off, the condenser C, loses

a potential excursion towards zero volts.

oscillatory motion

mean

that the

the negative potential reaches the cut-off bias potential of the valve, the

Upon

this

its

excursion there

charge via
is

F Herd and R

Watson Watt:

&

Hall) (1951)

British Patent

and the grid

superimposed

the second half-cycle of the oscillation.

S Puckle (2nd edn) (London: Chapman

resumption of

V2

No 235254.

damped

A Concise

120

Description of Each Invention in Date Order

HTt

HT-

Out

Figure 11.7. Squegging oscillator

1923

circuit.

ICONOSCOPE

V K Zworykin (USA)

The combination of
by

V K

Zworykin

electron

in

1923

beam scanning and

at a

storage

was

proposed and carried into practice

first

The

time preceding any other electronic pickup system.

target

was

an aluminium film oxidised on one side, which was photosensitised with cesium vapour and faced a
metal

grill

serving as collector for photoelectronics.

The metal

side,

which served as

scanned by a high-speed electron beam, which penetrated through the oxide

conducting path permitting the locally stored charge

to flow off

layer,

through the signal

While the tube as described was capable of transmitting only rudimentary

ancestor of the extended line of storage camera tubes which dominate

common

Their

transmission.

features are electron

was

plate.

patterns,

became

it

the

phases of television picture

all

beam scanning and

a signal plate,

forming a temporary

a picture target with small

transverse conductivity capable of storing charge released in response to light.

The

first

camera tube was the iconoscope. Here, the picture was projected on

practical storage

of photosensitive elements capacitatively coupled to a signal

plate.

mosaic

The mosaic was then scanned by

high-velocity beam, restoring the mosaic to a uniform potential and releasing photoelectrically stored

charge for forming the picture signal. The secondary-emission ratio was greater than unity, so that the

beam was

equilibrium potential under the

SOURCE:

close to that of the electrodes facing the mosaic.

'Beam-deflection and photo devices' by

Schlesinger and

G Ramberg

Proc.

IRE p 993

(May 1962)

SEE ALSO: V K
'The Iconoscope

Zworykin:

US

Patent

modern version of

No

2141 059 (20 December 1938)

the electric eye' by

V K

filed

29 December 1923

Zworykin Proc. IRE

vol 22, p 16

(January 1934)

1924

CARBON

REISZ TRANSVERSE-CURRENT

G Neumann

(Germany)

MICROPHONE
A

very significant invention

which became the standard

microphone.

It

in

BBC

the

microphone

field

was

microphone from 1926

to

the Reisz transverse-current microphone,

1935

was invented by Georg Neumann, who worked

the familiar white marble octagonal

for the Reisz

Company

in

Germany

at

the time, about 1924.

block of marble or other insulating material had two deep recesses cut

a shallow surface trough.

rear.

Each recess had a carbon electrode

The block was covered by

trough-plus-recesses

was

filled

The diaphragm was very

a thin

it,

in

it,

these being joined by

connected

to a terminal at the

diaphragm of mica or paper and the space between

this

and the

with fine granulated carbon.

light,

and well damped by the carbon granules, giving the microphone a

performance very much superior to

that of other

SOURCE: Communication

SEE ALSO: BBC

in

from P

carbon microphones, such as those used

Baxandall, Malvern (22 July 1982)

Engineering 1922-72 p 42

(BBC

Publications) (1972)

in telephones.

Description of Each Invention

A Concise
Neumann

'Georg

1924

memoriam'

in

J.

R Anson (UK)

of a linear saw-tooth time base

earliest attempt at the construction

and was developed about the year 1924. The author believes
of the development of the Anson relay

which

in

low pressure,

upon
and
is

in

which neither of the electrodes

is

normally about 130

When

volts.

When

St

with neon gas

filled

which

a potential,

at

dependent

is

which the electrodes are made

the potential falls to about 100 volts the gas deionizes.

consists of a condenser charged through a high resistance and discharged by the

Time Bases by

SEE ALSO: R

appeared as a result

for signal-shaping purposes in

between the electrodes the gas becomes ionized. This potential

neon tube when the charge upon the condenser reaches the

SOURCE:

believed to be due to Anson,

two-electrode valve,

heated.

is

the gas pressure, the proximity of the electrodes, the material of

their surface condition is applied

The neon time base

1924/5

is

that this instrument

neon tube was used

conjunction with telegraph receivers. The neon tube

a

121

Audio Eng. Soc. p 708 (October 1976)

LINEAR SAW-TOOTH TIME BASE CIRCUIT

The

Date Order

in

Chapman

S Puckle (London:

striking voltage of the tube.

&

Hall) p 13 (1944)

No 214754

Anson: British Patent

RADAR

Appleton,

Watt SFR,

Briet,

GEMA

R A Watson
(primarily

et al

UK)
The

use found for the reflecting properties of radio waves was in measuring the height of the

first

Heaviside layer. This was done

the

USA

were the

1924 by Sir Edward Appleton and

in Britain in

A Tuve

1925 by Dr Gregory Briet and Dr Merle

in

first

Institute.

Barnett, and in
Breit and

Tuve

apply the pulse principle.

to

By

1939, Germany, Great Britain, Holland and the

the

first

peaceful application had been

done by the

of the Carnegie

scientists

made

of radio companies:

in

USA

France

in Britain

in

possessed military radar apparatus, while

all

1935. In France and

and the

USA

by scientists

Germany
in

the

work was

government research

stations.

began

Scientists of the Societe Francaise Radioelectrique

waves

'obstacle detector'
fitted to the liner

equipment

Normandie

aircraft.

in

1935;

it

by other

Though

As

a result,

Le Havre

in 1936.

by 1939 a large number of radar

German work began

the assumption that the

such basic work as radar than

at least as

installed

short,

waves

the Air Ministry and his assistant,

Research

at

develop a method of detecting

Henry Tizard, Professor

soon realised that radio

beam would be

to detect aircraft arose in

new

GEMA,

firm

operation for detecting

German

less effort

policy

was put

Rowe

Hill

Britain about

1931 and 1933; on the

in

into

H E

1934.

latter

The

occasion

Wimperis, Director of Scientific

suggested that the country should increase

aircraft at a distance

A V

in

and consequently

the possibilities for aircraft detection were carefully analysed.

efforts to

were

early as that in other countries and had reached a

had been observed

aircraft

sets

by 1939.

USA.

in Britain or the

of radio waves from

scientists, Sir

Work was meanwhile done on

lagged behind after the outbreak of war.

it

war would be

Interest in the possibility of using radio

reflection

An

for military uses.

before 1935, was carried on under contracts from the Navy, by a

firms.

the

at

no radar warning system had been

very similar level of development by 1939,

was based on

and then

appears to have been successful and equipment was installed

and leaving the harbour

for detecting aircraft, although

German work, begun

later

use of metric and decimetric radio

to study the

to saving life at sea

working on decimetric waves and employing magnetrons and the pulse principle was

to detect ships entering

and

view

to detect obstacles in 1934, first with a

its

and an investigating committee of three

and Professor Patrick Blackett, was

set up.

the ideal alternative to the existing inadequate acoustic

It

was

warning

equipment.

Robert

Watson-Watt (now

Sir Robert)

before he began a research career

practical radar

equipment

in the

in Britain.

who was

a lecturer in physics at University College, Dundee,

government laboratories, played the major

He was

role in

developing

superintendent of the Radio Division of the National

22

Concise Description of Each Invention

in

Date Order

Physical Laboratories at the time the pressure for improved air defence reached
confident that radio waves could be employed to detect aircraft. His two

its

He

peak.

felt

memoranda of February 1935

described his suggested means for so using them; after a demonstration of the echoes produced by

from the

aircraft

BBC

Daventry short-wave

was

the principal, Watson- Watt developed the

on the Suffolk coast

in the

summer of

Working with

whom A F

six assistants, of

Wilkins

equipment for the detection of

practical radar

first

The main problems he solved were

1935.

high-power transmitter, the modulation of

Tizard Committee recommended that work on

station, the

the lines suggested by Watson-Watt should be started.

aircraft

the construction of a

with short pulses, the development of receivers to handle

it

the pulses and of suitable transmitting and receiving aerials

The performance of

the

first

equipment was

considered promising enough for the Air Ministry to build a chain of five radar stations.

The development of

radar had meanwhile been proceeding independently in the United States. Military

L A Hyland,

A H

interest

began

aircraft

cause interference in radio waves and Leo Young successfully applied the pulse apparatus to

after

an associate of

Taylor, discovered accidentally in 1930 that

Despite the fact that radar looked so promising, the

this.

amount on

it,

but, through the persistent efforts of

$100 000 was allocated

for radar research.

Laboratory's radio divisions developed

Robert

some of

Navy was

Harold

the

reluctant to spend any significant

Bowen, chief of

the Naval Laboratory,

Page, head of the research section of the Naval

modern radar equipment.

first

after successful laboratory demonstrations of the equipment, the American Navy

devices to

some of

its

In 1938,
finally

two years

fitted

radar

ships.

After 1940 Great Britain and the United States co-operated in radar development.

SOURCE: The

Sources of Invention by

Jewkes,

Sawers and

Stillerman (London: MacMillan

&

Co) pp 346, 347 and 348 (1958)

1925

RESISTOR (Cracked-Carbon
It

was undoubtedly

in

Siemens and Halske (Germany)

Type)

Germany

use was

that the first practical

made of

of metal to form a highly stable resistance coating and resistors of

by several firms

in that

a cracked-carbon film in lieu

country for a number of years before the war.

Amongst

and Halske organisation seems to have produced the largest quantities, so

commonly came

One
is

to

be known as the 'Seimens

type were manufactured

this general

these, the

Siemens

that this type of resistor

resistor'.

of the earliest disclosures of the cracking of hydrocarbon vapour to produce a hard carbon layer

contained

in the Seibt patent

Halske patent relating

of 1930 and in the Stemag patent of the same year. The Siemens and

to these resistors is dated

March 1932, but

the fundamental

method

is

already

there referred to as 'well known!'.

SOURCE:
Ill

'Fixed resistors for use in communication equipment' by P

SEE ALSO: Siemens and

Halske: Akt. Ges.

Siemens and Halske: Akt. Ges.British Patent

C A
1925

R Coursey

Proc.

IEE

vol 96, Pt.

pp 174-5 (1949)

Hartman: German Patent

No 438 429

German

Patent

No 387150

(1932)

(1925)

ELECTROSTATIC LOUDSPEAKER
The

electrostatic

development
shortcomings
relied

on

(Various)

loudspeaker failed to gain wide commercial

activity
still

No 438429/1925

devoted to

adhered to

its

it

acceptance,

in

spite

of extensive

during 1920-35, for the very sound reason that several serious

design.

Either the diaphragm or the air gap itself had usually been

to provide the protective insulation against electrical

breakdown, but

this protection

was often

inadequate and limits were thereby imposed on the voltages that could be used and on the specific

power output.

Close spacings, a film of trapped

harmonic distortion combined

diaphragm motion: and as

useful
the

stiff

air,

to restrict to very small

diaphragm materials, and vulnerability

consequence, large active areas had

amounts of sound power, especially

at

to

amplitudes both the allowable and the attainable

to

be employed

in

order to radiate

low frequencies. But when large areas were employed,

sound radiation was much too highly directional

at

high frequencies.

Several of the patents cited

Description of Each Invention in Date Order

A Concise
below bear on one or another of these
improvements would have made

it

features,

possible to

and

now

is

it

23

apparent that an integration of such

overcome almost

but not

quite

every one of

these

performance handicaps. Occurring singly as they did, however, no one of these good ideas was able

by

rescue the electrostatic units from the burden of their other shortcomings. Taken together,

itself to

however, with the newly available diaphragm materials and with the important addition of one or two

new
in

modern form of

ideas, the

handicaps that

many

it

electrostatic loudspeaker

can so completely surmount these former

merits careful consideration as a potential competitor for the moving-coil loudspeaker

applications.

SOURCE:

Electroacoustics by

Hunt (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press) p 173, 174

(1954)

SEE ALSO:

No

October 1927, and

German
21

May

Patent

No

61

1746 540

783

1927, renewed 14

No

117

601

(filed

November 1930)

German

patents, for example,

25

issued 7 July 1931 (insulating spacers, perforated plate

Hans Vogt (Berlin), more than a score of contemporary and relevant German

coated with a dielectric);

1933 and

US Patents No 1644 387 (filed 4 October 1927;) issued 4

May 1927) issued 11 February 1930: Ernst Klar (Berlin)
(filed
22 May 1926) issued 5 April 1935, and US Patent No 1813 555 (filed

For example, Colin Kyle,

No

Patents
17

(filed

May

583 769

(filed

25 December 1926) issued 9 September

1934, and

1928) issued 8 August

US

Patent

No

107

1881

(filed 15 September 1928) issued 4 October 1932 (tightly stretched diaphragm between perforated rigid

Edward

electrodes):

Kellogg (GEC)

US

Patent

No

1983 377

(filed

27 September 1929) issued 4

December 1934 (sectionalised diaphragm with inductances for impedance correction); William Colvin,
Jr.

US

Patent

No 2000 437 (filed 19 February 1931) issued 7 May 1935 (woven-wire electrodes); DEL
No 537 931 (filed 21 February 1940, complete spec. 23 January 1941, accepted

Shorter, British Patent

14 July 1941) (diaphragm segmentation with external dividing networks for improving directivity and

impedance).

'Wide range

1925

by P

electrostatic loudspeakers'

p 265 (June 1955),

Walker Wireless World

SHORT WAVE COMMERIAL RADIO

COMMUNICATION
On

23 April 1925, an experiment began

for the link

wave

in

transmitter to

after

it

new water cooled 4

kW

Eindhoven, which had a grid-anode capacity low enough

humble wooden shed, Mr van Boetzelaer,

transmitter 'on the

see

how

far

this

invited

after

transmitter could be heard,

van Boetselaer operated the morse key

in

p 208 (May 1955),

pt. 2,

W van Boetzelaer (Holland)

to

have far-reaching consquences

into operation.

young research engineer, L Jan Was van

transmitting triode from the Philips factory at

to permit oscillating at

many

in

difficulties,

.5

managed

MHz

(!).

Working

to get the primitive

it

was arranged

to

send a cable

caused great excitement

in

if

that

the steam ship

until late at night,

hoping to be read.

Then,

in a

It

flatly stated that

The

ship's reactions,

bold mood, the diligent operator

they happened to read the transmissions.

Hilversum.

'Prins der

on a daily schedule. With admirable perseverance,

slowly via coastal stations, were favourable.

Malabar

came

air'.

Nederlanden', sailing to the East, would listen

coming

Hilversum which turned out

become obsolete only months

Boetzelaer had just received a

To

1,

between The Netherlands and the Dutch East Indies, now Indonesia, causing a huge long-

At the Nederlandsche Seintoestallen Fabriek, now PTI,

in a

pt.

p 381 (August 1955)

pt. 3,

The telegram

sent back

reception on 26 metres had been loud and

clear since the beginning of the experiment.

SOURCE:
1925

Philips Telecommunication

IONOSPHERE LAYER

Review vol

33,

No

4,

p 191 (December 1975)

Appleton (UK)

At Cambridge University, British physicist Edward Appleton lays the foundation

for the

development

of radar: he measures the height of the ionosphere and finds that radio waves are reflected from the

upper atmosphere

to a height

of 310 miles (500 km) above ground

level.

A Concise Description of Each

24

SOURCE: The

Invention in Date Order

Timetable of Technology (London: Michael Joseph, Marshall Editions) p 78 (November

1982)

1925

TELEVISION
When

(Mechanical Scanning)

Baird (UK)

Baird, in 1923, decided to devote his untried inventive genius to the development of a practical

television scheme, the

problem seemed

him

to

to

Two

be comparatively simple.

optical exploring

devices rotating in synchronism, a light-sensitive cell and a controlled varying light source capable of
rapid variations in light flux were

Patent-Office term,

known

that

all

were required, 'and these appeared

Baird,

to the art'.

however

to be already, to

use a

realised the difficult nature of the problem.

'The

only ominous cloud on the horizon', he wrote 'was that in spite of the apparent simplicity of the task

no-one had produced television'.

C F

Baird's principal contemporaries in this challenge were

of Hungary.

USA

Jenkins of the

and

von Mihaly

Other inventors were patenting their ideas on television at this time (1923) but only

Jenkins, Mihaly and Baird and a few others were pursuing a practical study of the problem based on
the utilisation of mechanical scanners.

SOURCE:

'The

first

demonstration of television' by

W Burns Electronics & Power p 953 (9 October

1975)

1925

NOISE

(Johnson)

In addition to fluctuation effects

were generated

produced by vacuum tubes,

made of homogeneous

metallic resistors

in

be temperature dependent and are known as thermal noise.

understanding of thermal noise were

paper by Johnson

in the

agitated molecules.

The

made

in the

conductor

effect

is

in

consequence of

similar to the

it

was found

random noise

that

materials.

These

A number

of basic contributions

a certain

amount of energy. Since

noise

was traced

Brownian movement of

the particle

is

to the

random

particles

suspended
particle

cohesive, collision with any one of

its

the entire particle in motion thereby resulting in

random movements observable under

SOURCE:

SSL Chang

Ragazzini and

'Thermal agitation of electricity

in

conductors' by

'Noise and random processes' by

to

to the

excitation

existence in an environment of thermally-

its

which the thermally-agitated molecules of the liquid collide with the suspended

in

signals

were found

effects

1920s and 1930s among which was the outstanding

The source of thermal conductor

in 1925.

of the electron gas

it

B Johnson (UK)

Proc.

in a liquid

and impart

to

molecules sets

a microscope.

IRE p

147/8

(May

1962)

SEE ALSO:
series,

1926

SCREENED GRID TUBE

By

B Johnson

Phys.

Rev.

2nd

vol 32,

p 97 (July 1928)

the end of the

1914-18 war the triode was the only tube

and generator of high-frequency

some of

its

Round (UK)

common

use as a detector and amplifier

oscillations. Broadcasting was, in fact, started with the triode, although

limitations were, by that time, well recognised.

electrostatic capacitance

in

between the grid and

One major

limitation arose

the anode, within the valve itself.

coupling between grid and anode circuits which resulted

reaction between the output circuit and the input circuit.

in uncontrollable,

The

was

first

suggested by

had earlier suggested a four-electrode tube, but his suggestion of the introduction of an

additional grid had been to secure an increase of amplification factor.

was directed

rise to a

and therefore undersirable,

introduction of a screed grid, between

the control grid and the anode, to reduce this inter-electrode coupling,
Hull. Schottky

from the inherent

This gave

to the reduction

of grid-anode capacitance.

But

it

Hull's suggestion, by contrast,

remained for

Round

to bring the

screen-grid valve into practical use in 1926.

Other, and

later,

one or more

versions of the screen-grid valve were developed, the screen grid being provided with

skirts

which extended

to the walls of the container bulb.

another the anode, was brought out uniquely

out from the base. In this

way

be reduced to 0.001 or 0.01

at the top

the undesired capacitance

nn F

In

one form the

grid,

and

in

of the tube, the other electrodes being brought

between the control grid and

the

anode could

A Concise

Date Order

in

125

'Thermionic devices from the development of the triode up to 1939' by Sir Edward Appleton

SOURCE:

lEEPub. Thermionic
1926

Description of Each Invention

Valves 1904-54 (London: 1EE) p 22-3 (1955)

L O Grondahl and P H

COPPER OXIDE RECTIFIER

Geiger

(USA)
In the course of an investigation of

passed through the oxide

the resistance of the combination

when

flowed

it

was about

was

less

1.

The phenomenon was so

from

the current flowed

of the resistances

from anything

different in nature

was observed

it

that

in the

that

copper than

the oxide to the

two directions

had been observed

in

types of rectifiers that an intensive study and experimental investigation was undertaken

during which

it

became more and more evident

very probable that

it

CIRCUITRY

new device

that the

Grondahl and P

was

set for the invention

January 1926, Wheeler invented his diode

Geiger Proc.

HA

(Automatic Volume Control)

In 1925 the stage

has characteristics which

make

it

will find general application as a rectifier.

SOURCE: 'A new electronic rectifier' by L O

New York (February 7-11, 1927) p 357
1926

angles to the surface of separation,

when

in the reverse direction. In the first unit, the ratio

3 to

known

other

copper oxide formed on a piece of copper, during which current was

in a direction at right

A1EE

Winter Convention,

Wheeler (USA)

of a practical automatic volume-control circuit, and on 2

AVC

and linear diode-detector

incorporated in the Philco Model 95 receiver which he designed

circuit.

This circuit was

the Hazeltine laboratory and

at

first

which

was announced about September 1929.

AVC

Full

RF

bias voltage

stage, half

AVC

was applied

bias voltage

to the first

was applied

sufficiently gradual to permit accurate tuning

once

it

tubes, and, to prevent distortion in the third

by

and

ear,

it

The automatic volume-control

was unnecessary

to

action

was

touch the volume control

was adjusted

SOURCE:

RF

two

to that stage.

'The development of the

art

of radio receiving from the early 1920's to the present' by

Swinyard Proc. IRE p 795 (May 1962)

SEE ALSO:

'Automatic volume control for radio receiving

H A

by

sets'

Wheeler Proc. IRE

vol 16,

p 30 (January 1928)

1926

FILM SOUND RECORDING

As

a result of lagging interest in the

to test the popularity of

motion pictures by the public, Warner Bros,

sound picturese To minimize the cost of the venture,

have Western Electric develop the necessary equipment

cameras

that

Warner Bros (USA)

(Sound-on-Disc System)

were housed

in

to

in

arranged to

synchronise disk-recording machines with

booths to suppress the camera noise. Arrangements were

Company to do the recording in

Machine Company was a Western Electric

1926 decided

this studio

Victor Talking Machine

their facilities

Victor Talking

licensee,

and

made with

the

and with their personnel. The

their studios vere

equipped with

Western Electric developed motor drives for theatre projectors and disc turntables.

These were

Western Electric recording equipment.

mechanically connected to the same constant speed motor system. Essentially standard public address

system amplifiers and loudspeakers were used. The

first

picture produced

was 'Don

Juan'. In October

1927 'The Jazz Singer' followed and was a success.

The

public reaction

was so

enthusiastic that the large theatre chains

wanted equipment immediately

play the pictures. Western Electric agreed to lease equipment to them.

first

pictures,

Vitaphone.

It

Warner Bros,

was destined

installed disk-recording
to

equipment

As

to

a result of the success of the

in their studios.

This system was called

be supplanted by systems that recorded the sound as photographic images

on the same film the picture was printed on. Having demonstrated the popularity of sound pictures and
developed the equipment, the industry proceeded with great speed

to convert studios for sound-picture

production.

SOURCE:
1962)

'Film recording and reproduction' by

Batsel and

L Dimmick

Proc.

IRE p 745 (May

26

A Concise

1926

FIXED RESISTOR

The

reduces

is

Loewe developed

compressed

air

in

Date Order

S Loewe (Germany)

(Sprayed Metal Film)

basic idea involved

in 1926,

through

the very old art of decorating chinaware with precious metals. In

and applying the spray

it

'Resistors

SEE ALSO:

Heating the film thus formed

to an insulating base.

a survey of the evolution of the

No

S Loewe: German Patent

Marsten Proc. IRE p 922 (May 1962)

field' J

US

591 735 (1926) and

TRANSITRON OSCILLATOR
One

Germany

a resistive film by atomizing a liquid solution of platinum resinate by forcing

to the metal.

it

SOURCE:

1926

Description of Each Invention

Patent

No

B van der

1717 712 (1926)

Pol (Holland)

of the earliest forms of single-valve trigger circuit was described by van der Pol in 1926.

employs

circuit

a tetrode in

This

which the screen and grid have a resistance-capacitance coupling, the grid

being fed from the high potential source via a high resistance, which forms part of the coupling network.

The term

come

'transitron' has recently

valve in such a

way

coined by Brunetti,

any

into use to denote

that amplification is possible without the

who

defined

it

may produce

from one oscillator by means of very simple switching.

it

It is

pentode

Generally,

wave output

equally easy to convert the continuous

the circuit

arranged as a relaxation

is

many

very valuable as a switching device, and has

is

a single

a sinusoidal, sawtooth or square

When

by changing the bias potential.

oscillator or as a flip-flop

which employs

as a 'retarding-field negative-transconductance device'.

these circuits are extremely versatile, and one

oscillator into a flip-flop

circuit

phase reversal. The name was originally

applications to time

bases and control circuits.

SOURCE:

Time Bases by

SEE ALSO: 'On

S Puckle (2nd edn) (London:

'The transitron oscillator' by

1926

B van

relaxation oscillations' by

Brunetti and

Chapman

E Weiss

Proc.

IRE

Yagi studied under the direction of Professor Dr

London from 1914

to 1914,

to 1915,

G H

p 978 (1926)

Yagi (Japan)

Barkhausen

under the direction of Professor Dr

and under the direction of Professor Dr

Cambridge, Massachusetts from 1915

2,

vol 27, p 88 (1939)

Hochschule from 1913

Hall) pp 56, 57 (1951)

der Pol Phil. Mag. vol

YAGI AERIAL
Dr

&

Dresden Technische

at the

A Fleming at University College,

G W Pierce at Harvard University,

to 1916.

In 1926, during his career as a professor at

Tohoku

University, he invented the

VHF

a result of this invention, the

Academy

directive 'Yagi

Some

antenna' which was widely put into practical use for domestic television reception.

years

later, as

of Technical Science in Copenhagen awarded him the Valdemar

Poulsen Gold Medal for his outstanding contributions to radio technique.

SOURCE:
1926

'Death of Dr Hidetsugu Yagi' Telecommunication Journal vol 43, p 372 (V/1976)

ELECTRON MICROSCOPE
In

1926 Hans Busch (Germany)

two of

his fellow

countrymen.

carried out experiments based

microscope

in

1933.

It

laid the theoretical foundations for the electron

Max
on

Busch (Germany)
microscope. In 1928

Knoll and Ernst Ruska, from the Technische Hochschule in Berlin,

his research that led to the

development of the

first

operational electron

was perfected by Rulska, who, with Heinrich Rohrer and Gerd Binnig, was

awarded the Nobel Prize

for Physics in

1986 for the invention of the tunnel effect miscroscope (see

below).

SOURCE:
(New
1927

Inventions

and Discoveries 1993

edited by Valerie-Anne Giscard d'Estaing and

CABLE TELEVISION
The

first

Company
disc

Mark Young

York: Facts on File) p 172

Bell

cable television transmission

in 1927.

was used

was

Telephone

Co (USA)

carried out in the United States by the Bell Telephone

The experiment took place between Washington and New York. A Nipkow scanning

for the transmission

and another for the reception.

A Concise Description of Each

Invention in Date Order

127

This cable technique was then taken up again for the purposes of reaching those areas without access
to traditional Hertzian transmission.

In

1949 a small town

in

Oregon

United States had bad reception of programmes transmitted

in the

that a large aerial

would

be installed on high ground. From there a cable network transmitted programmes, without any

risk of

from Seattle on account of the mountains which surround

was decided

It

it.

parasitic oscillation.

It

was not

1960s that cable television experienced

until the

Today 22 million Americans are subscribers

real

to different cable

growth

in the

United States and Canada.

systems (paid by subscription), 2.5 million

of which are Disney Channel subscribers.

The development of

optical fibres in place of traditional coaxial cable (invented

makes

Affel and Espensched in 1929)

audience participation, that

is

directly in the contents of the

The

fibre optic

it

possible to go from passive viewing of

to say, users are able to

choose

by the Americans

programmes

programmes and

their

programmes themselves (quick surveys, questionnaires, games

technique makes

possible to transmit through the

it

to active

to participate

same cables not only

etc).

television

programmes, but also radio programmes, telecommunications and data material.

Thanks

to direct television satellites,

SOURCE: The Book

to benefit

&

one of the most fundamental discoveries

in the history

S Black (USA)

of communications,

Laboratories found that by feeding part of an amplifiers output back into

it

was possible by

SOURCE:

in 1993.

Co.) (1990) p 243

NEGATIVE FEEDBACK AMPLIFIER

In

from 120 channels

of Inventions and Discoveries Associate Editor Valerie-Anne Giscard d'Estaing

(UK: Queen Anne Press, Macdonald

1927

Europe was able

some

sacrificing

its

S Black

in

1927

at Bell

input (negative feedback),

amplification to achieve stable operation at low distortion.

Mission Communications

the Story of Bell Laboratories by Prescott C Mabon (Murray

Hill,

NJ: Bell Laboratories Inc.) p 171-2 (1975)

1927

FILM SOUND RECORDING

The

first

commercially successful photographic sound recording system (Fox Movietone News) used

a variable intensity

lamp known as

method of modulating

beam of

light to

the Aeo-light had an oxide coated cathode,

a considerable range by varying the

The Aeo-light was mounted

was

Fox Movietone News (USA)

(Sound-on-Film System)

a light restricting

slit

anode voltage,

in a tube

at

expose the film negative. The gas-filled

and

which entered the camera

which passed

beam about

its

intensity could be

at the

back.

a tenth inch long

between the picture and the sprocket holes. The Aeo-light could produce
to

modulated over

audio frequencies, between 200 and 400

volts.

Directly against the film

and 0.001 inch high, placed

a sufficiently high intensity

expose the sensitive negative films used for picture taking. The system worked quite well for news

photography, where the sound and pictures were taken simultaneously on the same camera.

SOURCE:

'Film recording and reproduction' by

G L Dimmick

Batsel and

IRE p 746 (May

Proc.

1962)

1928

PENTODE TUBE
The
it

is

Tellegen and Hoist (Holland)

substantial suppression of secondary emission in a tetrode

is

not an easy matter, particularly where

desired to operate with high anode and screen potentials, and so by far the most

of suppressing secondary emission

and anode, as

in the

suppressor grid

is

is

by way of the inclusion of a suppressor

grid,

pentode invented by Tellegen and Hoist of the Philips Company,

maintained

at the filament potential.

common method

between screen grid

Pentodes, before 19391 had

in

Holland. The

become extremely

popular for both high- and low-frequency amplifications.

SOURCE: Thermionic
IEE Pub. Thermionic

devices from the development of the triode up to 1939' by Sir Edward Appleton

Valves 1904-54 (London: IEE) p 23^1 (1955)

A Concise

128

1928

Description of Each Invention in Date Order

FREQUENCY STANDARDS
The tuning

(Quartz Clocks)

was developed

fork

could have been improved

by Horton and Marrison and

it

which

to a point at

By

further.

still

seemed

W Horton & W A Marrison (USA)

J
it

this time,

gave

a stability of

however, the

clear that quartz possessed

per

week and

quartz clock had been

first

many

part in 10

advantages.

made

One fundamental

advantage was the higher frequency of quartz vibrations. Frequencies of many millions of cycles per

second were already being used for radio transmissions, and

them

terms of a standard having such a low value as

in

SOURCE:

SEE ALSO:
16,

1928

L Essen

'Frequency and time standards'

Proc.

'Precision determination of frequency' by

it

was not very convenient

to

measure

kc.

IRE

159 (May 1962)

Horton and

Marrison Proc. IRE vol

p 137 (February 1928)

RADIO

HA

(Diversity Reception)

HO

Beverage,

Peterson and J

B Moore (USA)
Because of the turbulence and abrupt changes encountered

improved means of reception

be given

to

were not

sufficient.

Among

as

in the

became apparent

is

obtained due to the

of two or more paths. Diversity reception

any frequency.

H A

HO

Beverage,

is

statistical

resistor

above

Peterson and

rectified outputs

minimum from any

a certain

independence

B Moore

SEE ALSO:

'Diversity receiving system of

Beverage and

H O

fading characteristics

employed

three antennas spaced about

IRE

to television.

Washington and

New

of modern colour

TV

common

load

as the voltage

was

Buff Proc. IRE p 888 (May 1962)

RCA

vol 19, pp

As long

Communications

Inc.

for radiotelegraphy'

H H

531-61 (April 1931)

Bell Laboratories

three primary colours

SOURCE: The

in the

keyed tone signal was reproduced.

COLOUR TV
Colour comes

diversity reception, wherein

described and developed a triple-space-

local tone generator.

receiver, a properly

'Radio receiver past and present' by

Peterson Proc.

is

power increases alone

of three separate receivers were combined across a

and the voltage across the resistor keyed a

SOURCE:

1929

The

feet apart.

special attention had to

improving the reception of any type of modulation

basic,

diversity system for on-off telegraph reception around 1928. This

1000

HF medium,

that transmitter

the significant techniques developed, one of the most important

a considerable improvement

at

it

With spectacularly good

(USA)

results, the first transmission is

beamed between

York. The 50-line system used by the Bell Telephone Laboratories transmits the

red, blue

is laid

and green

down when

along

three separate channels. Later in the year, the basis

several colour signals are transmitted over a single channel.

Timetable of Technology (London: Michael Joseph, Marshall Editions) p 86 (November

1982)

1929

E O Laurence (USA)

CYCLOTRON
Laurence used a curved path for the

particles, so that the particles

could circulate continuously, travelling

long distances in a relatively small volume and using the same accelerating system over and over again.

An

electrically

particle,

charged particle entering a magnetic

proceeds to

of the circle

in

SOURCE: The

move

which the

in a circle

particle

field directed at right

angles to the motion of the

with constant speed; as the particle speed

moves

Sources of Invention by

is

Jewkes,

Sawers and R Stellerman (London: MacMillan)

pp 290/1 (1958)

SEE ALSO:

'Atomic slingshot' by Howard Blakeslee Science Digest (April 1949)

'Maestro of the atom' by

L A Schuler

increased, the radius

also increases. Further acceleration occurs at each revolution.

Scientific

American (August 1940)

Invention in Date Order

A Concise Description of Each

1929

A G

MICROWAVE COMMUNICATIONS
means

oscillator provided a

1920 Barkhausen positive-grid

In

waves. This revived the interest in the centimeter waves.

29

Clavier (France)

40-cm

for the efficient generation of

1929 Andre

In

Clavier, then associated

with Laboratoire Central de Telecommunications in Paris, started an experimental project to challenge

the then accepted principle that wire or cable circuits should be used in preference to radio

whenever

physically possible.

1930 a link was started between two terminals

In

testing started, the project

demonstrated

and

was transferred back

in

New

microwave transmission provided

that

Jersey using 10-ft. parabolic antennas. Just as

On

to France.

new

March 1931, Clavier and

31

communications over a 40-km path between Calais and Dover. The

flexibility in

went on

to establish the first

power output of

commercial microwave radio

provided

circuit

beam by means of

both telephone and teleprinter service using 17-6cm waves transmitted in a 4

parabolic reflector 3 metres in diameter with a

his associates

order of economy, quality, dependability

1933 from Lympne, England,

link in

Andre Clavier

a fraction of a watt.

to St.

Inglevert, France.

SOURCE: 'Microwave
1930

communications' by

TRANSISTOR (MOSFET
A

1930 patent was issued

compared

H Vogelman

IRE p 907 (May 1962)

Proc.

Concept)

J Lilienfeld

to Julius Lilienfeld

MOSFET,

to today's

(Germany)

of the University of Leipzig for a device that could be

The device was reported

or insulated gate field-effect transistor.

to

provide a means of obtaining amplification in a thin film of copper sulfide. However, a working device

was probably never

SOURCE:
1930

built, since the

low mobility of holes

and other factors would seem

in the material

any amplification.

to preclude

'Solid state devices' Electronic Design vol 24, p 72 (23

VAN DE GRAAF ACCELERATOR

November 1972)

J van de Graaf (USA)

For nuclear structure research, constant-potential accelerators use the electrostatic belt generator invented

by van de Graaf. About 5.5 million

now

(equipment

SOURCE: The
Reinhold

&

1930s

G Trump

were insulated

between two large generators

in air

Encyclopedia of Physics (2nd edn) Editor

Besancon (New York: Van Nostrand

'Electrostatic generators for the acceleration of charged particles' by

and

WW

Bruechner Rep. Prog. Phys. vol

METEOR SCATTER

1,

(BURST) SYSTEMS

km;

to 120

this

Schanker

range of altitudes includes also the ionised

they create an ionised

lower

VHF

trail

was discovered during

was eventually

realised that

reflections.

It

reflections.

Schanker estimates

milliseconds to

scatter paths
1

activities

was made

van de Graaf,

up

at altitudes typically

layer.

aimed

(USA)

et al

When

upper

predicting 'sporadic'

in the 1930s;

it

to irregular

is

from 80

the meteors vaporise,

efficiently in the
at

one of the 'sporadic' effects was due

that this discovery

scale experiments to probe the ionosphere

Because meteor

which re-radiates incident radio waves quite

ranges. This effect

(1948)

Billions of meteors enter the Earth's atmosphere every day and burn

km

1930

in

of Science).

Litton Educational Pub. Inc.) p 13 (1974)

SEE ALSO:
J

volts

Museum

Boston

in the

well

HF
E

meteor

known

and

layer
trail

that large

were taking place internationally.

between two terminals are open only

for short periods, ranging

or 2 seconds, high speed transponding (hand-shaking)

is

from

essential before information

can be passed. Thus, systems suitable for general use had to wait for the production of high speed,

cheap microprocessors and modern memory chips and have developed rapidly since 1982.

typical

meteor scatter burst system can provide information exceeding 75 b/s (sometimes much

greater) over each

24 hour period

SOURCE:

Communication from

Private

at

distances up to
J

2000 km.

Guest, Malvern Wells,

UK

A Concise

30

Description of Each Invention

SEE ALSO: Meteor Burst Communication

JANET

'The Canadian

1930

by Jacob

system' by Davis

Date Order

in

WL

Z Shanker

et al Proc.

(Boston: Artech House)

IRE (December 1995)

W J de Haas and J Voogd

HIGH FIELD SUPERCONDUCTIVITY

(Netherlands)

The

story of high field superconductivity

that resistance

was restored

gauss

The

at

4.2 K.

suggested to

in the

began as long ago as 1930, when de Haas and Voogd discovered

Pb-Bi eutectic only by magnetic

fields as

high as 16000 to

20000

eutectic alloy had a transition temperature of about 8.8 K. This discovery immediately

authors the old idea of making a superconducting solenoid with wire of this material,

its

but because of the very low critical current densities that they observed, the idea was soon dropped

and

over 20 years. Then

in fact lay fallow for

wound

in

1955 Yntema described a superconducting solenoid

with niobium wire which produced fields up to 7000 gauss, but this received

made

Autler (1960)

a similar coil

attention.
until

by Kunzler and his co-workers of the remarkable current-carrying properties

the discovery in 1961

of the intermetallic compounds Nb3Sn.

temperature of 18.0

little

producing 4300 gauss but, the subject did not really take off

by Matthias

This material had been found to have the very high

(1954) and indeed this

et al

is still

the highest

known

critical

transition

temperature of any material, give or take a few tenths of a degree.

SOURCE:

Materials for Conductive and Resistitive Functions by

Book Co)

p 141

SEE ALSO:

de Haas and

'Superconducting electromagnetics' by S

GB

Autler Rev.

Yntema

Phys. Rev. vol 98, p

Sci. Instrum.

vol 31, p

Nb 3 Sn at high current density in a magnetic field of 88

J H Wernick Phys. Rev. Lett, vol 6, p 890 (1961)

'Superconductivity in

1930s

Dummer (New

York: Hayden

Voogd Commun. Phys. Lab. University of Leiden No 208b (1930)

'Superconducting winding for electromagnetics' by

E Beuhler F

WA

197 (1955)

369 (1960)

kgauss' by J

Kunzler,

L Hsu and

RADIOPHONIC SOUNDMUSIC
These techniques

first

came

P Grainger

(Australia)

into real use during the 1950s with the maturation of the

magnetic tape

recorder although as long ago as the 1930s Percy Grainger, the Australian composer of 'Country

Gardens' fame, had produced a brief composition based on pure frequencies for the Theremin, an early
electronic sound generator.

The beginnings were however with 'musique

although as the

name

sounds and was

in fact orchestrated noise.

suggests the 'music' was

sounds were used as the raw material,

malleability

was achieved

tape speeds on playback,

SOURCE:
1931

bore

With further study

i.e.

it

became apparent

that if

more 'musical'

changes encountered during pitch changes, due

Book (London: Newnes-Butterworth) ch

was provided by

conducting tin-oxide coating for glass insulators.

to differing

relationship to each other.

(Oxide Film)

for this important contribution

concrete', pioneered in Europe,

the manipulation of pre-recorded natural

sounds with a more ordered harmonic structure, greater

some audible

Electronics Engineer's Reference

FIXED RESISTOR
The seed

as the timbre

still

made through

Littleton

Littleton (1931)

Its resistivity

was

17,

p 17-16 (1976)

(USA)

who developed

sufficiently

low

an iridized,

to equalise potential

across the insulator, thereby reducing corona effect, but too high for use in conventional resistors.

Mochel modified

By

SOURCE:

'Resistors

SEE ALSO:
J

this film

by the addition of antimony oxide which stabilized

its

electrical properties.

varying the tin-antimony proportions, negative or positive temperature coefficients are obtained.

Mochel:

T
US

a survey of the evolution of the field' J

Littleton:

Patent

US

Patent

No 2564 707

No 2228 795

(1931)

(1947) Reissue 25 556

Marston Proc. IRE p 922 (May 1962)

A Concise
1931

Description of Each Invention

STEREOPHONIC SOUND REPRODUCTION

A D

Date Order

in

131

Blumlein (UK) and Bell Labs.

(USA)
Stereophonic reproduction per se was pioneered almost simultaneously by Blumlein in Great Britain

and

Blumlein's contributions are presumed to be described

Telephone Laboratories.

at the Bell

He showed

his patents.

microphone arrays

complete system applicable

utilising bidirectional as well as omnidirectional

and disc recording systems

simultaneous

utilising

and

lateral

in

sound-on-disc motion pictures, including

to

microphones, transmission

Economic

vertical recording.

circuits,

difficulties

are believed to have prevented completion and commercial exploitation of these systems.

The recognised

systems approach to large audience stereophonic reproduction was a public

early

demonstration of Bell Telephone Laboratories equipment under the guidance of Dr Harvey Fletcher

on 27 April 1933. The Philadelphia Orchestra was

reproduced

SOURCE:

'The history of steophonic sound reproduction' by

SEE ALSO: A D
Also

US

Academy of Music

in the

Patent

Philadelphia and

in

it

was

Washington, DC.

in Constitution Hall,

Blumlein: British Patent

No 394 325

IRE

Hilliard Proc.

p 776

(May 1962)

December 1931)

(14

No 2093 540

'Perfect transmission

and reproduction of symphonic music

in auditory perspective'

F B Jowett

et al

Bell Telephone Quart, vol 12, p 150 (July 1933)

1931

CRO CARDIOGRAPH
The

first

workers

the action potentials of nerves.

realising

its

At the present time, many workers

unique properties, are adapting the cathode-ray tube to their

Among

general account will be found in Holzer's book.

work was

work were Gasser and Erlangers,

to use the cathode-ray tube in bio-electrical

work on

Rijlant (Belgium)

Rijlant,

of Brussels (1931

Germany, and Matthews (1933)

et seq)

who

in this country,

the

has published

first to

own

adapt

were also among the

first

fields,

particular problems; a
to electrocardiographic

it

many papers on

in their

in bio-electrical

the subject. Schmitz, in

to publish

electrocardiograms

recorded by the cathode-ray oscillograph (CRO). Matthews (1934) was able to show that Rijlant's
electrocardiograms were inaccurate, and to point out that the

were

really

SOURCE:

caused by deficiencies

'The examination and recording of the

ray oscillograph' by

SEE ALSO: 'Some

bio-electrical

Robertson

new waves

(P2,

T2

etc) described

by him

in his amplifer.

J.

IEE

human

vol 81, p

electro-cardiogram by means of the cathode-

497 (1937)

observations on the adaptation of the cathode ray oscillograph to the recording of

phenomena with

special reference to the electrocardiogram by

Robertson Proc. R. Soc.

of Medicine (Section of Physical Medicine) vol 29, p 593 (1936)

Cathode Ray Oscillography

in

Biology and Medicine by

human

'The cathode ray oscillogram of the

heart'

Holzer (Vienna: Maudrich) (1936)

by P Rijlant Comptes Rendues des Seances de

la

Societe de Biologie vol 109, p 42 (1932)

1931

COMPUTERS

V Bush (USA)

(Differential Analyser)

Early analogue computer for solving differential equations.

SOURCE:

'The differential analyser

new machine

for solving differential equations'

by

V Bush

Journal of the Franklin Institute vol 212, p 477 (1931)

SEE ALSO: The Computer from

Pascal

to

von Neumann by

H H

Goldstine (Princeton, NJ: Princeton

University Press) p 88 (1969)

1931

RELIABILITYQUALITY CONTROL CHARTS

After languishing in libraries for several years, the work of

and the work of Shewhart on control charts

finally

W A Shewhart (USA)
Dodge and Romig

was brought

in

to light during

acceptance sampling

World War

II

through

A Concise

132

Description of Each Invention

War Production

Date Order

programmes sponsored by

the nationwide training

of the

in

Development

the Office of Production Research and

Board.

Although the underlying concepts were developed by

and

scientific investigators

Romig and Shewhart

preceding decades, the genius of Dodge,

statisticians in the

lay in their recognition of basic principles

as an aid to solving practical problems, and their ability to recognise and formulate a systematic

approach.

SOURCE:

'Treating real data with respect' by J

SEE ALSO: Economic

Henry Quality Progress p 18 (March 1976)

Control of Quality of Manufactured Product by

W A Shewhart (New York:

Van

Nostrand) (1931)

1932

NEUTRON
Some

J Chadwick (UK)

German

years before, the

radiations obtained

assumed

country
paraffin

were of

that the radiations

wife Irene Curie

physicists Bothe and Becker had discovered

by bombarding the

wave

some very

The French

nature.

physicists Frederic Joliot and his

whose mother Marie Curie had discovered polonium and named

studied

made

these radiations and

wax was placed

in front

penetrating

beryllium with particles shot out of polonium. They

light metal

a very striking experiment.

it

They found

after her native

that if a piece

of

of them then the amount of radiation seemed to be increased, and not

decreased by the inter-position of the wax.

Chadwick, by further experiment and

able to prove that this paradox could be resolved

if

the radiations

interpretation,

were not waves, but

new

was

kind of

atomic particle without any electric charge. Thus he discovered the neutron.

SOURCE:
1932

Science at

War by

Crowther and

Whiddington (London:

COCKCROFT-WALTON ACCELERATOR

(Atom-Smasher)

(UK)

Cockcroft was an electrical engineer from Manchester.

HMSO)

p 127 (1947)

ED

Cockcroft and

He had graduated

S Walton

as an engineer at the

Manchester College of Technology and joined the engineering firm of Metropolitan- Vickers Electrical

Company Ltd. After spending four years in the army in the war of 1914-18 he returned to his firm.
He engaged in advanced study with Professor Miles Walker and was presently awarded a post-graduate
scholarship to continue his studies

His engineering knowledge

Cambridge.

at

fitted

him

to devise

powerful electrical apparatus, and he attacked the problem of devising an electrical machine by which
an electrical

of several hundred thousand volts could be applied to atomic particles, so that they

field

could be given a very high speed and energy, like those thrown out naturally by radium.

and

his colleague

Walton succeeded

in disintegrating lithium

Cockcroft

with electrically accelerated protons in

1932, shortly after Chadwick' s discovery of the neutron. This was a great advance, because electrical

machines could be developed, and large streams of atomic projectiles could be produced
Cockcroft used protons, the nuclei of hydrogen atoms,
about sixty times as

much energy

relatively insignificant,

greater than

the total

smasher was very

SOURCE:
1932

possessed

amount

in

As

field

was much

machine, Cockcroft's atom-

inefficient in the engineer's sense.

Crowther and R Whiddington (London:

the diagrams, figure

features of the line scan circuit

common

Each proton released

producing the accelerating

released in the atomic disintegrations.

A D

(Energy Conserving Scanning Circuit)

As with most of

into a

it

experiments.

But the number of protons accelerated was

itself.

and the amount of energy used

Science at War by

CIRCUITRY

as

in his first

at will.

which

.8(a) is taken
is

now

HMSO)

p 128 (1947)

Blumlein (UK)

from the Patent Specification, and shows the basic

universal in television receivers, although not brought

use until 1946. Figure 11.8(b) shows the method of operation, involving three separate

regimes during the cycle.

It is
it

now

such a well-known circuit that

with the single

the saw-tooth
as

LC

circuit

waveform

it

which

is

is all

it

will not

that

is

be described

in detail, but

it

is

interesting to

compare

necessary for a sinusoidal waveform, whereas to handle

necessary to provide also the switches in the form of the valve and diode

shown. The element of symmetry mentioned

earlier

can be seen here.

A Concise Description of Each

Invention in Date Order

133

<t

Figure 11.8. Energy conserving scanner

SOURCE:

circuit,

(a)

Basic features; (b) method of operation.

'The world of Alan Blumlein' British Kinematography Sound and Television vol 50,

No

7.

p 209 (July 1968)

SEE ALSO:
1932

British Patent Specification

No 400 976

(1932)

TRANSMISSION ELECTRON MICROSCOPE

The

electron microscope

first

was

built at the

Knoll

&E

Ruska (Germany)

Technical University of Berlin early

in

1931.

It

had two

electro-magnetic lenses in series and achieved a modest magnification of 17. Improvements were
later.

Ruska

condenser lens was added and an iron shield with a narrow gap

SOURCE:

The Encyclopaedia of Physics (2nd edn) Editor R

&

'Origin of the electron microscope' by

in

first

1933.

lens.

Besancon (New York: Van Nostrand

MM

Leistung des Magnetischen Elcktronemikroskops' by

Freundlich Science vol 142, (3589) p 185 (1963)

STEREO RECORD
The

made

Litton Educational Pub. Inc.) p 2 (1974)

SEE ALSO: 'Uber Fortschritte im Bau und in der

E Ruska Z. Phys. vol 87, (9 & 10), p 580 (1934)

1933

around the magnetic

1934 was able to demonstrate a magnification of 12 000.

in

Reinhold

built

EMI (UK)

stereophonic records were produced in Great Britain by

The

research, directed by the physicist Alan

EMI

(Electric

and Musical Industries)

Dower Blumlein, culminated

in the

recording

134

Concise Description of Each Invention

of stereo 78s. The work of Blumlein and

company Audio

in

EMI

Date Order
remained experimental untl 1958, when the American

and the British companies Pye and Decca issued the

Fidelity

first

commercial stereo

records thanks to numerous technical advances.

SOURCE:
(New
1933

Inventions

and Discoveries 1993

edited by Valerie-Anne Giscard d'Estaing and

FREQUENCY-MODULATION
The

FM

promoting

credit for

seeking a

way

to

reduce

E H Armstrong (USA)

as a broadcast service goes to

static,

and

finally

E H Armstrong. For

many forms of man-made

components up

SOURCE:

static.

years he had been

he turned his attention to FM. Toward the end of 1933 he

had perfected a system of wide-band frequency modulation which seemed

Mark Young

York: Facts on File) p 138

to

overcome

natural and

75

kc by audio

system the carrier was frequency modulated

In this

to 15 kc.

'The development of the

of radio receiving from the early 1920's to the present' by

art

Swinyard Proc. IRE p 797 (May 1962)

SEE ALSO:

'Frequency modulation' by S

W Seeley RCA Rev.

Selected Papers on Frequency Modulation edited by

vol 5, p

468 (April 1941)

Klapper (New York: Dover Publications Ltd.)

(1970)

NOTE

The

actual invention of frequency modulation goes back to 1902

US

Patent 785 303.

Ehret

(Endeavor Review April 1978)

1933

POLYETHYLENE INSULATION
An

ICI (UK)

outstanding event in the cable world in recent years was the discovery of polyethylene in 1933 by

Imperial Chemical Industries Ltd.

was made available

small amount

At

first

only minute quantities could be produced, but by 1937 a

for experimental use.

The opportunity was

once taken and,

at

after

extended research, a mile of submarine cable insulated with Telcothene, a synthetic material based on
polyethylene, was

SOURCE:

made by Submarine Cables

Ltd. in 1939.

'The story of the submarine cable' Booklet published by Submarine Cables Ltd (AEI) London

p 13 (1960)
1933

HARD VALVE TIME BASE CIRCUIT

In 1933,

S Puckle (UK)

O S Puckle developed a time base which employs a variation of the multivibrator as a condenser

charging medium.

from

SOURCE:

Time Bases by

SEE ALSO:

maximum

This raised the

a thyratron time base,

repetition frequency, as

from about 40 kc/s up

to a

maximum

S Puckle (London: Chapman

'A time base employing hard valves'

&

compared with

of about

that obtainable

Mc/s.

Hall) p 30 (1944)

S Buckle British Patent 419198; also Journal of

the Television Society vol 2, p 147 (1936)

1933

RADIO ASTRONOMY
While looking

for the sources of static in overseas radio signals,

energy coming from the

SOURCE:

KG

stars

thus launching

Mission Communications

Jansky (USA)

KG

Jansky

in

1933 discovered radio

the science of radio astronomy.

the Story of Bell Laboratories by Prescott C Mabon (Murray

Hill,

NJ: Bell Laboratories Inc.) p 170 (1975)

1933

'IGNITRON' (Mercury-Arc
In

1933 the Westinghouse

Westinghouse (USA)

Rectifier)

Company announced

its

Ignitron. Its potential value

and an active developmental programme soon commercialised

applying Ignitrons was rapid.
installed in a customer's shop.

By

it

extensively.

was

at

once recognised

Progress in making and

the end of 1934 a welding control unit using glass Ignitrons

was

A
SOURCE:
1934

Concise Description of Each Invention

W C White Proc.

'Early history of industrial-electronics'

FREQUENCY STANDARDS

CE

(Atomic Clocks)

Date Order

in

IRE p

135

133 (May 1962)

Cleeton and

NA

Williams

(USA)
In

1934 Cleeton and Williams

Mcs by

of 23 870

exciting the transitions

ammonia was

at

Michigan University excited a

at

a source of radio

was

waves generated

magnetron which generated a

atmospheric pressure,

'Frequency and time standards'

SEE ALSO:

C E
1934

'Electromagnetic waves of

Cleeton and

N A

fairly

1.1

L Essen

cm

this

Proc.

frequency
for

wide band of frequencies and the

effect

The

observed.

is

IRE p

(May 1962)

161

wavelength and the absorption spectrum of ammonia'

Williams Phys. Rev. vol 45, p 234-7 (February 1934)

E Fermi

Enrico Fermi

Professor

1934,

at a

can be reduced by reducing the pressure.

TRANS-URANIAN ATOMS
In

ammonia

The source used by them

which only a very broad resonance

at

width was mainly due to the effect of collisions and

SOURCE:

spectral line of

in the laboratory.

in

systematically bombarding atoms of

Rome

all

(Italy)

poured out a bewildering series of discoveries by

He found

the elements with neutrons.

that several

dozen

of them could be transmuted by neutrons, and he obtained particularly interesting results from uranium.
This

The

nucleus.

No

first

and the

1,

stable.

Fermi found
different

Atom No 92

should be naturally radio-active.

It

an ancestor of radium, whose atomic number

known

is

that

he had made

new

SOURCE:
1934

series of

atoms hitherto not found on the

Science at War by

Crowther and

as

Atom
not

It is

88.

bombarded uranium produced numerous atoms with chemical

from uranium. He concluded

new

as

might well be too complicated to be

properties quite

atoms, more complicated than uranium

atoms, and supposed that these must be 'trans-uranian' atoms, Nos.

a

known
Atom No 92.

hydrogen, with one positive charge, and therefore

uranium, with ninety-two charges, and therefore

that the

earth.

an order of complication, depending on the number of electric charges on the

in the series is

in fact

It is

in

last is

surprising that

made

atoms found on the

the most complicated of the ninety-two different kinds of chemical

is

These can be placed

93,

94

etc.

He seemed

to

have

earth.

R Whiddington

LIQUID-CRYSTALS

(London:

HMSO)

p 129 (1947)

J Dreyer (UK)

Although the liquid-crystal

state

was

first

noted

in

1889,

it

was not

until

around 1934

that serious

consideration was given to these electro-optical devices, in the Marconi laboratories, in England. John

Dreyer found
polarisers

that their orderly

method

molecular arrangement could be used to orient dye molecules for making

used even though his work was done

still

present explosion in liquid-crystal research began in the 1960s

States

began

to investigate them.

British patents that

Its

in the

when

1940s and patented

the

RCA

in 1950.

course of development can be charted by counting the

have been granted

one each

The

laboratories in the United

US

and

year in 1936, 1946, 1950, 1951, 1963, 1965 and

1967. Then, suddenly, seven in 1968, 11 in 1969, at least

two

in

1970 and more than

in 1971.

Few

companies claim as long-lived an association with the subject as Marconi and RCA: most have been
in the field for

SOURCE:
1935

two years or

'The

fluid state

less.

of liquid-crystals' by

SUPERCONDUCTING SWITCH

M Tobias New Scientist p 651

(14 December 1972)

W J de Haas

Casimir-Jonker and
(Netherlands)

The

idea of using the superconductive transition to switch a small resistance into and out of a circuit

at will

seems

to

have occurred

at

about the same time in the laboratories

at

1935. Casimir-Jonker and de Haas (1935) developed an apparatus to detect the

in a

Leiden and Toronto

first

superconducting specimen, using a sensitive magnetometer to observe the change of

to the cryostat

when

as small as 3

x 10""

field external

the current decayed in a super conducting circuit in series with the specimen.

superconducting lead solenoid around the specimen was used to restore

ohm

its

resistance,

produced a decay of current rapid enough to be detected.

in

trace of resistance

and a resistance

36

Concise Description of Each Invention

Date Order

in

At Toronto, Grayson Smith and Tarr (1935) used

consisting of fixed lead field coils and a

magnetometer inside the cryostat

a moving-coil

moving copper

coil.

the field coils acted as a superconducting switch and could be driven normal by

The apparatus was used

a copper solenoid.
their decay.

Used
4

as small as 10

SOURCE:

in this

amp

way

means of

a current in

for measuring small persistent currents, again by observing

as a super-conduct ing galvanometers

in a circuit

itself,

short section of lead wire in series with

it

was capable of detecting currents

4
of self-inductance of 5 x 10" henry.

Materials for Conductive and Resistive Functions by

A Dummer (New

York: Hayden

Book Co.) p 134

SEE ALSO:
1935:

1935

1935: Casimir-Jonker

H Grayson

Smith and F

G A

and de Haas

Physica vol

2,

p 935

Tarr Transaction of the Royal Society of

TRAVELLING WAVE MICROWAVE OSCILLATOR

and

Canada

Heil

vol 29, p 23

(Germany)

(Early Magnetron)
Studies of the classical triode valve in which the anode current
a

fundamental

difficulty for the highest frequencies

electron inertia.

In

1935 proposals were made by

also of avoiding the

power

was

is

controlled by the grid had

the excess grid control

Heil and

first

time, a

new mechanism

that
to

Heil for avoiding this limitation and

dissipation limit of very high frequency circuits.

particular importance since for the

shown

power needed due

These proposals were of

specially suited for the generation of

very high frequencies was suggested.

SOURCE: 'Microwave valves: A survey of evolution, principles of operation

C H Dix and W E Willshaw J. Brit. IRE p 580 (August 1960)

and basic characteristics'

by

SEE ALSO:

'Eine neue methode zur erzeugung kurzer, ungedampfter, elektromagnetischer Wellen

grosser Intensitat' by

1935

A A

Heil and

Heil Z. Phys. vol 95, p 752 (1935)

SCANNING ELECTRON MICROSCOPE

Knoll,

von Ardenne

(Germany) and

D McMullan, C

Oatley (UK)
Postulated by Knoll in 1935, an early form of scanning electron microscscope was built by von Ardenne
in 1938.

and

it

However, the

intensity of the electron

was therefore necessary

beam

to record the picture

at the

specimen was very low (about 10-13 A)

over a period of about 20 minutes

in

order to obtain

an image of reasonable density on the photographic film.

Since the image was not visible

it

The

results with this

had been developed, focusing was a

until the film

being necessary to find the setting by

trial

and

show advantages with

could then be examined

in

The

beam should be

collected by

surfaces of opaque specimens

terms of their secondary emitting properties

scanning electron microscope designed especially for opaque speciments was made by Zworykin and

others in 1942.

main

The specimen was scanned by an

difference being that electrostatic lenses

were published showing

It is

is

thick specimens.

also proposed that, instead of a photographic recording, the electron

an electrode, amplified and used to modulate a cathode-ray tube.

proceeding,

microscope were inferior to conventional electron microscopes but von Ardenne

pointed out that the scanning microscope should

He

difficult

error.

well

known

a resolution of about

that with

electron spot as in von Ardenne's microscope, the

were used instead of magnetic ones. Some micrographs

500

but the interpretation of them

was inconclusive.

primary voltages below a few thousand volts the secondary emission ratio

very dependent on the cleanness of the surface and in a demountable system with

on the specimen, and

practically impossible to prevent a thin layer of oil forming

significant part in determining the contrasts in the final micrograph. This difficulty has
in the

scanning electron microscope

at

Cambridge and,

in addition, a

oil

pumps

it

is

this layer plays a

been overcome

number of other improvements

have been incorporated including direct viewing of the picture before recording.

SOURCE:

Letter from

Dr D McMullan dated

16/10/77.

the electron-optical examination of surfaces' by

1953)

Also 'The scanning electron microscope and

D McMullan

Electronic Engineering p 46 (February

A Concise

SEE ALSO:

Description of Each Invention

von Ardenne

Tech. Phys.

K C A

Z.

D McMullan

Proc.

IEE

vol 100,

75, p 245 (June 1953)

Smith and

'First international

(New

Knoll

407-16 (1938)

vol 19,

'An improved scanning electron microscope for opaque specimens' by

No

467 (1935)

'Das Elektron raster Mikroskop' by

III,

137

'Aufladepotential und Sekundar-emission elektronbestrahlter Oberflachen' by

Tech. Phys. vol 2, p

Part

Date Order

in

W Oatley

J Appl. Phys. vol

Brit.

conference on Electron and Ion

p 391 (1955)

6,

Beam

Science and Technology' Edited by

Bakish

York: John Wiley) (1965)

NOTE:
In

1957 a team of

scientists

at

Cambridge University made

microanalysers which gave Britain a lead in this

field that

breakthrough

electron

in

Before the wholly-British development of scanning techniques, specimens had to be moved under
probes and the element distribution plotted laboriously and slowly. Scanning made
the information

on

The following

year,

probe

has so far been maintained.

it

static

possible to display

TV-type viewing system.

Tube Investments Research Laboratories found

microanalysis, developed by the team at the Cavendish Laboratory

the

value of scanning X-ray

was so

great that they built an

instrument of their own.

Early

in

1959, the Cambridge Instrument Co. entered into an agreement with TI to manufacture such

instruments. Production started later that year and the

first

Microscan was completed for the

Aldermaston, and shown in the Cambridge Instrument Company's London office

at

UKAEA,

the time of the

Physical Society Exhibition in January 1960.

During the same period the company's

efforts to

improve the resolution of Microscan

led to the

merging

of their work with that of the University's Engineering Department where scanning electron microscopes

were being studied. Stereoscan was the

This instrument had a

field

of focus

result.

some 300 times

greater than any previous microscope, optical or

So revolutionary

otherwise, and produced dramatic results of both rough and delicate surface alike.

were the photographs taken on

this instrument, that the

company had

to

arrange a special demonstration

before microscopists were convinced that they were true pictures of the surface.

SOURCE: 'From

Microscan

to Stereoscan....

Cambridge keeping

Britain in front' by P Slater Electronics

Weekly p 16(10 January 1968)

1935

CIRCUITRY

A D

(Constant Resistance Capacity Stand-Oft

Blumlein (UK)

Circuit)

Figures

11.9(a)

and

(b)

show two

versions of the basis of this invention,

arrangements of an inductor L, a capacitor C, and two equal resistors

the

impedance measured between the two terminals

provided L/C =
1

1.9(b)) as a

R2

is

namely two-terminal

having the property that

purely resistive, of value

at all

frequencies,

This property was known, but Blumlein adapted the circuit (particularly figure

means of removing from

critical points in a circuit (e.g.

capacity to earth of, for example, floating power supplies.

wide-band amplifier) the stray

The example shown

in

figure

1.9(c)

is

the application of the idea to the filament supply for the cathode follower output valve of the vision

modulator for the original Alexandra Palace transmitter.

The 'hardware' of

this is

preserved in the

Science Museum.

SOURCE:

'The work of Alan Blumlein' British Kinematographv Sound and Television vol 50,

p 209 (July 1968)

SEE ALSO:

British Patent Specification

No 462 530

(1935)

No

7,

A Concise Description of Each

138

Invention in Date Order

CR

Figure 11.9. Constant resistance capacity stand-off

1935

MULTIPLIER PHOTOTUBES
One

circuit.

&

Zworykin, Morton

of the most important by-products of television research

is

the multiplier phototube.

Malter (USA)

When

electrons

of one or several hundred electron volts energy impinge on a suitably prepared conducting surface, they
eject

4 to 10 low- velocity electrons, multiplying the

initial

current by a corresponding factor of

to 10.

Repetition of this process leads to current multiplication by an arbitrarily high factor, practically without
the addition of amplification noise. If the initial current
reflects the variation

derived from a photocathode, the tube output

is

of the light incident on the photocathode with a precision which depends only

on the quantum efficiency of the cathode; with proper design, the dispersion

in the transit

time of the

electrons from the cathode to the final collector can be held to quantities of the order of 10"'" second.
In the earliest effective multipliers

from dynode

to

(Zworykin, Morton and Malter 1935) the electrons were guided

dynode along an approximately cycloidal path by crossed

electric

and magnetic

fields.

Purely electrostatic focusing and acceleration systems were developed subsequently by Zworykin and

Rajchman and Rajchman and Synder

as well as

by Larson and Salinger. These may be regarded

the prototypes of present-day multiplier phototubes of

utilised in the

image orthicon

is

also

RCA

employed by EMI and

the early and very simple screen multiplier of

as

and DuMont. The venetian-blind design

RCA

for multiplier phototubes.

Finally,

Weiss (1936) does without focusing altogether,

at the

expense of materially lowered multiplication efficiency.

SOURCE:

'Beam-deflection and photo devices' by

Schlesinger and

E C Ramberg

Proc.

IRE

p 1001/2

(May 1962)

SEE ALSO:

'The secondary emission multiplier

Morton and L Malter Proc. IRE

new

electronic device' by

vol 24, p 351

(March 1936)

V K

Zvorykin ?nd

'The electrostatic electron multiplier' by

A Rajchman

V K

Zworykin,

IRE

Proc.

G A

vol 27, p 558

(September 1939)
'Photocell multiplier tube' by

CC

Larson and

'On secondary emission multipliers' by

1935

TRANSISTOR
In

Weiss

Salinger Rev. Sci. Instrum. vol

Z. Tech. Phys.

1935, Oskar Heil of Berlin obtained a British patent on

The

light area

marked 3

is

Figure 11.10

thin metallic layer

in or
is

Relating to Electrical

the inventor's original

described as a thin layer of a semiconductor

such as tellurium, iodine, cuprous oxide, or vanadium pentoxide;

the semiconductor.

p 226 (July 1940)

(Germany)

improvements

Amplifiers and Other Control Arrangements and Devices'.

illustration describing his device.

Heil

1,

623 (December 1936)

vol 17, p

(Field Effect)

and 2 designate ohmic contacts

marked 6 immediately adjacent

to

to

but insulated from the

A Concise

Description of Each Invention

semiconductorlayer serves as control electrode.

Heil describes

modulates the resistance of the semiconductor layer so

means of

how

in

a signal

Date Order

139

on the control electrode

that an amplified signal

may be observed by

the current meter 5. Using today's experience and language, one might describe this device

as a unipolar field-effect transistor with insulated gate.

Figure 11.10. Field-effect

SOURCE:

'The field-effect transistor

transistor.

an old device with new promise' by

T Wallmark IEEE Spectrum

p 183 (March 1964)

1936

CIRCUITRY
This

now

familiar and

much used

for the original video cable

not the

now

A D

(Long-Tailed Pair)
circuit (figure

between points

11.11(a) and (b))

in Central

Blumlein (UK)

was

first

needed

London and Alexandra

familiar co-axial type but a shielded pair, and the problem

was

in the amplifiers

Palace.

The cable was

to obtain the 'push-pull'

signal uncontaminated by 'push-push' interference pick-up. In telephone practice a transformer serves

this

purpose, but transformers to handle the video frequency range were not then available.

o+

Figure 11.11. Long-tailed pair

The name of
that

it

the circuit invented to

do

the job

is

the

circuit.

name given

to

it

by Blumlein, and

is

so descriptive

has stuck.

SOURCE: The work

p 209 (July 1968)

of Alan Blumlein' British Kinematography

Sound and

Television vol 50,

No

7,

A Concise

40

SEE ALSO:
1936

Description of Each Invention in Date Order

No 482 740

British Patent Specification

(1936)

COLD CATHODE TRIGGER TUBE

Telephone Laboratories announced the

Bell

The

first

cold cathode trigger tube

number of

cathode, the 313-A set the pattern for a

decades.

(USA)

Bell Laboratories

made

trigger tubes

in

1936. Using an activated

Europe during the next two

in

activated cathode led to anode maintaining and critical trigger voltages each of the order

of 70 V.

SOURCE:

'A survey of cold cathode discharge tubes' by

DM

Neale The Radio and Electronic Engineer

p 87 (February 1964)

SEE ALSO:
1936

'The 313-A vacuum tube' by S

B Ingram

Bell Lab. Rec. p

WAVEGUIDES

14-6 (December 1936)

Carson, S P Meade, S

Schelkunoff,

GC

Southworth

(Bell

Laboratories) (USA)
In

from the Bell Telephone Laboratories, Carson, Meade and Schelkunoff published

1936,

mathematical

theory

experimental

results.

same year

In that

Waves

in

on

Wave

'Hyper-Frequency

Guides'

These papers provided the basis

L Barrow of MIT published

his

their

G C Southworth published his

TECH mode cylindrical waveguide.

while

for the

work on

the 'Transmission of Electromagnetic

Hollow Tubes of Metal'. Before 1934 Southworth had transmitted telegraph and telephone

signals at 15.cm wavelengths in a 5-in. diameter hollow metal pipe 875

ft.

long with relatively small

attenuation.

SOURCE: 'Microwave

communications' by

H Vogelman

Proc.

IRE p 907 (May 1962)

SEE ALSO: (1) 'Hyperfrequency waveguides mathematical theory'

A Schelkunoff Bell Sys. Tech. J. vol 15, p 310-33 (April 1936)
1936

VOCODER
In

US Government

SOURCE:
Hill,

With

later

Carson, S P

Meade and S

(USA)

developments, vocoder output was digitised, encrypted and the

for secure

The vocoder has been used

World War

since

II

by

communications.

'Mission Communications

C Mabon

the Story of Bell Laboratories' by Prescott

(Murray

NJ: Bell Laboratories Inc.) p 171 (1975)

XEROGRAPHY
An

1936, Bell Laboratories developed the voice coder, or vocoder, for analysing the pitch and energy

digital signal transmitted within a voice channel.

1937

Bell Laboratories

content of speech waves.

the

by

Carlson (USA)

individual inventor, Chester Carlson, conceived the idea of Xerography. This

is

new photographic

process which in a relatively short time has found numerous industrial applications.

dry and

is

It

is

completely

based entirely upon principles of photoconductivity and electrostatics. The process:

'employs a plate which consists of

be electrically charged

in the

image can be produced on

photoconductive coating on

a thin

a metallic sheet.

dark and will hold this charge until exposed to

the plate

by exposing the plate

dusted with powder particles, the electrostatic image

is

to

light.

This coating can

Thus an

an optical image.

When

electrostatic

the plate

is

transformed into a powder image which can be

transferred to paper and fixed by fusing.'

The development of Xerography was turned over

with

some previous experience

in

printing.

assigned a few assistants to help him.

By

to

Roland

Schaffert, a Battelle research physicist

For a year he worked alone but after the war Battelle

the latter part of 1946

two important developments were

completed: a high-vacuum technique for coating plates with selenium; and a corona discharge wire,
both for applying the original electrostatic charge to the plate and for transferring powder from the
plate to the paper.

The most

background from being

industry

became

filled

interested.

significant contribution

was

the discovery of a

method

to

keep the image

with stray powder. Thus Battelle improved Xerography to the point where

A Concise

SOURCE: The

Sources of Invention by

Description of Each Invention in Date Order

Jewkes,

Sawers and

141

Stillerman (London: MacMillan

&

Co.) p 405, 408 (1958)

SEE ALSO:

'Printing with

'Xerography

From Fable

'Developments

1937

in

Powders' Fortune (June 1949)

to Fact'

Xerography' by

by

W T Reid

Schaffert (The Penrose Annual) (1954)

POLAR CO-ORDINATE OSCILLOGRAPH

von Ardenne (Germany), J J

T G

Dowling and

polar co-ordinate oscillograph

usually

employs

special

Bullen (Ireland)

form of cathode ray tube or other

oscillographic device which has been specially designed for the purpose of depicting oscillograms
in polar co-ordinates.

von Ardenne and Dowling and Bullen have independently developed polar co-ordinate cathode ray
oscillograph tubes, von Ardenne's tube and the circuit employed with

Wavt term

to

are

it

shown

in figure 11.12.

bt exanmtlt

Figure 11.12. von Ardenae's polar co-ordinate oscillograph.

The tube contains two concentric cone-shaped

connected.

The

resultant

form of the image

has the advantage that the

final

anode

deflectors across

shown

which the potential

is

the case

when

it

the signal

to

be examined

is

This form of cathode ray tube

in figure 11.13.

anode potential remains fixed and

larger deflections without defocusing than

final

is

is,

is

therefore, possible to obtain

applied as a modulation of the

potential.

von Ardenne has also employed electromagnetic deflection methods

The form of

the image, as

sense of the term, but

it

is

shown

in figure 11.13,

difficult to find a

is

for this purpose.

not in true polar co-ordinates in the mathematical

name which

truly describes the arrangement.

Figure 11.13. Polar co-ordinate oscillogram obtained with von Ardenne's polar co-ordinate oscillograph.

SOURCE: Time

Bases by

S Puckle (London:

Chapman

&

Hall) p 104 (1955)

A Concise

42

SEE ALSO:

Description of Each Invention

measurements with

A H

Pulse code modulation, or coded step modulation (which

that

came

Only

use.

knew

in the last

that

few years,

no

too early.

T G

Dowling and

would have been an apter name),

think

conceived the idea

make

tools then existed that could

in this

Reeves (UK)

in

semiconductor age, has

it

1937 while working

When PCM was

Paris laboratories of International Telephone and Telegraph Corporation.

in 1942,

(1937)

PULSE CODE MODULATION

1938 and

by

a radial deflection cathode ray oscillograph'

good example of an invention

p 5 (1937)

14,

Bullen Proc. R. Irish Acad. A, vol 44, p

1937

Date Order

'A new polar co-ordinate cathode ray oscillograph with extremely linear time scale' by

von Ardenne Wireless Engineer vol

'Precision

in

economic

patented in

for general civilian

commercial value been

its

is

at the

felt.

Pulse code modulation was invented mainly for line-of-sight microwave links or link sections, where
in

1938 the needed extra bandwidth would have been cheap and easily obtainable, rather than for more

now

limited frequency bands, as in cables, which are

PCM,

change of aim for

so far in
It

was

its

sound reasons,

for quite

of application.

fields

caused most of the technological

It

is

this

difficulties

application.

United States during World

in the

War

that the next step in

II

Bell Telephone Laboratories. In this important stage, a

PCM

main

in fact the

that has

system

later

Ralph Bown.

It is

produced

in quantity for the

SOURCE: The

US Army

new system were

and future of

past, present

progress was made, by

a practical

Signal Corps. Research was also done under

work should be

appropriate that this early Bell

the principles underlying the

PCM's

team under Harold S Black designed

stressed, for

it

was

the

first

time that

translated into hardware.

PCM' by A H Reeves IEEE Spectrum

vol 3,

No

5,

p 58

(May 1965)
1937

RADAR AIMING ANTI-AIRCRAFT GUNS

The

first

P E Pollard (UK)

radar equipment for aiming anti-aircraft guns

the basis of the

first

was devised by Mr P E Pollard

in 1937.

It

radar gun-laying equipment, GLI, brought into anti-aircraft service in 1939.

It

was
gave

range up to 10 miles, with an accuracy of about 25 yards, but no angle of elevation, and was the only

equipment of

SOURCE:
1938

kind available

its

Science at War by

of 1940^11.

in the night attacks

Crowther and

Whiddington (London:

German

The shadow-mask tube had

its

genesis in a 1938 conception of the

seemed

to

be no way to make Flechsig's device

at that time, there

had

to

be in exact alignment with an equal number of phosphor

blue-emitting phosphor
at

RCA

line.

p 76 (1947)

W Flechsig (Germany)

SHADOW-MASK TUBE

TELEVISION:

HMSO)

in

triads,

inventor Flechsig. However,

which hundreds of
each with a

fine wires

red-, green-

and

Modifications of the idea were proposed by Goldsmith and by Schroeder,

Laboratories. Schroeder suggested a hexagonal array of circular holes in a metal mask, together

with round phosphor dots and three closely spaced electron beams through a
Prior to 1948,

common

some experiments were done on methods of multicolour phosphor

deflection yoke.

deposition, but the

basic technology of aligning either holes or wires with phosphor dots or lines appeared well
reach.

One

Law.

When

beyond

of the experimenters on phosphor deposition, and a colleague of Schroeder's, was

RCA

the

Schroeder's idea.

He

crash program to develop a colour tube started in 1949,

then

made

a photographic process to

Law

H B

elected to pursue

key invention, which he called the 'lighthouse'. This device permitted

produce

light

shadows

that

were essentially the same as the electron-beam

shadows. Application of any one of several photolithographic techniques then permitted deposition of
phosphors

in

exactly the right place. Success

etched a metal

mask with

deposited, shifting the

good colour
at

RCA's

mask

came

tiny holes, through

slightly for

rapidly and in a

few months Law photographically

which the three colour-emitting phosphors could be

each deposition. Law's

pictures. Application to a larger screen

first

tube displayed small but remarkably

(30-cm diagonal) was made by engineering teams

Lancaster and Harrison locations, and a single-gun version was developed by

(unrelated to

H B Law

but also at

RCA's

Princeton Laboratories).

R R Law

A Concise

SOURCE:

Description of Each Invention in Date Order

'A history of colour television displays' by

143

No

Herold Proc. IRE vol 64,

p 1333

9.

(September 1976)

SEE ALSO:

W Flechsig:

'Multi-colour television'

German

AC

Patent 736575 filed 1938

US

Schroeder,

'Picture reproducing apparatus'

A C

H B Law

No 2595 548

Proc.

IRE

sends out a series of pulses.

to the aircraft

P and beyond.

It is

a transmitter is then activated

If

we

which issues

Figure 11.14.

The

aircraft carries

navigator
stations

is

186 (October 1951)

Mr R

Dippy and developed by

when

it

will travel past station

the pulse reaches

second pulse,

Then

GEE

his

In practice three stations are actually used.

B which

is

team

at

master

B and

also

called a slave station,

second pulse from

also activates a

the cycle repeats.

navigational system.

one cathode ray tube on which the

and C, and

Science at

SEE ALSO: 'Gee a

COMPUTERS
Shows

arrival

of the four pulses

is

recorded.

The

provided with a chart covered with two intersecting sets of curves, corresponding to

flown over. The target

SOURCE:

1947, issued 1952

filed

J Dippy (UK)

consider one of these,

arranged that

transmitter in a second slave station at C.

548

network or grid of curves, the system was given the code

invented by

Telecommunications Research Establishment.

station

1947, issued 1952

vol 39, p

R
a

filed

No 2595

Patent

'GEE' NAVIGATION
Owing to the use of a chart covered with
name of GEE (see figure 11.14). It was

1938

US

Schroeder,

'A three-gun shadow-mask kinescope' by

1938

Patent

is

and

respectively. This can be superimposed

marked on

War by

the

map and hence

Crowther and

radio navigational aid' by

its

R Whiddington
R

on

map

(London:

HMSO)

Dippy Proc. IEE. vol 93,

(Information Theory)

of the country to be

place in respect to the curves

pt.

is

seen.

p 54 (1947)
Ill A,

p 468 (1946)

C E Shannon (USA)

the analysis of complicated circuits for switching could be effected by the use of Boolean algebra.

SOURCE:

'A symbolic analysis of relay and switching

p 713 (1938)

circuits'

by

C E Shannon

Trans.

AIEE

vol 57,

A Concise Description of Each

144

1938

Invention in Date Order

NUCLEAR FISSION

Fritsch and Meitner (Germany)

Hahn and F Strassman,

Late in 1938,

new

reviewing the chemical knowledge of the

in

substances,

recognised that one of them was probably barium, whose atomic mass and number are only about half
of that of uranium. This meant that they had previously been on a false
in Scandinavia,

immediately explained the significance of

uranium atoms

into

They

slightly heavier or

No

38

Xenon No

Dr

54.

in

a higher atomic number.

could be done

splitting

Barium No 56

split into

R Dunning

The

parts.

now

Neutrons did not transmute

more complicated, with

two roughly equal

Uranium atom No 92 might be

variety of ways.

Strontium

new atoms

these big uranium atoms into

split

Frisch and Meitner,

trail.

this discovery.

No

Krypton

America rapidly repeated

the

in a

36; or into

work on

fission.

Here was the explanation of the chemical confusion: a wide variety of chemically different atoms was

named

Frisch and Meitner

being produced by the disintegration.

this

new

process of atom-splitting

'nuclear fission'. Nothing like this had been seen in heavy atoms before.

SOURCE:
1939

Science at

War by

Crowther and R Whiddington (London:

RADIO ALTIMETER
The

HMSO)

(USA)

Bell Laboratories

radio altimeter, by which a pilot can calculate his height above the ground,

USA

Laboratories.

The

take to return to the aircraft.

The

at the Bell

relative altitude

SOURCE:

p 131 (1947)

developed

is

in the

altimeter bounces signals off the Earth and measures the time they
pilot then uses a calibrated indicator to translate this figure

the

into a figure giving his absolute altitude.

The Timetable of Technology (London: Michael Joseph, Marshall Editions) p

(November

17

1982)

1939

KLYSTRON
Perhaps the

first

great step in understanding the

phenomena

in

C Hahn and

Varian Bros (USA)

microwave tubes came with

of the klystron. Bruche and Recknagel discussed 'phase focusing'

the invention

1938 and the work of the Varians,

in

Webster's theoretical treatment of the klystron and the work of Hahn and Metcalf were published

in

1939.

With the klystron came

and a

full

SOURCE:

'History of the

SEE ALSO:
p 321

1939

a well-thought-out theory of

its

operation, the concept of velocity modulation,

appreciation of the value of microwave resonators.

microwave tube

art'

by

Pierce Proc.

'High frequency oscillator and amplifier' by

R H and

S F Varian

Appl.

J.

Phys.

vol 10,

(May 1939)

DOUBLE-BEAM OSCILLOGRAPH
A

IRE p 979 (May 1962)

splitter plate is

immersed

in the

B C Fleming-Williams (UK)

beam and

divides

it

two separate

into

sections.

Two

'bucking' wires

to which potentials are applied are used in order to cancel out mutual deflectional interference of the

two beams.

With

this tube, the

separately controlled in the

(because only one plate

is

two beams

are simultaneously deflected in the

Since the Y

direction.

available for each

beam)

it

axis but they are

deflecting potentials are necessarily unbalanced,

becomes necessary

to

employ an anti-trapezium

construction for the tube.

The production of

beam cathode

double beam

ray tube than by

appearing are coincident

is

much

better

means of an

in time.

This

is

accomplished by means of Fleming- Williams' double-

electronic switch since, in the former case, the

not so with the electronic switch and, hence,

it is

two images
possible for

events which are not coincident in time to be assumed to be so.

SOURCE:

Time Bases by

Chapman

S Puckle (2nd edn) (London:

SEE ALSO:

'The double-beam cathode ray oscillograph' by

Wave World

vol 12, p

457 (1939)

&

Hall) p 262 (1951)

B C Fleming-Williams

Electronics

&

Short

A Concise Description of Each

1939

COMPUTERS

Invention in Date Order

HH

(Digital)

145

IBM

Aitken (USA) and

Utilizing twentieth-century advances in mechanical and electrical engineering, the Automatic

Controlled Calculator, or

Mark

The Mark

more

at the

built

by the International Business Machines Corporation between 1939 and 1944.

same

time.

Sequence

brought Babbage's ideas into being, giving concrete existence to

I,

I,

much

an electromechanical calculator 51 feet long and 8 feet high, was

It

could perform

any specified sequence of five fundamental operations, addition, subtraction, multiplication, division

and reference to tables of previously computed

results.

The operation of

the entire calculator

was

governed by an automatic sequence mechanism. The machine consisted of 60 registers for constants.

72 adding storage

The

perforated paper tapes.

was

either

punched

SOURCE:

and dividing

registers, a central multiplying

transcendental functions log,,,*,

input

unit,

means of computing

the elementary

10*

and sinx, and three interpolators reading functions coded

was

in the

into cards or printed

by

in

form of punched cards and switch positions. The output

electric typewriters.

'The evolution of computing machines and systems' by Serrell, Astrahan, Patterson and

Pyrne Proc. IRE p 1043 (May 1962)

SEE ALSO: The Computer from

Pascal

von Neumann by

to

H H

Goldstine (Princeton, NJ: Princeton

University Press) p 118 (1972)

'Proposed automatic calculating machine' by

1939

H H

Aitken

IEEE Spectrum p 62 (August

BELL TELEPHONE LABS 'COMPLEX

COMPUTER'
It is

perhaps a

little

surprising that

it

was not

G
1937

until

that Bell

Stibitz et al

1964)

(USA)

Telephone Laboratories investigated the

design of calculating devices, although Andrews has stated that from about 1925 the possibility of using
relay circuit techniques for such purposes
started to
first

was well accepted

However,

there.

1937 George Stibitz

in

experiment with relays and drew up circuit designs for addition, multiplication and division. At

he concentrated on binary arithmetic, together with automatic decimal-binary and binary-decimal

conversion, but later turned his attention to a binary-coded decimal

became an

official

one when, prompted by

TC

number

multiplying and dividing complex numbers, which was intended to

to facilitate the solution

of problems

in the

representation.

The

project

Fry, Stibitz started to design a calculator capable of

design of

filter

fill

namely

a very practical need,

networks, and so started the very important

Bell Telephone Laboratories Series of Relay Computers.

November

In

1938, S

B Williams

took over responsibility for the machine's development and together

with Stibitz refined the design of the calculator, whose construction was started in April and completed
in

October of 1939. The calculator, which became known as the 'Complex Number Computer', often

shortened to 'Complex Computer' and as other calculators were

operation

in

January 1940. Within a short time

it

was modified so

built, the

'Model

1'

began routine

as to provide facilities for the addition

and subtraction of complex numbers, and was provided with a second, and then a third teletype control,
situated in remote locations.

SOURCE:

It

remained

in daily

use

at Bell

Laboratories until 1949.

The Origins of Digital Computers edited by B Randell

SEE ALSO:

'Computer' by

GR

Stibitz

(Berlin: Springer) p

238 (1973)

The Origins of Digital Computers edited by B Randell

(Berlin:

Springer) p 241 (1973)

1939

MAGNETRON
In the

the

autumn of 1939

the Admiralty asked Professor

University of Birmingham

to

by
and

WW

in

on

L Oliphant and

the klystron, described by

HAH

1939, which used for the

first

its

Boot (UK)

the physics department of

inventors,

The majority of

R H and S F

HAH

the

Varian

time closed resonators, described

Hansen, also of Stanford, in 1938, for the production of high-frequency power.

Randall

Boot, struck by the difficulty of getting enough power from the klystron, considered

instead applying the resonator principle to the magnetron,

the

Randall and

develop a high-power microwave transmitter.

scientists in the laboratory concentrated

of Stanford University, California,

American General

Electric firm in 1921 but which, in

which had been invented by

its

Hull of

conventional form, lacked the properties

A Concise

146

Description of Each Invention

The

they were seeking.

result

was

in

Date Order

the cavity magnetron,

which proved

to

be the needed generator,

producing high powers on centimetre wavelengths.

SOURCE: The

Sources of Invention by

Jewkes,

Sawers and

&

Stillerman (London: MacMillan

Co.) p 348 (1958)

1939

FREQUENCY STANDARDS
The

(Caesium Beam)

at

Columbia University by Rabi and

method which can be used with atoms possessing

nonuniform

field

and deflect the atoms

of the two energy levels they are

When

in.

in

first

moment,

RF

from those

in the first

field is exactly

L Essen

Proc.

large-screen television projector

in the

TV

Fischer (Switzerland)

'television theatres'

Swiss Federal

at the

Institute

come from

and he invented the Eidophor

pictures onto cinema-sized screens.

cumbersome machines, which could

detector.

IRE p 1162 (May 1962)

was invented by Professor Fischer

development of networks of neighbourhood

with the capability of projecting

which

second magnet

of Technology in 1939. At that time, Fischer thought that the growth of television would
the

to

equal to the Bohr

magnet A, and the atoms are thus focused on the

'Frequency and time standards' by

passes

Bohr frequency. The

one direction or the other according

the frequency of the

beam

In this

beam of atoms

field alternating at the

LARGE SCREEN TELEVISION PROJECTOR

The

his co-workers.

of the right amplitude transitions are induced and the deflections

are the opposite

SOURCE:
1939

is

a magnetic dipole

system of magnets and a region of

to a detector through a

frequency and

Rabi (USA)

of bandwidth and low intensity are most easily overcome by using the atomic

difficulties

magnetic resonance method developed

magnets have

I I

The

earliest

Eidophors were

project only black and white pictures in a darkened or semi-

darkened room. They were not the most reliable of machines and for a number of years the Eidophor
system was

little

known

or used.

programme

Later the American space

called for a reliable, high performance, large-screen projection

system capable of working for long periods of time, to provide data displays
centres.

in

NASA

flight control

Gretag AG, Zurich, a subsidiary of Ciba Geigy and patent holders and manufacturers of the

Eidophor, successfully developed the projector's capability to meet

NASA

Eidophors are able to project full-colour television pictures onto screens 18

SOURCE:

television

'Projection

specifications.

The

review of current practice in large-screen projectors'

latest

wide.

by

Robertson Wireless World p 47 (September 1976)

1940

CYBERNETICS

N Weiner (Germany)

Cybernetics, as a science, was invented by Norbert Wiener

1948 by Wiener and

Rosenblueth.

It

comes from

the

in

1940, but the word was not coined until

Greek word kybernetes meaning a steersman

or pilot.

Cybernetics
in

is

SOURCE: The Book

(UK: Queen Anne
1940

communication and control mechanisms

the study of automatic

in

machines

as well as

humans.
of Inventions and Discoveries Associate Editor Valerie-Anne Giscard d'Estaing

Press,

Macdonald

&

Co.) (1990) p

16

E G Bowen,

PLAN POSITION INDICATOR

W B Lewis, G W A

Dummer and E
The

first

radar PPI (Plan Position Indicator) to be used by the

A Dummer

and

The

It

was

using a sufficiently narrow

development of

made of

this

the authors

device

it

(G

may be of

experimental work on radial time bases.

possibility of the desirable PPI presentation of radar echoes

the early days of radar.

the

RAF, was designed by

Franklin) in 1940 and in view of the use since

interest to recall early

Franklin (UK)

not,

however,

beam and

a satisfactory PPI.

until

1939-40

had been realised by the pioneers

that the

two developments of

in

a radar station

the cathode ray screen with bright and lasting afterglow led to

A Concise

1939^0 work was

In

was envisaged

It

An

1.

It

Date Order

in

147

proceeding on the design of a 'radio lighthouse' on a wavelength of 50 cm,

narrow beams then obtained on

that with the

was decided

this

wavelength

should be possible

it

'map' of

aerial rotation to give a radar

synchronism with the

to rotate a time base in

aircraft.

Description of Each Invention

surrounding

all

time base should take one of two forms:

that the

inductive or capacitive voltage split of

and Y vectors and recombination on an

electrostatically

deflected tube.
2.

At

that time 12-inch electrostatic tubes

mechanically rotated current time base on a magnetically deflected tube.

were not

fully developed;

it

were

CH

on

in use

was therefore decided

to

CHL

and

adopt the

and magnetic afterglow tubes

sets

scheme.

first

Experimental work was also carried out on 'strobing' a portion of the time base, amplifying
it

By

to another tube.

side

on a 12

was produced on

in tube)

being enlarged and

means an enlarged PPI was developed.

this

this area

the

appeared as

it

in

beamwidth of

to the 15

record that a system of

interesting to

and feeding

identify the area which was

on the other tube. Owing

is

it

'square' (approximately

tube by partial blackout to

first

full size

was not used, but

the polar diagram the system

dim

type was

this

operating in this country in 1941.

The PPI was next adapted

It

become one of

has

USA

and

it

seems a

the

for use in the

first

centimetre Al equipment and afterwards for

most widely used presentation systems

far cry

from the original 6

ft

H2 S

and ASV.
and the

for radar both in this country

rack to the compact, efficient airborne PPIs in use

today.

SOURCE:

'Radial time bases'

how they were developed

by

for radar'

W A Dummer and E Franklin

Wireless World p 287 (August 1947)

SEE ALSO:
1940

Odhams

Three Steps to Victory by Sir Robert Watson- Watt (London:

A H

'OBOE' NAVIGATIONAL SYSTEM

Press) p

268 (1957)

Reeves (UK)

Yet another high-precision method of radar navigation removed the necessity for the pilot to find the

even know where he was going, All of

target or

the

knowledge of

the pilot

who was

relieved of

of his attention to the controls of his

In this

system there are two fixed

circumference of a great

stations,

C. This station, which pushes the aircraft this

to the circle,

called the Cat station.

is

could be managed from ground stations without

and decision, and could devote the whole

strain

aircraft.

whose centre

circle,

this

much

The

and B. Station
at

is

A, and of P from

way and

stations

that, tracking

and

B send

is

recorded

at

B.

The Cat

series of

Morse dashes

of dots.

But

if

earphones.

ready to warn

aircraft,

moment

intervention at

(see figure 11.15).

all

The inventor of

this

Marshal)

D C T

SOURCE:

mark

for releasing the

H 2 S,

Science at War by

IIIA,

when

bombs.

he worked

AP

is

it

it

were, and making

greater than

AC,

A
its

it

keep

is

recorded

at

knowledge of

the pilot hears a

too near to A, he hears a series

reaches the target and should, as

It

may even

Mr A H

comes within
release the

Reeves.

in close collaboration

Bennett, the Pathfinder leader,

special targets,

SEE ALSO: 'Oboe

pt.

it

system, called Oboe, was

developments of Gee and

93,

as

it,

If the aircraft strays to the left,

gives the pilot a series of warning signals as he

It

signal at the right

aircraft to

along the

he keeps exactly on the circle he hears a high-pitched continuous buzz. The Mouse

watches the

the hole.

in his

fly

pulses which are picked up by the

station emits a signal as a result of

the distance PA. If the aircraft has strayed to the right, so that

down

enables the aircraft P to

magnified and returned. From these responses, the exact distance of P from

aircraft,

station

A, and whose circumference passes over the target

who

tried

were, dart

bombs without

the pilot's

Like Dippy and Lovell

with

and adopted

in

their

Group Capt (Now Air Viceit.

It

was used by Pathfinder

which could then be attacked by following bombers.

Crowther and R Whiddington (London:

a precision ground controlled blind-bombing system'

p 496 (1946)

it

range, and then a final

HMSO)

(1947) p 58

by F E Jones Proc. 1EE vol

A Concise

148

Description of Each Invention in Date Order

N
.Dots area

Daslies orpa

200-300

200-300

miles

miles

"Cot7 or tracker
Cboe station

'Mouse," or release

Oboe station

OBOE

Figure 11.15.

1940

navigational system.

SKIATRON CRO
The

A H

Skiatron, or dark-trace tube,

on white' picture with

The Skiatron

was developed

to

meet

Rosenthal (USA)

a radar requirement for a large-screen 'black

a persistence of several seconds.

consists of a magnetically focused and deflected cathoderay tube with a screen consisting

of a translucent micro-crystalline layer of potassium chloride. This screen

the material in

vacuum on

An

to the tube face.

a picture by causing darkening in the areas

is

obtained by evaporation of

beam produces

intensity-modulated scanning electron

The

bombarded.

picture

episcopially projected using

is

external illumination from mercury-vapour lamps.

SOURCE:

'The Skiatron or dark-trace tube' by P

G R

King and

Gittins

IEE

J.

pt IIIA, vol 93.

p 822 (1946)

SEE ALSO: 'A system of large-screen television

A H Rosenthal Proc. IRE vol 28 p 203 (1940)
'Photography of cathode ray tube traces' by

H F

based on certain electron phenonema

Roberts and F

Richards

in crystals'

RCA Review

vol 6 p

by

234

(1941)

1941

BETATRON
A

betatron

is

D
an electrical device

normal to a magnetic

spiral orbit

in

which electrons revolve

field,

and have

in a

W Kerst (USA)
vacuum

enclosure, in a circular or a

their energies continuously increased

by the electric

force resulting from the variation with time of the magnetic flux enclosed by their orbits.

W Kerst of the University of

The betatron

This magnetic induction accelerator was

accelerates electrons to velocities approaching that of light.

comparable

to

an ordinary transformer

wherein the high voltage winding, or secondary, consists of an evacuated tube

in

which electrons moving

invented by

at

high velocity form the secondary circuit,

Illinois in 1941.

It is

The device has been designed

to accelerate electrons to

340

million electron volts.

SOURCE:

Encyclopedic Dictionary of Electronics and Nuclear Engineering by

Sarbacher (London:

Pitman) p 10 (1959)
1941

W S Butement (UK)

RADIO PROXIMITY' FUSE

One of

the

most

brilliant

proposed by Butement.
the shell
interval

is

It

innovations of

Army

radar

was

the

V-T

or self-acting radio fuse. This was

consists of a small radio transmitter and receiver fitted within a shell.

fired, the transmitter

emits radio waves.

These are

between the emission of the waves and the return of

reflected

from the

their reflections is a

target.

When

The time-

measure of the distance

Description of Each Invention

A Concise
between the

and

shell

By

its target.

a certain value, the shell

made

is

when

arranging that the shell explodes

to

explode when

is

it

in

Date Order

149

the time-interval falls

below

within a certain distance of the target, and

therefore virtually sure to inflict damage.

This very ingenious invention was based on an application of the Doppler principle, and on the use

Both of these

of very rugged radio valves which could be fired in a shell without being destroyed.

were British inventions, the early successful rugged valves being made by the research

original features

team under

Mr D

Lawson of Pye

The

development and manufacture of

later

Many

engineers.

in

this fuse

were taken over by American

guns using

V-T

it

scientists

all

the flying-bombs approaching

and

could be produced reliably in

time to meet the flying-bomb menace to London, and

100 per cent of

that attack, nearly

anti-aircraft

Ltd.

very difficult problems had to be solved before

This was done just

quantity.

were made by the Research

Ltd, while important contributions

Company

Laboratories of the General Electric

end of

at the

London were being

shot

down by

fuses invented in England, and developed and manufactured in the United

States.

Our American

we

were able

allies

making 150000000 of

SOURCE:
1941

RADAR

to put

1500 persons on

more than 50 persons on

able to put

Science at

to the

same

development of

to the
task.

War by

Crowther and

R Whiddington

If

you could see

with spiral scan AI equipment,

air targets

in the

autumn of 1941 Dee arranged

flew from Christchurch Aerodrome, Hampshire.

HMSO)

(London:

A C B

Dee,

Blumlein

them? Accordingly,

the prodigy of

the special valves for these fuses.

NAVIGATION SYSTEM

(H 2 S)

no time were

this fuse; at

The Americans performed

why

et al

p 82 (1947)

Lovell,

AD

(UK)

not try to see ground targets with

that this

experiment be

After four minutes a

camp

tried.

The

aircraft

near Stonehenge and the

City of Salisbury were identified on the cathode ray tube.

Thus
the

was proved

it

waves from

others.

The

that in the

cathode ray tube picture of the general reflections from the ground of

a 9 centimetre airborne equipment, certain areas of

picture of the

definite features

mass of echoes from the ground was not

which corresponded

to different objects

Specific equipment for scanning the ground

bomber,

in the

place of the under-turret.

blister

flew with the

was born

1941

new equipment

to live

SOURCE:

equipment

is

for the

War by

MICROELECTRONICS
During World War

II,

first

it

had

or

dome on

heavy

the synthetic plastic material perspex,

to short radio

thus protected from the rush of the

under the name of

Science at

fitted into a blister

was made of

which has the valuable property of being transparent

rotating scanning

shimmering confusion,

on the ground.

was now made and

The

ground could be distinguished from

just a

waves, as well as visible

air.

light.

The

The bomber, Halifax V 9977,

time on 27 March 1942, and radar (magic eye) target- finding

H 2 S.

Crowther and

R Whiddington

(Thick Film Circuits)

the Centralab Division of

(London:

HMSO)

p 63 (1947)

Centralab (USA)

Globe-Union

Inc.,

developed a ceramic-based

circuit for

the National Bureau of Standards. This 'printed circuit' used screen-deposited resistor inks and silver

paste to support the miniature circuits in an

Army

proximity fuse (see figure 11.16).

The PC board

that

followed stimulated manufacturers to develop components with radial leads and tubular shapes.

SOURCE:
(23

1942

'Solid state devices

packaging and

materials' by

R L Goldberg

Electronic Design vol 24

November 1972) p 127

THEVELODYNE
The Velodyne

is

an electromechanical system

to an input voltage

shaft is a

F C Williams and A

by feedback methods.

In

in

which a speed of rotation

such a system the

measure of the time-integral of the input voltage.

total

is

Uttley

(UK)

held closely proportional

number of revolutions of

the output

A Concise

150

Description of Each Invention in Date Order

Figure 11.16. Proximity fuse

The Velodyne has been applied

analyser uses

it

to solve

simulators have been

to the solution

circuits

made

in 1945.

of differential equations, and the

made which obey

specific high-order differential equations

of solutions would have involved prohibitive

1942

SANATRON

Velodyne' by F

one semi-stable

The two

Williams and

IEE

Uttley Proc.

valves are arranged in the form of a multivibrator having one stable and

pulse and the semi-stable state

As

its

is

is

initiated

then maintained until the discharge of C2

is

circuit

and the

latter

by a negative trigger

completed when the

circuit

quiescent condition.

a time base generator the Sanatron leaves

with amplitudes up to 250

readily achieved.
circuit in

p 1256 (1946)

III A,

F C Williams and N F Moody (UK)

having the duration of the linear discharge of a capacitor C2. Operation

reverts to

vol 93, pt

former corresponding with the quiescent condition of the

state, the

and have been very

effort.

Linear Time Base Circuit

THE SANATRON.

differential

equipment where computation

useful, particularly in the design of complicated automatic flight-control

SOURCE: The

TRE

simultaneous differential equations of importance in propagation theory; many

The upper

available from a
limit of rate

little

to

be desired, a sweep waveform being available,

300-V supply

and rates from

line

may be extended even

which the control of the Miller integrator

is

V/s to 5 x 10 7 V/s are

further by using a modification of the

applied to the screen instead of to the suppressor

grid.

SOURCE: 'Ranging circuits, linear time-base

N F Moody (Abstract of supporting paper on
SEE ALSO:
1942

'Linear time-base generators and associated circuits'

PHANTRASTRON

The Phantrastron

is

properties of the Sanatron in a single valve.

it

a circuit
Its

Williams and

1EE p 320

J.

IEE

vol 93, Part IIIA, (1946)

F C Williams and N F Moody (UK)

Linear Time Base Circuit

THE PHANTRASTRON:
the Sanatron,

generators and associated circuits' by

circuit techniques) J.

which combines the Miller integrator and trigger

main use

lies in

delayed pulse generation and,

delivers a rectangular pulse during the linear sweep.

Due

to

its

simplicity

it

is

like

widely

used where a somewhat lower order of accuracy and linearity than that provided by the Sanatron

is

acceptable.

SOURCE:
IEE

'Linear time-base generators and associated circuits' by

vol 93, part IIIA, p

193 (1946)

Williams and

N F Moody

J.

A Concise
1942

Description of Each Invention in Date Order

LOR AN

151

MIT (USA)

LORAN

(Long Range Air Navigation), which marks the world's

into operation at four stations

GEE

successor to the

and sea lanes

air

system developed

in Britain

and given

USA

to the

1940 can,

in

MIT, picks up radio

developed

at

position

indicated.

is

SOURCE:

on

signals as pairs of 'pips'

when

a screen;

at

a natural

long range,

LORAN

The

give an aircraft pilot or ship's captain his position to within a few hundred yards.

goes

like streets,

LORAN,

between the Chesapeake Capes and Nova Scotia.

receiver,

the pips intersect, the

The Timetable of Technology (London: Michael Joseph, Marshall Editions) p 124 (November

1982)

1943

RELIABILITY

major technical breakthrough occurred

Abraham Wald, devised

problems.

Initial

his

now

application of the theory in analysing

an ideal tool for use

reliability

in the spring of 1943,

and economy

when

minimum

combat experience demonstrated

when

our history

To give

production were of the essence.

the

new

speed, precision,

thorough

tool a

number of

strategic

manufacturing firms for use

early success of the plan and the subsequent widespread

demands

for

in

trial,

was

the military released a multiple sampling plan based on Wald's sequential theory. This plan

released to a limited

US war
value in

its

of information, swiftly and economically. This seemed

in quality control at this crucial period in

in

the noted mathematical statistician,

celebrated basic theory of sequential analysis for analysing

obtaining reliable conclusions from a

like

A Wald (USA)

(Sequential analysis)

acceptance sampling.

first

The

use resulted in removal of

its

its

'restricted' classification in 1945.

SOURCE:
Proc.

1943

'The

reliability

and quality control

field

from

its

inception to the present' by

Ryerson

IRE p 1326 (May 1962)

TRAVELLING WAVE TUBE

R Kompfner, A

W Haeff and J R

Pierce (USA)
It

remains, however, for

Kompfner

to

take the decisive step of reasoned approach and effective

experiment which gave us the travelling-wave tube and led to a host of related devices.

Kompfner reasoned

that

an electromagnetic wave on a slow-wave structure, and especially a helix,

should interact powerfully with a

nearly the same.

He

built a tube

direction as the electrons.

beam of

electrons if the

wave

velocity and the electron velocity

and found a gain of around 10 dB for a wave travelling

mathematical analysis agreed with

The travelling-wave tube turned out

to

this

be a device which amplifies over unprecedently broad bands,

tube with a helix circuit can amplify over a frequency range of more than an octave.

SOURCE:

'History of the

SEE ALSO:

limited to

Mc

500-1000

is

were

same

performance.

and which can function over an astonishingly wide range of frequencies and powers.

bandwidth

in the

travelling-wave

More

typically,

by input and output couplers.

microwave tube

by

art'

'The travelling wave valve' by

Pierce Proc.

R Kompfner

IRE p 980 (May 1962)

Wireless World vol 52, p 369

(November

1946)

1943

PRINTED WIRING

This invention relates to the manufacture of electric circuits

switchboard

and

circuit

components such

(UK)

such, for instance, as that of a telephone

as inductances, resistances, magnetic cores

producing them by the methods of the printing

windings; and consists

in

methods

by which the conductor of the

that is to say,

Eisler

circuit is

art

brought into existence in

or a development of that form upon a plane or other surface, instead of being

conductor and afterwards given

its

of a development of

it

their existing

first

its final

produced as

form,

a linear

three-dimensional form.

typical instance of the invention comprises the steps of

circuit, or

and

or methods akin to them,

if it is

making a drawing of the

electric or

magnetic

of three dimensions: preparing from that drawing, by any of

A Concise

52

Description of Each Invention

known methods

the well

printing surface;

SOURCE: UK
SEE ALSO:
1943

of the printing

and from

that imprint

No 639

Patent

in

Date Order

a printing surface;

art,

aid of the

178 (2 February 1943)

Technology of Printed Circuits by P Eisler (London: Heywood) (1959)

ULTRASONIC RADAR NAVIGATION TRAINING

DEVICE
One

making an imprint by the

producing the conductor.

W A Dummer and A W Smart

(UK)

H2S

of the most important of the radar navigation devices designed during the war was

RAF Bomber Command

system was used by

the accurate and heavy

To use

'Oboe'.

The H2S

bombing of Berlin and

this device, training

equipped with

flying training aircraft

H2 S

air.

water

in

trained either by

or by using a synthetic training device on the ground.

1943, was the

first

new

to use the

waves propagated through water

in place

principle of a

of electromagnetic

The long delay time of transmission of ultrasonic waves through

a liquid

H 2 S. The

velocity

to represent the radar delay times

of ultrasonic waves

This

possible

other targets beyond the effective range of 'Gee' and

training device, originated in February

waves propagated through

Germany and made

was necessary and navigator/operators could be

'miniature' radar system using ultrasonic

was used

for 'blind' navigation over

1.5

is

normally encountered

x 10 5 cm/s and as

that

of

in the operation

of electro-magnetic waves in

x 10'"

air is 3

cm/s the scale on which the trainer operated was

1.5

x 10 5

m
x 10 m

th

200000

of the radar scale. This meant that one 'ultrasonic' mile = 0.315
could be simulated
If

in a physical distance not

an X-cut quartz crystal

pulsed

is

at its

and a radar range of

in,

fifty

miles

exceeding 15 inches approximately.

resonant frequency under water and a reflecting object

placed in the path of the transmitted wave, an echo will be re-radiated from the object in the same

up on the

as in radar and picked

The

crystal

beam was

crystal.

projected on to a glass relief

map

so that the projection covered a range of 0.30

miles (0.10 in approximately), the crystal being used for both transmission and reception.

was

back 1.25

set

aircraft flying at

the area in

in.

from the axis of rotation

20000

On

ft.

the glass

Germany over which

to simulate

map was reproduced

training

was

to

sea areas were

crystal

left as

was then

Towns were

plain glass.

built

(to a scale

of 1:200 000) a simulation of

map was

sand-blasted or etched

up of granules of Carborundum glued

to the input stage

to the glass

and the

bottom of a tank of water. The pulsed

at the

60 rpm. synchronously with the

rotated at

crystal

be effected. The amount of reflection of the radiated

The map was placed

from the map were fed from the crystal

The

'ground returns' and picture as seen from an

energy was proportional to the 'roughness' of the glass surface, and the
to represent land masses.

is

way

radial time base,

of the IF amplifier

and the signals received

in the

H2 S

receiver and

thence to the PPI.

The

display produced

was an excellent simulation of

the actual

H2 S

picture seen in the air

when

flying

over Germany.

SOURCE:

'H 2 S trainer

use of

ultrasonic reflections from

submerged

relief

maps' by

WA

Dummer

Wireless World p 65 (February 1947)

SEE ALSO: 'Aids to training

Dummer Proc. 1EE vol 96, pt.
1943

COMPUTERS

(ENIAC)

the design of radar synthetic training devices for the

Ill,

RAF' by

No 40, p 101 (March 1949)

Moore School (USA)

(Electronic Numerator,

Integrator and Computer)

The ENIAC was developed and

of Pennsylvania, beginning
of

firing

and

in

built at the

Moore School of

1942 and completed

ballistic tables for the

in

1946.

Electrical Engineering of the University

Its

principal object

Aberdeen Proving Ground of the

was

the computation

US Army Ordnance

Corps. This

A Concise

Description of Each Invention

Date Order

in

153

computation required the integration of a simple system of ordinary differential equations involving
arbitrary functions.

This equipment occupied a space 30 x 50 feet and contained 18 000 vacuum tubes. The computing

The input-output system

elements consisted largely of decade rings, flip-flops and pentode gates.

consisted of modified

SOURCE:

IBM

card readers and punches.

'The evolution of computing machines and systems' by Serrell, Astrahan, Patterson and

Pyrne Proc. IRE p 1044 (May 1962)

SEE ALSO:

H H

'The Computer from Pascal to von Neumann' by

Goldstine (Princeton, NJ: Princeton

University Press) p 117 (1972)

1943

MAGNETIC AMPLIFIER (TRANSDUCTOR)

ASEA

(Sweden)

ASEA who

Pioneer work on transductors was carried out by the Swedish firm of

devised

many

techniques involving combinations of saturated reactors and metal rectifiers for supplying controllable
d.c.

power from

Much

systems.

and six-phase networks

single-, three-

of

pioneer work

this

development took place

for various small

in

power

Germany during

of the conventional mercury arc

1939-45 war on transductors

the

mainly

applications,

in place

described in the classic work by

is

'The Magnetic Amplifier' by

SEE ALSO:

'The Transductor' by

'Some fundamentals of

AG

A U Lamm

Milnes

1EE

J.

As

far as building a British

A U Lamm (AIEE

by

vol 96, part

establishment.

methods are

Much

initial

by other countries

is

after the war.

need to be, a true stored-program computer, but

vital

contribution of

COLOSSUS
SOURCE:

machine

is

COLOSSUS
shown

came

it

to the allied

government's Bletchley Park

subject to the Official Secrets Act because the

still

December 1943 and containing about 1500 thermionic

and

Trans.) vol 66 (1947)

enthusiasm came largely from a

at the

As

war

techniques were

far as electronic digital

concerned, the most interesting Bletchley cryptanalysis machine was the

in

rocket

M Newman, A Turing, T H Flowers

and A W M Coombs (UK)

code-breaking activity

of the Bletchley work

(or were) in use

The V2

alternator.

p 89 (1949)

I,

stored-program computer, the

in

VA

(Stockholm: Essalte Aktiebolag) (1943)

COLOSSUS CRYPTANALYSIS MACHINE

group of people who had been involved

150

Reynere (Rockcliff Pub. Corp.) p 17 (1950)

a theory of a transductor'

'Magnetic amplifier' by

1943

c/s,

rectifier

Considerable

as true magnetic amplifiers

association with servo systems.

in

incorporated a transductor for controlling the frequency of a 500

SOURCE:

Uno Lamm.

COLOSSUS,

COLOSSUS

valves.

was

quite close to being one.

effort has

operational

first

not,

and had no

The extraordinary

been told elsewhere.

view of the

in figure 11.17.

'The early days of British computers

1'

by S

Lavington Electronics

& Power

p 827

(November/December 1978)

SEE ALSO:

'The Colossus' by

90 (1976). Reprinted
The Ultra Secret by F

in

Randell University of Newcastle Computer Science Technical Report

condensed form

in

Scientist vol 73,

W Winterbotham (Wiedenfelt and

'Colossus: godfather of the computer' by

1944

New

Randell

Nicholson) (1974)

New

Scientist vol 73, p

HF

RELIABILITY SAMPLING: INSPECTION TABLES

After languishing in libraries for several years, the work of

and the work of Shewhart on control charts

the nationwide training

of the

finally

programmes sponsored by

pp 346-8 (1977)

346 (10 February 1977)

Dodge and

Dodge and Romig

was brought

to light

H G Romig

in

(USA)

acceptance sampling

during World

War

the Office of Production Research and

II

through

Development

War Production Board.

Although the underlying concepts were developed by

preceding decades, the genius of Dodge,

scientific investigators

Romig and Shewhart

and

statisticians in the

lay in their recognition of basic principles

54

A Concise

Figure 11.17.

Description of Each Invention in Date Order

view of the

COLOSSUS

machine (The Science Museum/ Science

as an aid to solving practical problems,

and

their ability to recognize

&

Society Picture Library).

and formulate a systematic

approach.

SOURCE:

'Treating real data with respect' by J

SEE ALSO: Sampling

Wiley

1945

&

Henry Quality Progress p 18 (March 1976)

Inspection Tables 2nd edn by

H F Dodge

and

H G Romig (New

York: John

Sons) (1944)

COMPUTERS

von Neumann (USA)

(Theory)

Basic design of the electronic computer project of the Institute of Advanced Study incorporating ideas
underlying essentially

all

modern machines.

REFERENCE: 'Memorandum

on the program of the High Speed Computer' by von Neumann

(8

November 1945)

SEE ALSO:

'The Computer from Pascal to von Neumann' by

H H

Goldstine (Princeton, NJ: Princeton

University Press) p 255 (1972)

1945

DECCA

W O'Brien (UK) and

Navigation system

Schwartz

(USA)

DECCA,
Allies'

internationally regarded as the best navigation system, under goes crucial tests during the

D-Day

landings on the

Normandy

Schwartz, in London and Hollywood,

in three

dimensions

radio signals, emitted

SOURCE: The
1982)

beaches.

DECCA

latitude, longitude

Developed by William O'Brien and Harvey

indicates

and altitude

and

on cockpit
is

dials the position of an aircraft

accurate to within a few yards.

from two transmitters, collide and are picked up

in

Waves of

phase.

Timetable of Technology (London: Michael Joseph, Marshall Editions) p 130 (November

A
1945

Concise Description of Each Invention

Date Order

155

MIT (USA)

COMPUTERS

(Whirlwind)

An

to build a real-time aircraft simulator

assignment

in

was given

Laboratory of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology,

Laboratory of MIT. Beginning

in

1945 to the Digital Computer

time a part of the Servomechanisms

at that

1947, the major part of the effort was devoted to the design and

in

known

construction of the electronic digital computer

as 'Whirlwind'.

The

project

was sponsored by

Air Force. The machine was put

the Office of Naval Research and the United States

in operation in

March 1951.
'Whirlwind

I'

was

vacuum

computer

a parallel, synchronous, fixed-point

digits plus sign (16 binary digits in all).

Physically,

some

tubes (mostly single pentodes) and

arithmetic 'element'

number

length of 15 binary

machine containing some 5000

000 semiconductor diodes.

1 1

and input-output control;

pulses or master clock supplying

utilising a

a large

consisted of an

It

a control element including central control, storage

including three registers,

control, arithmetic control

was

it

program counter

megapulses per second

a source of synchronising

element and

to the arithmetic

per second to the other circuits; an internal storage element or

megapulse

memory, terminal equipment; and

extensive test and marginal checking equipment.

SOURCE: 'The evolution of computing

IREp 1047 (May 1962)

machines and systems'

Serrell, Astrahan, Patterson

and Pyne

Proc.

SEE ALSO: The Computer from

Pascal to von

Neumann by H H

Goldstine (Princeton, NJ: Princeton

University Press) p 212 (1972)

1945

COMMUNICATION

(Satellite)

Early interest in space

was concentrated upon

A C

the propulsion aspect, and the forthcoming marriage of

space and electronics had to await the publication of

in

1945.

The use of

transmission from

a satellite S
to S,

the 28-day orbit of the

at

A C

Clarke's paper on communications satellites

above the radio horizons of both

and from S

paper further pointed out that

Clarke (UK)

to B, thus bridging the

and

permitted microwave

oceans by microwave

moon, there was an

orbit taking

one day, so

Clarke's

link.

SPUTNIK

an orbital altitude intermediate between a 90-minute

and

that an easterly-launched satellite

above the Equator would give the radio engineer an imaginary mast 22 300 miles high on which

to

place his aerials.

SOURCE:

'Electronics in space' by

Hilton The Radio

and Electronic Engineer

No

vol 45,

10,

p 623 (October 1975)

SEE ALSO:
1945-

'Extra terrestial relays' by

AC

Clarke Wireless World vol 51,

POTTED CIRCUITS

No

10, p

305 (October 1945)

(UK) and (USA)

1950

wax or bitumen compounds was

many

The

potting of electrical apparatus in

it is

only recently that plastics suitable for this purpose have become available, in the form of cold-

polymerizing casting resins. There

is

no doubt

that the small sub-unit is

carried out for

now

years, but

as essential part of

modern

electronic equipment, and potting techniques lend themselves to this construction provided that
are available to dissipate the heat developed.

The

resins are relatively expensive,

economically are not attractive for casting exceeding a few inches

The

in

means

and mechanically and

major dimensions.

casting resins are converted into rigid plastics by the addition of a catalyst and accelerator,

without the application of the considerable pressures and temperatures normally associated with the
polymerisation of thermosetting resins.

SOURCE: 'New

constructional

techniques'

by

A Dummer

and

D L

Johnston Electronic

Engineering p 456 (November 1953)

SEE ALSO: 'How

plastics aid miniaturisation of electrical assemblies'

by

Bibbero and

E B

Chester

Mach. Des. p 127 (October 1951)

'Potted Circuits

(1951)

new development

in miniaturisation

of equipment' Wireless World vol 57, p 493

A Concise

56

'Cast resin

1946

Description of Each Invention in Date Order

embedments of

and components'

circuit sub-units

Elect.

ACE (AUTOMATIC COMPUTING ENGINE)

Turing joined the new mathematics division

computers

On

need or inclination to copy anyone else's design.

NPL

probably the

including a cost estimate of

200.

computer housed

result in a

Pilot

about designing a

19 February 1946, he presented to the Executive

complete design for an electronic stored-program computer,

first

It is

likely that Sir Charles

(ACE)

Turing's proposal for an Automatic Computing Engine

The

set

Turing had written an important theoretical paper on

1936 and, although familiar through personal contact with von Neumann, he had no

in

Committee of

would

M Turing (UK)

NPL, where he immediately

at

universal computer with characteristic energy.

Mnfg. vol 48, p 103 (1951)

ACE

at

NPL

NPL

Darwin, the

in

Director, thought of

terms of a single national effort that

and serving the needs of the whole country.

had a complicated 32-bit instruction format including provision for specifying one of

32 'sources', one of 32 'destinations' and the source of the next instruction. Instructions also specified
the duration of a transfer, so that prolonging a transfer over several cycles could give the effect

Many

of shifting or multiplying operands by small integers.

were straightforward

operations in the instruction repertoire

remaining instructions providing about a dozen conventional

transfers, with the

arithmetic or logical functions, including unsigned multiplication. Signed multiplication took just over

2 ms, being performed partly by subroutine. Other orders could be obeyed

/xs in the

The main

I/us digit period.

was extended

to

store consisted initially of 128

Pilot
It

SOURCE:

ACE
first

words

in

mercury delay

was sensible

it

to

in

make

1954.

program

in

May

with a

lines.

This

Since the

NPL

medium

cards the

contained 800 thermionic valves, the processor logic involving type

ran a

(1024

/is

serial,

for

ACE.

both input to and output from the Pilot

triodes.

bit

352 words by the end of 1951, and a 4k drum was added

already had a large Hollerith punched card calculator,

The

32

64

in as little as

worst case), depending on the position of the next instruction. Arithmetic was

The computer

1950.

'The early days of British computers

1'

by S

ECC

81 double

illustrated in figure 11.18.

is

Lavington Electronics

& Power

p 828

(November/December 1978)
'The early days of British computers

SEE ALSO:

NPL

Sci.

Report Com.

COMPUTERS (CRT

REFERENCE:
1EE

by S

Lavington Electronics

Turing Report E882, Executive Committee,

& Power

p 40 (January 1979)

B E

Carpenter and

pt.

Computing

(Reprinted in April 1972 as

Doran Computer J vol 20, pp 269-79 (1977)

.

F C Williams (UK)

Storage)

CRT

as a

memory

'A storage system for use with binary

vol 96,

INTPL

57.)

Storage of pulses on the face of a

Proc.

2'

'Proposals for the development in the Mathematics Division of an Automatic

Engine (ACE)' by

'The other Turing machine' by

1946

2,

No

device.
digital

computers' by F

Williams and

Kilburn

81, p 183 (1949)

SEE ALSO: The Computer from

Pascal

to

von Neumann by

H H

Goldstine (Princeton, NJ: Princeton

University Press) p 248 (1972)

1947

DTN

HIGH QUALITY AMPLIFIER CIRCUIT

The requirements of such an

amplifier

(1) Negligible non-linear distortion

up

may be
to the

Williamson (UK)

listed as:

maximum

rated output. (The term 'non-linear distortion"

includes the production of undesired harmonic frequencies and the intermodulation of

frequencies of the sound wave.)

within close limits up to

maximum

output

at all

frequencies within the audible range.

(2) (a) Linear frequency response within the audible frequency

power handling capacity

spectrum.

component

This requires that the dynamic output-input characteristic be linear

for neglible non-linear distortion at

spectrum of 10-20000

c/s.

(b)

Constant

any frequency within the audible frequency

A Concise

Figure 11.18.

(3)

ACE

stored

programme computer (The Science Museum/ Science

the sound, the

altered

same

is

complex steady-state sound does not appear

157

Society Picture Library).

to affect the audible quality

of

may be profoundly

by disturbance of the phase relationship between component frequencies.

Good

transient response.

effective gain

In addition to

low phase and frequency

due

to current

and voltage cut-off

in

Low

output resistance. This requirement

transient response

is

any stages, the utmost care

realistic

which

to a

in the

in

design of iron-cored

minimum.

concerned with the attainment of good frequency and

from the loudspeaker system by ensuring

Adequate power reserve. The

distortion, other factors

wave-forms are the elimination of changes

components, and the reduction of the number of such components

(6)

&

Date Order

not true of sounds of a transient nature, the quality of which

are essential for the accurate reproduction of transient

(5)

in

Although the phase relationship between the

Neglible phase-shift within the audible range.

component frequencies of

(4)

Description of Each Invention

that

it

has adequate electrical damping.

reproduction of orchestral music in an average room requires

peak power capabilities of the order of 15-20 watts when the electro-acoustic transducer

is

a baffle-

loaded moving-coil loudspeaker system of normal efficiency.

SOURCE:

'Design for a high-quality amplifier' part

by

D T N

Williamson Wireless World p 118

(April 1947)

'Design for a high-quality amplifier' part 2 by

1947

CHIRP RADAR TECHNIQUES

Williamson Wireless World p 161 (April 1947)

Bell Laboratories

The Chirp or pulse-compression technique

technique, in which long,

DTN

for radar originated at Bell

(USA)

Laboratories in 1947.

This

modulated pulses are transmitted and then compressed upon reception,

permitted pulsed radar systems to have long range and high resolution while avoiding problems
associated with generating and transmitting short pulses with high peak powers

SOURCE:

Mission Communications

the Story of Bell Laboratories by

Bell Laboratories Inc.) p 179 (1975)

C Mabon

(Murray

Hill,

NJ:

A Concise

158

947

ECME

Description of Each Invention in Date Order

(Electronic Circuit

The process of John

approach

Making Equipment)

first

Sargrove (UK)

Sargrove for the automatic assembly of electronic apparatus was the

and five-tube radio receivers.

grit to

roughen both sides of the plates simultaneously. The plates were then triple-sprayed

with zinc to form the conducting surface.

The spraying machine consisted of

four to a side to allow simultaneous spraying of both sides of the plate once
to

form

modern

operation of Sargrove's machine was to prepare the |-in molded-plastic plates by blasting with

an abrasive

on the

first

automatic operation in electronic manufacturing. In 1947 he built and operated a machine

to

for the automatic production of two-

The

resistance, capacitance

plate.

typical plate

eight nozzles arranged

was positioned. Materials

and conductors were sprayed through stencils onto

shown

is

Figure 11.19.

SOURCE:

it

their proper positions

in figure 11.19.

typical sprayed plate (Sargrove machine).

Electronic Equipment Design

and Construction by

A Dummer, C

L K

Brunetti and

Lee (New York: McGraw-Hill) pp 192-3 (1961)

SEE ALSO: 'New methods

of radio production'

by

Sargrove

J.

Brit.

IRE

vol

p 2

7(1),

(January /February 1947)

'Automatic receiver production' Wireless World (April 1947)

1947

COMPUTERS (EDVAC)
The

University of Pennsylvania (USA)

Electronic Discrete Variable Automatic Computer, or

(University of Pennsylvania) between 1947 and

Aberdeen Proving Ground.

master clock operating

at

semiconductor diodes and

SOURCE:

It

is

a serial, synchronous

mega-pulse per second.

utilizes the binary

EDVAC, was

1950 for the

It

Ballistic

machine

contains

in

built at the

which

all

at

the

pulses are timed by a

some 5900 vacuum

number system with

Moore School

Research Laboratory

tubes, about

word length of 44 binary

1200

digits.

'The evolution of computing machines and systems' by Serrell, Astrahan, Patterson and

Pyne Proc. IRE p 1046 (May 1962)

SEE ALSO: The Computer from

University Press) p 187 (1972)

Pascal

to

von Neumann by

H H

Goldstine (Princeton, NJ: Princeton

A Concise
1947

COMPUTERS

(UNIVAC)

Description of Each Invention in Date Order

P Eckert and

(Universal Automatic

159

Mauchly (USA)

Computer)
The development of

year.

The

who founded

UMVAC

first

the spring of 1951.

was

USA

now

became

later

Remington Rand

the

December of

in

Bureau of the Census and was put

(The Eckert-Mauchly Corporation

is

1947 by Presper

started about

Computer Corporation

the Eckert-Mauchly

built for the

forming the organisation which

UNIVAC was

Automatic Computer, or

the Universal

Eckert and John Mauchly

a subsidiary of

UNIVAC

that

in operation in

Remington Rand,

Division of the Sperry Rand

Corporation).

UNIVAC

was

a direct

descendent of the

ENIAC

Eckert and Mauchly had both had an important part

synchronous machine operating

at a rate

EDVAC

and of the

in the

of 2.25 megapulses per second.

and several times as many semiconductor diodes

development of which

University of Pennsylvania.

at the

and clamp

in logic

It

It

was

a serial,

contained some 5000 tubes

circuits.

One hundred mercury

delay lines provided 1000 twelve-decimal-digit words of internal storage. Twelve additional delay lines

were used as input-output

Aside from console switches and an

registers.

small amounts of information, the input-output

UNIVAC

SOURCE:
Proc.

machines were

electric typewriter providing

medium was metal-base magnetic

tape.

Forty eight

built.

'The evolution of computing machines and systems' Serrell, Astrahan, Patterson and Pyne

IRE pp 1048/9 (May 1962)

SEE ALSO: The Computer from

Pascal

von Neumann by

to

H H

Goldstine (Princeton, NJ: Princeton

University Press) p 246 (1972)

1947

MOLECULAR BEAM EPITAXY

J Sosnowski, J Starkiewicz and

Simpson (UK)
Molecular beam epitaxy

(MBE)

is

term used

denote

to

the

epitaxial

growth of compound

semiconductor films by a process involving the reaction of one or more thermal molecular beams
with a crystalline surface under high
offers

much improved

may be

differences

using

MBE,

it

is

A^Gai-jjAs with

vacuum

MBE

conditions.

is

related to

vacuum

evaporation, but

control over the incident atomic or molecular fluxes so that sticking coefficient

beam

taken into account, and allows rapid changing of

possible to produce 'superlattice' structures consisting of

layer thickness as

low

as

lOA. Since

growing film with separate beams, the doping

profile

speeds.

many

For example,

layers of

electrically active impurities are

normal

to the surface

may be

GaAs and

added

to the

varied and controlled

with a special resolution difficult to achieve by more conventional, faster growth techniques.

SOURCE:

'Molecular

beam

epitaxy' by

A Y Cho

and

Arthur

J.

R. Prog, in Solid State

Chemistry

vol 16, part 3, p 157 (1975)

SEE ALSO:

'Lead sulphide photoconductive

cells'

by

L Sosnowski,

Starkiewicz and

Simpson

Nature vol 159, p 818 (14 June 1947)

'The structure and growth of Pbs deposits on rocksalt substrates' by

Elleman and

H Wilman

Proc.

Phys. Soc. (London) vol 61, p 164 (1948)

1948

COMPUTERS

(SEAC)

National Bureau of Standards (USA)

The Standards Electronics Automatic Computer, SEAC, was

built

by the

Laboratory of the National Bureau Standards. The design began

put in operation in

May

1950.

It

was

built

Department of the Air Force, principally

solving large logistics

SOURCE:

in

staff

of the Electronic Computer

June 1948 and the machine was

under the sponsorship of the Office of the Air Controller.

to carry out

mathematical investigations of techniques for

programming problems.

'The evolution of computing machines and systems' by Serrell, Astrahan, Patterson and

Pyne Proc. IRE p 1046 (May 1962)

SEE ALSO:

The Computer from Pascal

University Press) p 315 (1972)

to

von Neumann by

H H

Goldstine (Princeton, NJ: Princeton

A Concise

160

1948

Description of Each Invention in Date Order

TRANSISTOR

Bardeen, Brattain and Shockley

(USA)
Immediately

On

hostilities

ceased in 1945 Shockley organised a group for research on the physics of solids.

testing out experimentally Shockley's ideas,

was discovered

it

that the projected amplifier did not

function as Shockley had predicted; something prevented the electric field from penetrating into the
interior of the semi-conductor.

John Bardeen, a theoretical physicist, formulated a theory concerning the

nature of the surface of a semi-conductor which accounted for this lack of penetration of

field,

led to other predictions concerning the electrical properties of semi-conductor surfaces.

were carried out

to test the predictions of the theory.

Gibney observed

that

an electrolyte

an electric

in contact

field

would penetrate

with the surface.

one of

In

these, Walter

into the interior if the field

Bardeen proposed using an electrolyte

and also

Experiments

Brattain and

R B

was applied through

in a

of Shockley's amplifier in which a suitably prepared small block of silicon was used.

modified form

He

believed that

current flowing to a diode contact to the silicon block could be controlled by a voltage applied to an
electrolyte surrounding the contact. In the earlier experiments testing Shockley's ideas, thin films with
inferior electrical characteristics

had been employed. Brattain

Bardeen's suggested arrangement,

tried

and found the amplification as Bardeen had predicted, but the operation was limited
frequencies because of the electrolyte. Similar experiments involving

was opposite

the sign of the effect

in

to that predicted. Brattain

which a rectifying metal contact replaced the

germanium were

very low

and Bardeen then conducted experiments

and discovered

electrolyte

to

successful, but

that voltage applied to this

contact could be used to control, to a small extent, the current flowing to the diode contact.
again, however, the sign of the effect
results

on

was opposite

first

Here

Analysis of these unexpected

by the two scientists led them to the invention of the point contact

completely different principle from the one

to the predicted one.

transistor,

which operates

Current flowing to one contact

proposed.

controlled by current flowing from a second contact, rather than by an externally applied electric

is

field.

Brattain and Bardeen used extremely simple equipment, the most expensive piece of apparatus being

an oscilloscope.

The

Bell Telephone Laboratories

work has proceeded

rapidly.

The

announced the invention

first

in

June 1948, and since then, development

point-contact transistor had several limitations:

could not control high amounts of power and

it

it

was

noisy,

it

had a limited applicability. Shockley had meanwhile

conceived the idea of the junction transistor which was free of many of these defects and most of the
transistors

now made

SOURCE: The

are of the junction type.

Sources of Invention by

Jewkes,

Sawers and R Stillerman (London: MacMillan

&

Co.) p 400 (1958)

SEE ALSO:

'The

First

Five Years of the Transistor' by

Kelly Bell Telephone Magazine

(Summer

1953)

1948

HOLOGRAPHY

D Gabor (UK)

With holography, one records not the optically formed image of an object but the object wave
This wave
of

this

recorded (usually on photo graphic film)

is

in

itself.

such a way that a subsequent illumination

record called a 'hologram' reconstructs the original object wave.

reconstructed wavefront then yields a view of the object which

is

visual observation of this

practically indiscernible

from the

original, including three dimensional parallax effects.

SOURCE:
Reinhold

The Encyclopaedia of Physics (2nd edn) editor R

&

Litton Educational Pub. Inc.) p

SEE ALSO:

Optical Holography by

Besancon (New York: Van Nostrand-

426 (1974)

J Collier,

C B

Burzkhardt and L

Lin

(New

York: Academic

Press) (1971)

1948

EDS AC

(Electronic Delay Storage Automatic

MV

Wilkes (UK)

Calculator)

The

EDSAC

working

(electronic delay storage automatic calculator)

in the scale

is a serial

electronic calculating

machine

of two and using ultrasonic tanks for storage. The main store consists of 32 tanks.

A Concise Description of Each

each of which

about 5

is

It is

all.

number with 35 binary

161

long and holds 32 numbers of 17 binary digits, one being a sign

ft

gives 1024 storage locations in

accommodate

Invention in Date Order

digit.

This

possible to run two adjacent storage locations together so as to

digits (including a sign digit); thus at

any time the store may

number only

Short tanks which can hold one

contain a mixture of long and short numbers.

are used

for accumulator and multiplier registers in the arithmetical united, and for control purposes in various
parts of the machine.

single address code

SOURCE: The
SEE ALSO:
London A,
1948

is

EDSAC,

used in the

orders being of the

Origins of Digital Computers edited by

same length

Randell (Berlin: Springer) p 389 (1973)

MV

'The design of a practical high-speed computing machine' by

vol 195, p

TRANSISTORS

as short numbers.

Wilkes, Proc. R. Soc.

274 (1948)

GK

(Single Crystal Fabrication

Teal

&

(USA)

Little

Germanium)
1948

In the latter part of

G K

Teal and

Little

They

structural perfection.

BTL

began experiments

They succeeded

single crystals, selecting the pulling technique.

germanium of high

of

also

to

grow germanium

growing large single crystals of

in

improved the impurity of the material by repeated

recrystallization methods.

At

BTL Teal,

working with

M Sparks, devised a unique method for preparing p-n junctions by modifying

his crystal-pulling apparatus to allow controlled addition of impurities

during crystal growth.

Using

ingots they prepared single crystals containing p-n junctions and soon afterwards n-p-n grown-junction
transistors

which had many of the properties predicted by Shockley.

SOURCE:

'Contributions of materials technology to semiconductor devices' by

R L

Petritz Proc.

ISE

p 1026 (May 1962)

'Growth of germanium single

crystals'

G K

by

Teal and

Little Phys.

vol 78, p

Rev.

647 (June

1950)

'Growth of silicon single crystals and of single crystal silicon p-n junctions' Phys. Rev. vol 87, p 190
(July 1952)

1948

COMMUNICATION

The term information Theory'

Historically

it

seems

C E Shannon (USA)

(Information Theory)

first

is

used

communication systems developed

with

in the current technical literature

to have been generally applied

1948 by Shannon.

to describe the specific

many

different senses.

mathematical model of

Shannon introduced

numerical measure, called by him and others entropy, of the randomness or uncertainty associated with

class of

messages and showed

facility

needed

that this quantity

main argument)

that this

SOURCE:

its

measures

in a real

sense the amount of communication

He

class.

measure of uncertainty agreed

showed

also

in certain aspects

intuitive notion of the 'information content of a message'.

words 'information content' as a synonym

work and

In this pioneering paper.

messages from the given

to transmit with accuracy

incidentally to his

common, vague

in

He

(quite

with the

accordingly used the

for the precisely defined notion of entropy.

As

a result, his

immediate extensions became known as information theory.

information Theory' by

B McMillan and D

SEE ALSO: The Mathematical Theory

IRE pp 1151/2 (May 1962)

Slepian Proc.

of Communication by

C E Shannon

and

W Weaver (Urbana,

IL:

University of Illinois Press) (1949)

1948

FILM SOUND RECORDING

RCA

(Magnetic Film)

and others (USA)

Although magnetic recording was one of the oldest methods known,

that this

form of recording came into

fine grain, low-noise,

inches in width.
quality

its

own. During

this

it

was not

magnetic oxide, and a process for uniformly coating

Use of

this

new

until

it

on

World War

II

Germany

a thin flexible base

period there was developed

in

tape in properly designed recorders and reproducers resulted in sound

which was higher than had previously been obtained from either the film or the disk method.

A Concise

162

Description of Each Invention

in

Date Order

Immediately after the war some of the German recorders were demonstrated

on

potential impact of magnetic recording

Early in 1948, oxide coated 35

It

was then possible

mm

became

film

to convert photographic

tried in motion-picture

to

combination units capable of recording

sound studios for original

The

'takes'.

practice in the industry,

SOURCE:

of magnetic recording

tests

more economical means of

original 'takes' to a composite photographic negative

little

in the

dynamic range,

high-quality and large

its

but also because magnetic film provided a more flexible and a

all

and the

recorders were converted as quickly as possible and

studios were immediately successful, not only because of

Since re-recording of

in this country,

was quickly recognised.

available for use in motion picture sound recording.

sound recorders

Many

either magnetic or photographic sound.

were

the motion-picture industry

was already

recording.

the accepted

inconvenience was caused by the change.

'Film recording and reproduction' by

Batsel and

L Dimmick

IRE

Proc.

p 749

(May

1962)

1949

MICRO WIRE

Ulitovsky (USSR)

The microwire process

for producing ultrafine wires

Ulitovsky of the Baykov Institute.

It

was invented

in

Russia

important to realise that up to then

is

it

in

1949 by Professor

was

quite difficult to

obtain fine insulated wire of reasonable quality and price.

Three processes have been developed as advances over the

1.

Wollaston process

2.

Taylor process

3.

Microwire process

In the
is

Wollaston process wires are compound-drawn; that

drawn through wire

silver coated wire so

is,

produced

is

drawing techniques:

a platinum rod

dies, being finally subjected to a reduction

encased

in a silver tube

of between 20 and 40 to one. The

etched to remove the silver, leaving the fine platinum core behind.

This procedure will give platinum wires

In the

traditional die

Taylor process a composite rod

down

to 0.5/x.

made

is

consisting of a glass tube with a metal core cast into

This composite rod

position by being aspirated, pipette-fashion, from a melting pot.

is

attenuated in

a muffle furnace, using the technique of pulling and stretching as practiced in the glass fibre industry.

The metal usually has

lower melting point than the softening point of the glass, thus allowing the

capillary to be filled with cast metal. Wires of lead, antimony, bismuth, gold, silver, tin, copper and

others were successfully produced

In the

Microwire process

this

down

to 0.25//.

technique was improved.

The

basic procedure consists of melting the

core metal by induction in a crucible formed by the walls of a glass tube extended upwards to a glass
feeding device above the melt.

immediately since there

SOURCE:

is

The

fact that the process takes place in a vertical line is

less distortion of the melt

an improvement

and interference with the capillary by gravity.

Materials for Conductive and Resistive Functions by

A Dummer (New

York: Hayden

Book Co.) p 62

SEE ALSO:

'Glass-coated microwire' by

'Microwire.

A new

engineering material' by

'The structure of copper microwire' by

(12),

1949

H Wagner

R G S

Wire and Wire Productions (June 1964)

Clarke Electronic Components (September 1963)

Nadgorny and B

Smirnov Fizika Tverdogo

Tele,

vol 2

pp 3048-9 (1960)

DIP-SOLDERING OF PRINTED CIRCUITS

When Danko

and Abramson of the

Army

S F Danko and Abramson (USA)

Signal Corps invented dip soldering in 1949, a

new

era of

automation came into being.

SOURCE:
1972)

'Packaging and materials' by

RL

Goldberg Electronic Design vol 24, p 126 (23 November

A Concise

SEE ALSO:

94

Date Order

US

Autosembly.

163

Lanzalotti Electronics

(July 1951)

by S F Danko Proc. IRE p 937 (May 1962)

'Printed circuits and microelectronics'

No 2756485

Patent

assigned to

US Army,

31 July 1956

COLD CATHODE STEPPING TUBE

The

in

'Autosembly of miniature military equipment' by S F Danko and S

vol 24(7), p

1949

Description of Each Invention

Remington Rand (USA)

published account of a multi-cathode stepping tube descibed a tube developed in America

first

The

by Remington Rand.

first

made

tubes to be widely used, however, were

For some ten years following

and by Ericsson Telephones.

in

England by

'Dekatron' became practically synonymous with the cold cathode stepping tube.

The

pulse 'Dekatron' was followed

kc/s.

were added

1955

in

in

1952 by the single-pulse tube operating up

of reversible scalers.

to simplify the construction

were introduced from which numerical indicators could be driven

SOURCE:

In

to

20

original double-

Routing guides

1962 auxiliary-anode tubes

directly.

M Neale The Radio and Electronic Engineer

'A survey of cold cathode discharge tubes' by

STC

introduction in 1949, the Ericsson

its

p 87 (February 1964)

SEE ALSO:

'Poly-cathode glow tube for counters and calculators' by

No

Electronics vol 22,

1949-

Lamb and

Brustman

p 92-6 (November 1949)

1,

ION IMPLANTATION IN SEMICONDUCTORS

S Ohl,

W Shockley (USA)

1950
Ion implantation

modifying the properties of solids by injecting (implanting) charged

a technique for

is

The

atoms (ions) into them.

ions alter the electrical, optical, chemical, magnetic and mechanical

properties of a solid by the interactions they have with the solid both as they slow
their presence after they

have come to

rest.

The implantation

idea

is

not a

new one

down and by

work

at Bell

Laboratories during the late 1940s and early 1950s by Russel S Ohl and William Shockley pioneered
the application of ion implantation to semiconductor device fabrication.

SOURCE: ion

implantation' by

C Brown

and

A U MacRae

Bell Laboratories Research p 389

(November 1975)

SEE ALSO:
No 2787564

'Forming semiconductive devices by ionic bombardment'

ion implantation
42,

1950s

No

6,

refers to a

24-hour basis

in

semiconductor device technology' by

system

Stephen The Radio Electronic Engineer vol

minimum

of visible

In the 1950s, Ivan Getting, an

satellite transmitters

on ground,

it

air,

sea or land, an accurate position reading on a

IEEE

is

to

and time

equipped with a receiver

to all users

that

can

satellite signals.

fellow and the originator of

life

was deployed such

would be possible

a position

by

that provides all users,

weather conditions. The system uses a satellite-based radio positioning technique

in all

intercept a certain

way

Patent

Ivan Getting (USA)

to provide three-dimensional position, velocity

the

US

Shockley:

p 265 (June 1972)

GLOBAL POSITIONING SYSTEM

GPS

(28 October 1954)

that a

know

minimum

GPS,

realized that

if

a system of

of four were always in sight to any receiver

the location of that receiver in three dimensions, similar to

determined using the

LORAN

system, a ground navigation system effective in a

limited geographical area.

The US Department of Defense approved funding

Navstar

GPS

GPS

satellites

at a cost

of

US$10

billion,

needed for the system

to

worldwide coverage by 1987, but due

and

in

for the

development and deployment of a complete

1978 launched the

to the

aviation

minimum

to provide

community.

the enthusiasm this system

New

18

complete

in satellite

1993.

until

The US Defense Department was doubtlessly unaware of

civil

of a series of a

Challenger disaster and the resulting delays

deployment, the system did not become fully operational

worldwide, far beyond the

first

The program was

be fully operational.

would arouse

applications emerge on an almost daily

A Concise

164

basis,

Description of Each Invention in Date Order

and military applications, which

now even

civil application

such a heavy investment

justified

base has

made

case to the

its

in

GPS, have

US DoD,

and

is

challenging the exclusive control of military authorities over the system.

The GPS market

US$10

mid-1970s

in the

been pushed to the sideline. The broad

billion

expected to grow by 45 percent

is

this year,

by the year 2000, with the military share being

SOURCE: 'GPS

shadow of

out of the

and

GPS

business

is

estimated to reach

less than 10 percent.

by

the Defense Department'

R K

Arora The Institute (IEE

Inc.)

p 3 (August 1996)

1950

FLOPPY DISCS
Floppy

Y Nakamats

discs, universally

used on microcomputers, were invented

in

1950

at the

Tokyo by Doctor Yoshire Nakamats, an inventor who boasts of having 2360

He granted

clubs and loudspeakers.

SOURCE: The Book

(UK: Queen Anne

the sales licence for the disc to

(Japan)
Imperial University in

patents which include golf

IBM.

of Inventions and Discoveries Associate Editor Valerie-Anne Giscard d'Estaing

Press,

Macdonald

&

Co.) p 124 (1990)

NOTE ON DEVELOPMENTS
Schugzat/IBM (USA)

1971

8 inch Floppy Disc

1978

5.25 inch Floppy Disc

Apple Computer, Radio Shack

Tandy (USA)
1984

3.5 inch

SOURCE:
1950

Sony (Japan)

Floppy Disc
Private

communication from E Davies, London.

COMPUTER GRAPHICS
The

art

Burnett (USA)

of computer graphics can be traced back to the graphics made for wallpaper by Burnett

These graphics were based on Lissajous

California from 1937 onwards.

Laposky who,

in 1950, really

founded the

art

Today,

animated graphics

graphics are quite

still

which

it

in

was Ben F

of computer graphics. Computer graphics are pure products

of computer technology, and a few years ago

financially).

But

figures.

represented something of a feat (both technically and

still

common

and can be produced on microcomputers. As for

are frequently used in television advertisements, for

example

these can be

so perfect and real that they are sometimes quite disturbing.

The work of the companies Robert Abel Associates,

has

now become famous

SOURCE:
(New
1950s

Inventions

Digital

Equipment Corporation and Sogitec (France)

in this field.

and Discoveries 1993

edited by Valerie-Anne Giscard d'Estaing and

ULTRASOUND IMAGING
The

first

published experimental ultrasound examinations of

(1910-87) and his colleagues

that

Mark Young

York: Facts on File) p 219

in

Glasgow

in the late

Donald

et al

(UK)

women, undertaken by

Professor Ian Donald

1950s, used an industrial flaw detector to

show

echoes from within the patient's abdomen could be used to measure the size of ovarian cysts and

other tumours.

This

is

known

as a one-dimensional scan because

it

shows how

far apart things are

without producing an image. In two-dimensional scans actual images are produced by the technique of

moving

the ultrasonic probe in a series of sweeping

now used when you go

movements during scanning. Both techniques

Professor Stuart Campbell's (b 1936) work using the machine

about 1967, established

routing antenatal care.

seen to offer a safe

are

for a 'scan'.

many of

the procedures

In a period of heightened

way of examining

For example, in 1969, quintuplets,

all

now

in the

Science

Museum, made

which have made ultrasound an indispensable

in

part of

awareness of the dangers of X-rays, ultrasound was

pregnant

women

for multiple foetuses

later successfully delivered,

were diagnosed

and malformations.
at

nine weeks using

A Concise
The

the two-dimensional scan.

occurred after

first

this

1950

in 1975.

Ultrasound Scanner: Making of the Modern World

Cossons

The Vidicon,

the

TV

first

RCA

Tube
camera tube
change

different intensities produces a

activity, is

further developments, the Vidicon proves significantly

than previous

TV

Technology

Museum)

(USA)
by which

to use the principle of photoconductivity

in electrical

&

of Science

(Published by John Murray, in association with the Science

et al

VIDICONTV Camera

SOURCE:

(the partial or total absence of a brain) in

Milestones

SOURCE:

165

abortion of a malformed foetus after an ultrasound examination

machine disclosed a case of amencephaly

1972. Diagnosis of spina bifida followed

edited by

Description of Each Invention in Date Order

devised

USA

in the

more adaptable, more

sensitive

light

RCA.

by

of

After

and cheaper

cameras.

The Timetable of Technology (London: Michael Joseph, Marshall Editions) p 138 (November

1982)

1950

HAMMING CODE
It

was simple human

Hamming's technique

first

which was

method

Hamming,

a result of his research in pure

tell

then a research mathematician

machine-caused errors

for correcting

spot electrical errors in the data and instructions and

it

Dr Richard

frustration that led

Bell Laboratories, to devise the

W Hamming (USA)

mathematics

in digital

enabled computers

where they occurred. And,

at

computers.

for the

first

to

time,

enabled computers to correct those errors and go right on solving problems without interruption.

20 April 1980, marks the 30th anniversary of Hamming's pioneering work, which has evolved

new

field

into a

of research called error-correcting codes.

SOURCE:

Labs marks 30th anniversary of computer error-correcting codes' Bell Laboratories

'Bell

Record p 152 (May 1980)

SEE ALSO:
p 103 (22

1950

COMPUTERS
during the late
a

intermediate-size, vacuum-tube computer

thousand 650s have been

serially

representation in storage

Electronics

by character on words of 10 decimal

is

was made

installation

late in

1954.

digits plus sign.

2-out-of-5 decimal

translated into a biquinary code in the operating registers, allowing a fixed-

the

bits per character.

The main

store of the

650

two-address instruction format accommodates, as part of

each instruction, the location of the next programme

anywhere on

first

workhorse of the industry

in service since then.

500 rpm 2000- word magnetic drum.

instructions

was considered

1949 and the

in

count check to detect the presence of more or less than 2

a 12

L Wall

IBM (USA)

1950s. Development began

The 650 operates

is

by Ernst

to microprocessor-based systems'

(IBM 650)

The IBM 650, an

Over

Hamming code

'Applying the

November 1979)

step.

program drum, and makes

it

This format allows the programmer to place

possible for

him

to

minimise access times to

successive instructions.

SOURCE:

'The evolution of computing machines and systems' by Serrell, Astrahan, Patterson and

Pyne Proc. IRE p 1050 (May 1962)

SEE ALSO: The Computer from

Pascal

to

von Neumann by

H H

Goldstine (Princeton, NJ: Princeton

University Press) p 330 (1972)

1950

PIN

DIODE

The

p-i-n

sometimes called as the

sandwiched between

Nishizawa (Japan)

J-I

a p layer

'pin'

diode

in

which an

intrinsic or a

and an n layer was invented by

high resistivity layer

Nishizawa

in

1950.

In the

is

same

year several manufacturing methods of the p-i-n diode, including the thermal diffusion, the chemical
treatment, the anodic oxidation, the ion implantation and the nuclear transmutation by the

bombardment

A Concise

166

Description of Each Invention in Date Order

of high energy particle were also invented by

realized the Si p-i-n diode, in

1.5

forward voltage drop

at

breakdown voltage and

reverse

100 A, by using the alloying method and the elaborate simple surface

passivation technology prior to the Westinghouse

by

group successfully

In 1958, his research

J Nishizaura.

which the characteristics were 2300

Company. Also

the

4000

was

p-i-n diode

realized

group with the development of the original high purity epitaxial growth technology

his research

using SiCl 4 and the hydrogen system.

The

p-i-n diode features a high reverse

breakdown voltage up

voltage drop and small junction capacitance.

It is

used

all

to ten

thousands

such as the industrial high power systems, which includes the famous Japanese bullet
its

power handling

efficient high

The

p-i-n diode

microwave

The

is

capability and also in

low

also used as a

consumer electronics products such

loss switching device, a phase shifter

fields

owing

train,

as

to

TV.

and an attenuator

in

systems and communication equipments.

circuits in radar

p-i-n photo diode also invented

for the recent optical

low forward

volts,

over the world for various application

by

Nishizawa

is

an excellent optical detector and

widely used

is

communication system. The fundamental patent also included the application of

the high resistivity layer into a transistor as pnip or npin type.

SOURCE:

'Semiconductor device having the high

Japanese Patent

SEE ALSO:

No 205068

1950

No 221722

Nishizawa and

the

IBM

vacuum

Watanabe;

Nishizawa and

September 1950)

226859 (1950)

IBM (USA)

IBM

operating late in 1951 and the

701 Data Processing System began

first

at the

production machine was delivered

end of 1950.

at the

model was

end of 1952. The heart of

701 system was a 36-bit single, address, binary, parallel, synchronous processor employing
tube flip-flops and diode logic at a rate of one megapulse per second.

Multiple pluggable

packages were used. The arithmetic registers employed a recirculating-pulse bit-storage

developed for the

NORC

in

which a combination of diode gating and pulse delay made

store, shift right, or shift left with

stored program of

SOURCE:
Dyne

(Application date:

(IBM 701)

The development of

circuit

Patent Nos. 221695, 223246, 226589, 229685, 235980, 236731 and

COMPUTERS

the

by

resistivity region'

December 1950)

'Chemical surface treatment method of semiconductor device' by

Watanabe; Japanese Patent

ALSO:

(Application date: 20

two

one triode per

bit.

Computation was governed by

it

circuit,

possible to

a single address

18-bit instructions per 36-bit word.

'The evolution of computing machines and systems' by Serrell, Aastrahan, Patterson and

IRE p 1050 (May 1962)

Proc.

SEE ALSO: The Computer from

Pascal to von

Neumann by H H

Goldstine (Princeton, NJ: Princeton

University Press) (1972)

1950s

OL

THERMO-COMPRESSION BONDING

Anderson,

Christensen and P

Andreatch (USA)
In the 1950s,

O L Anderson,

new bonding technique

circuits.

Howard Christensen and

Peter Andreatch of Bell Laboratories, discovered

particularly useful for connecting transistors to other elements in electronic

The technique, pressing

the connecting wire to the transistor

mounting

at

low heat

levels,

provides a firm bond without introducing undesired electrical properties and has been widely used

throughout the electronics industry (see figure 11.20).

contamination, thus achieving long

SOURCE:

life

'Mission Communications

and

It

is

particularly advantageous in avoiding

reliability.

the Story of Bell Laboratories' by

C Mabon

(Murray

Hill,

department by

MIT

NJ: Bell Laboratories Inc.) p 173 (1975)

1950s

MODEM

(MODulation

The modem

as

we know

&
it

DEModulation)
today

is

a product of research

MIT
done

Bell

Labs (USA)

for the defence

Lincoln Laboratory and Bell Telephone Laboratories in the 1950s.

Encouraged by advances

in

data

Concise Description of Each Invention

Date Order

in

167

Hi

wedge

.capillary

tube

balled

metal or semiconductor

wedge

nail

head or

eyelet

ball

Figure 11.20. Thermo-compression bonding.

processing technology, scientists

network.

great deal of study

handsomely. In

less than

1950s

in the late

that

to

SOURCE: 'Where

went

facilities

20 years,

reliable transmission speeds

MODEM'S

going' by

percent, from 1200

is

baud

Holsinger Telecommunications p 12 (June 1977)

Bell Laboratories

(USA)

two or four

sealed-in-

controlled by magnetised wire coils. Ferreed switches, used to switch phone calls

most electronic switching systems, are smaller,

in

jumped 700

in the early 1970s.

ferreed switch, invented at Bell Laboratories in the late 1950s comprises

glass contacts and

improve

and deriving new

into understanding telephone line parameters

FERREED SWITCH
The

to

of the nation's vast telephone

could work efficiently with these line parameters. This early work paid off

9600 bps
are

ways

these research centres concentrated on finding

and the accuracy of data transmission using existing

modulation techniques

1950s

at

the speed

faster operating

and require

power than older

less

switching devices.

SOURCE:

'Mission Communications

the Story of Bell Laboratories'

C Mabon

by P

(Murray

Hill,

NJ: Bell Laboratories Inc.) p 177 (1975)

1950s

APL

APL, which

way

and teach

stands for

a professor at

pithy

(A Programming Language)

Programming Language, was developed

Harvard University. He invented

to represent

Iverson (USA)
in the late

1950s by Kenneth Iverson,

this simple, elegant notational

system

mathematical expressions, describe and analyse various topics

fill

a need for a

his classes.

In 1960, Iverson joined

IBM

Corp. There, with the help of Adin Falkoff and other interested researchers,

an interpretive version of the language was adapted for the System/360. In 1973,

The appended SV
information.

More

stands for Shared Variables

means whereby

recently, the language has surfaced

of business computers, Digital Equipment Corp.'s

the

to

in data processing,

on

DEC

newly introduced Interactive Computer Systems

less

number of

IBM

users

released APLSV.
may communicate

expensive machines: IBM's 5100 series

system 2020, Hewlett-Packard Co.'s 3000, and

Inc.'s

System 900,

to

name

few of the computers

in question.

APL's

primitive functions, of which there are about 60,

fall

into

two categories,

scalar and mixed. Scalar

functions can be used with scalar arguments and arrays on an item-by-item basis.
to arrays with various ranks

shape.

The

and

may produce

results that vary

scalar functions can be subclassified as

Mixed functions apply

from the original arguments

monadic and dyadic, which

two arguments, respectively. The primitive operators, which currently number

in

are defined for

five,

rank and

one and

modify the action

number of new

of scalar dyadic functions and some mixed functions, resulting

in a great

APL

mathematical symbols to represent the

uses alphanumerics, Greek

easy to learn. With a

little

and some

uncommon

make APL programs appear

cryptic to the beginner; in fact, the language

practice, powerful routines can

be generated with a few simple key strokes.

functions and operators. These

is

letters,

functions.

A Concise

168

1951

Description of Each Invention

in

Date Order

QUALITY CONTROL
First edition

of 'Quality Control Handbook' written by

M Juran

(USA)

Juran, published by McGraw-Hill,

New

York.

An

95

authorative treatise on

aspects of quality control.

all

AUTOMATIC CIRCUIT ASSEMBLY ('TINKER

TOY'
In

National Bureau of Standards (USA)

System)

1950 the Navy Bureau of Aeronautics asked the National Bureau of Standards to study further

automation of

The process

assembly.

circuit

was dubbed

the Bureau of Standards

inspection of circuit components, and

The system

followed in 1951

led to the

it

first

It

developed by

Robert Henry of

provided for the automatic assembly and

modular package (see figure

components mounted on

started with individual

1/16-inch thick.

that

Project Tinkertoy.

11.21).

ceramic wafers 7/8-inch square by

steatite

The components were machine-printed or mounted over

printed wiring.

Four

to six

wafers were then automatically selected, stacked and mechanically and electrically joined by machinesoldered riser wires, which were attached

at

notches along the sides of each wafer. The resulting module

generally had a tube socket on the top wafer.

Figure 11.21.

Though

this

modular approach

as the transistor

SOURCE:
p 126 (23

1951

began

to

Tinkertoy assembly model.

packaging was used

to replace the

'Solid state devices

vacuum

for production items,

faded

in the late

1950s

packaging and

materials' by

R L Goldberg

Electronic Design vol 24,

November 1972)

MICROPROGRAMMING COMPUTERS
Credit for the original microprogramming concept

Cambridge University's Mathematical Laboratory.

Computer Conference
Machine'.

it

tube.

in July

95

is

Wilkes (UK)

generally given to Britisher

In a paper he presented at

Wilkes discussed 'The Best

Way

to

Wilkes of

Manchester University's

Design an Automatic Calculating

Wilkes' intention, ironically enough, was to simplify the design of a hardwires machine.

Today microprogramming

is

used

to replace

hardwired logic altogether.

A Concise Description of Each

As Samir Husson notes
attracted

book 'Microprogramming Principles and

his

in

1960s because

attention before the

little

Invention in Date Order

commercial microprogrammed computer was IBM's 7950, introduced

of microprogramming were

in

IBM

such machines as the

Practices',

was too expensive

it

in

to

1961

System/360, the

69

the technique

implement.

The

first

Other early appearances

RCA

Spectra/70, and the

Honeywell H4200.

variety of

store.

memory

Among

memory, and

technologies were used for the read-only memories needed for the microinstruction

these were traditional ferrite cores, cores cut into an E-shape to create a transformer

ROM

for several of

Microprogramming came

its

minicomputers early

to

ROMs, and

Equipment's PDP-11

The

line.

memory
its

such as Microdata's Micro 800,

2100 family, and

Digital

ROMs,

boom

to

in popularity.

to store the microinstruction

making

widespread use

it

Many

by

started'

is

used

it

was not

until the early

in the fields

first

to

emulate

area.

Durniak Electronics p 126 (9 November 1978)

MIT

Computerised image animation was

now

of the machines

easier for the user or the manufacturer

IBM-compatible computer

in the

IMAGE ANIMATION
1951. But

increasing availability of low-cost and fast semiconductor

SOURCE: 'How microprogramming

it

IBM, which devised

change the machine. Also, the ease with which microprogramming allows one machine

another has resulted in

1951

in units

mainframes and minicomputers today are microprogrammed.

use random-access
to

1970s

in the

the later 3200, Hewlett-Packard's

however, has recently caused the technique

all

novel approach was taken by

System/360 models.

which used diode arrays as

Virtually

arrays of diodes or capacitors.

card capacitor

experimented on

(USA)

the Massachusetts Institute of

at

Technology

in

1960s that the potential of the technique was fully understood. Today

of medicine, architecture (with models

in three

dimensions), space exploration

and chemistry.

SOURCE:

inventions and Discoveries 1993' edited by Valerie-Anne Giscard d'Estaing and Mark Young

Facts on File

1952

New

York p 2 1

ALLOYED TRANSISTOR
In

RCA

(USA)

1952 an announcement was made by the Radio Corporation of America

made

transistors

make

alloy regions with the

that they

had successfully

by heating small quantities of impurities, on the surface of germanium chips, so as

to

germanium. The resulting penetration of the chips was made from both

sides.

SOURCE:
1952

Semiconductors for Engineers by

MICROELECTRONICS
In a paper read at the

components

in

'At this stage,

work

in

would

Dunster (London: Business Books Limited) p 20

(Integrated Circuit Concept)

IRE Symposium

Great Britain'
I

D F

like to take a

semiconductors generally,

it

DC

on 5

May

1952, entitled:

'Electronic

stated:

peep into the

future.

seems now possible

block with no connecting wires. The block

and amplifying materials, the

Washington

in

A Dummer

W A Dummer (UK)

may

to

With the advent of the

transistor

envisage electronic equipment

and the

in a solid

consist of layers of insulating, conducting, rectifying

electrical functions

being connected directly by cutting out areas of the

various layers'.

SOURCE:

Proc.

IRE Symposium on 'Progress

in

Quality Electronic Components Washington, DC, p 19

(May 1952)

SEE ALSO: 'A history of microelectronics development at the

Dummer Microelectronics and Reliability vol 4, p 193 (1965)
'Solid circuits' Wireless

World (November 1957)

'The semiconductor story

p 137 (March 1973)

Royal Radar Establishment' by

3; solid circuits

new

concept' by

Dean and S White Wireless World

A Concise

70

Description of Each Invention

'The genesis of the integrated

1952

circuit'

by

in

Date Order

F Wolff IEEE Spectrum p 45 (August 1976)

W G Pfann (USA)

ZONE MELTING OF GERMANIUM AND SILICON

W G Pfann discovered a simple method for repeating the action of normal

avoided handling the material between each operation. This resulted

which was then grown into single crystals bv the pulling technique.
levelling technique,

which

melting and freezing, which

in material

of extremely high purity

Pfann also developed the zone

He grew

distributes impurities uniformly through a rod.

single crystals in his

zone levelling apparatus using seeding techniques. The combination of zone levelling and horizontal

growth of single crystals has become the standard technique used

in today's transistor

manufacturing

operations.

SOURCE:

'Contributions of materials technology to semiconductor devices' by

R L

Petriz Proc.

IRE

p 1027 (May 1962)

SEE ALSO:
J.

4,

1952

p423

one

illustrative

embodiment of

transistors, the collector

directly to the emitter

zones.

Pfann

(New

York: Academic Press) vol

(1957)

DARLINGTON PAIRS, DIRECT-CONNECTED

TRANSISTOR CIRCUIT
In

p 861 (August 1952)

'Techniques of zone melting and crystal growing' Solid State Physics

4,

'Segregation of two solutes, with particular reference to semiconductors' by

Metals vol

The device

S Darlington (USA)

this invention, a translating

device comprises a pair of similar junction

zones of which are electrically integral and the base zone of one of which

zone of the other. Individual connections are provided

to the other emitter

is

tied

and base

constitutes an equivalent single transistor having emitter and collector resistances

substantially equal to those of

one of the component

transistors, but

having a current multiplication

factor substantially greater than that of either of the components.

SOURCE:

'Semiconductor Signal Translating

Laboratories (dated 9

1952

May

Device'

US

DIGITAL VOLTMETER
The

digital revolution started in 1952,

took

to multimeters to scopes

No 2663806,

Bell

Telephone

digital voltmeter.

The model

A Kay (USA)
when Andy Kay unveiled

419 was crude, compared with today's DVMs. But both

formed around the idea

Patent

1952)

first

Non

Linear Systems

off like a rocket, Today, almost every instrument

digitised, thanks to

is

the

the idea and

Andy Kay and

to the

the

company

from signal generators

commercial

digital readout tube,

introduced by Burroughs (then Haydu) just one year before. (Burroughs' familiar Nixie tube actually

had a

rival in its early

days

the Inditron,

which was developed by National Union Radio Corporation

and which did not survive.)

SOURCE:

'Solid state devices

instruments'

by S Runyon Electronic Design vol 24, p 102 (23

November 1972)
1952

NEGATIVE FEEDBACK TONE CONTROL

J Baxandall (UK)

CIRCUIT
The

circuit to

be described

is

the

outcome of

a prolonged investigation of tone-control circuits of the

continuously-adjustable type, and provides in dependent control of bass and treble response by means

of two potentiometers, without the need for switches to change over from
features are the

wide range of control available, and the

both potentiometers at mid-setting.

shifted along the frequency axis

The

when

'lift'

to 'cut'.

Unusual

fact that a level response is obtained with

treble-response curves are of almost constant shape, being

the control

is

operated, and there

the curves to 'flatten off towards the upper limit of the audio range.

is

practically

The shape of

no tendency

curves, though not constant, varies less than with most continuously-adjustable circuits.

SOURCE:

'Negative-feedback tone control' by P

for

the bass-response

Baxandall Wireless World p 402 (October 1952)

A Concise Description of Each

1952

COMPUTERS

IBM, MIT

(SAGE)

Descendents of MIT's 'Whirlwind

the

SAGE

system began,

I'

was delivered by

IBM 701, the AN/FSQ-7 air defence computers for

IBM-MIT Lincoln Laboratories effort based upon
Laboratories SAGE, a real-time communication-based

and guides interception weapons. The

SOURCE:

IBM

(Lincoln Labs) (USA)

co-operative

computer control system, accepts radar data over phone

for operator decisions

171

and of the

in 1952, as a

previous studies and specifications by Lincoln

digital

Invention in Date Order

information

lines, processes, displays

engineering model of the computer

first

1955, and production deliveries began in June 1956.

in

'The evolution of computing machines and systems' by Serrell, Astrahan, Patterson and

Pyne Proc. IRE p 1051 (May 1962)

1952

TRANSISTORS

(Single Crystal

GK

FabricationSilicon)

Teal and

Buehler (USA)

Large single crystals of silicon and silicon p-n junctions were prepared by Teal and Buehler by an
extension of the pulling technique developed for germanium. These crystals were used by
to prepare p-n junction diodes

SOURCE:

L Pearson

by the alloy method.

R L

'Contributions of materials technology to semiconductor devices' by

Petritz Proc.

IRE

p 1028 (May 1962)

SEE ALSO: 'Growth

of silicon single crystals and of single crystal p-n junctions' by

Buehler Phys. Rev. vol

1953

TRANSISTOR
Engineers

at

experimented
that

8,

General Electrics electronics advanced semiconductor laboratory

could be used

bipolar transitory

Teal and

UJT GEC (USA)

(Unijunction)

in the early

G K

p 190 (July 1952)

NY,

Syracuse,

in

1950s with germanium alloy tetrode devices in search of a semiconductor

frequencies higher than the 5-megahertz operating level of existing conventional

at

The

tetrode structures,

was found, produced

it

a transverse electric field that boosted

the device's cutoff frequency and lessened the semiconductor's input

impedance

the limiting factor

regarding frequency.

But

in

1953, while examining the waveforms on the structure's terminals,

was present on

noticed that an oscillatory signal

was removed,

new

the tetrode's emitter.

The

the oscillations persisted for a while.

switching-type device.

The

GE engineers

added

Lesk of the laboratory

And when

the collector supply

researchers realised that they had stumbled on a

to the

development tetrode models,

double-based

diode structure that was being studied because of a negative-resistance property.

SOURCE:

'Solid

State a switch

by

in time'

W R Spofford Jr and R A Stasior Electronics p

18 (19

February 1968)

1953

TRANSISTOR
Advancing
1953.

Philco (USA)

(Surface Barrier)

the early trend toward higher frequencies, Philco developed the jet-etching technique in

Here electrochemical machining was used to fabricate the necessary thin base

layers.

major

product of this process was the surface-barrier transistor, which boosted the upper frequency limit of
transistors into the

SOURCE:

megahertz region.

'Solid state devices

the processes' by

E A Torrero

Electronic Design vol 24, p 73 (23

November 1972)
1953

COMPUTERS

(IBM

IBM

The development of

the

system was delivered

in

point and indexing.

was followed

It

IBM (USA)

704, 709 and 7090)

704, descended from the 701, began in

November 1953 and

the

first

January 1956. The 704 featured higher speed, magnetic-core memory, floating
in

by means of Data Synchronizer units

1958 by the 709, featuring simultaneous read, write and compute

that

allowed the input-output channels to operate independently,

as well as several special operations, including a table look-up instruction and indirect addressing.

32768-word core memory was

installed

on a 704

in April

1957.

The IBM 7090,

the

first

units of

A Concise

172

Description of Each Invention

which were delivered

in

709 on

faster than the

1959,

is

in

Date Order

a transistorised

typical problems, the

About

system compatible with the 709.

7090 incorporates

a 2.18-^ts core

five times

memory and improved

magnetic-tape units.

SOURCE:

'The evolution of computing machines and systems' by Serrell, Astrahan, Patterson and

Pyne Proc. IRE p 1052 (May 1962)

SEE ALSO: The Computer from

Pascal

to

von Neumann by

H H

Goldstine (Princeton, NJ: Princeton

University Press) (1972)

1953

AUTOMATIC ASSEMBLY SYSTEMS

Autofab (General

IBM

Mills),

Machine (IBM), United Shoe

Machinery Co., GE/Signal Corps,
and Mini-Mech (Melpar) (USA)
In attempting to

develop standards which would allow unrestricted electronics design and production

processes sufficiently flexible to permit rapid transition from design to manufacturing, the following

conclusions are reached:

1.

The use of

2.

basic to practically

is

commonly

automatic approaches.

accepted).

In conjunction with the standard grid pattern, standard

mounting dimensions

for

all

components and

must be used.

parts

The use of single-head component-insertion machines

modules through the

circuit

machines can be

unit for each

By

utilized.

this

which the manufacturer wishes

fundamental requirements. The

When

component.

evolutionary method one

to attain.

It is

is

higher volumes are obtained, several

able to create any degree of automation

possible to stop with the production ot the printed circuit

one or several component-attaching or inserting machines. Dip-soldering can be mechanised

to use

or performed manually.

automatic production
producers,

many

will satisfy these

of such a machine permits the insertion of a variety of components by recycling the printed-

flexibility

and

all

generic grid pattern to govern circuit layout must be used in order to prevent obsolescence of

tooling (0.1 and 0.025 in are

3.

board

a printed-circuit

it

is

would be impractical

It

at the

to consider taking the giant step into completely

beginning of the factory's use of automation principles.

Even

for

mass

necessary to develop specific procedures for particular requirements documented by

years of experience in the step-by-step evolution toward a mechanised operation (see figure

11.22).

SOURCE:

Electronic Equipment Design

and Construction by

A Dummer, C

Brunetti and

L K

Lee (New York: McGraw-Hill) p 185-6 (1961)

SEE ALSO:

Proceedings of Symposium on Automatic Production of Electronic Equipment, sponsored

by Stanford Research
1953

MASER

Institute

and the

US

Air Force (April 1954)

C H Townes and J Weber (USA), N

Basov and A M Prokhorov

(Microwave Amplification by Stimulated

Emission of Radiation)

(USSR)
The

first

clear recognition of the possibility of amplification of electromagnetic radiation by stimulated

emission seems to have been by a Russian, Fabrikant,

not published until 1959) and

who had

who

filed a patent in

1951 (although

discussed various aspects of his thesis of 1940.

it

However,

was
his

attempts to produce optical amplification in caesium were unsuccessful.

The

first

statement

in

the

the detailed proposals of

open

literature

about amplification was by Weber

Basov and Prokhorov

for a

beam-type maser

excitement was caused by the short article of Gordon, Zeiger and Townes,
the operation of the

first

arrangement three years

immediately following
practical success

was

maser using ammonia.

earlier,

many

in

in the

Townes had conceived

based on his experience

in

in

1954.

1953, followed by

However, the

same

year,

real

announcing

the required experimental

microwave spectroscopy.

In the years

other techniques were studied, but the only one to give any degree of

the three-level

maser of Bloembergen which resulted

in the

ruby maser amplifier.

A Concise

Figure 11.22. Sylvania

SOURCE: 'Lasers and optical

No 10, p 538 (October 1975)
SEE ALSO: 'Mekhanizm

in-line

Description of Each Invention in Date Order

173

assembly system (courtesy Sylvania Corp.).

electronics'

by

W A Gambling The Radio & Electronic Engineer vol 45,

V A

izlucheniya gazovogo razryada' by

Fabrikant in Elektronnye

ionnye

pribory (Electron and ion devices); Trudy Vsesoyuznogo Elektrotekhnicheskogo Instituta (Proceedings
of the All-Union Electrotechnical Institute) vol 41, p 236 (1940)
'Evolution of masers and lasers' by

B A Lengyel and V A

Fabrikant Am.

J.

Phys. vol 34, p 903 (1966)

'Amplification of microwave radiation by substances not in thermal equilibrium' by

Weber IRE

Trans,

on Electron Devices vol PGED-3, pp 1-4 (June 1953)

'Application of molecular

Basov and

beams

Prokhorov

J.

'Molecular microwave oscillator and

P Gordon, H

Zeiger and

'Proposals for a

new

by

to radio spectroscopic studies of rotation spectra of molecules'

Exp. Theor Phys. (USSR) vol 27, pp 431-8 (1954)

new

C H Townes

hyperfine structure in the microwave spectrum of

Phys. Rev. vol 95, pp 282-4

type solid-state maser' by

N Bloembergen

(1

Phys.

NH

'

by

July 1954)

Rev.

vol

104, pp

324-7 (15

October 1956)
'Forgotten inventor emerges from epic patent battle with claim to laser' Science vol 198, p 379 (28

October 1977)

1953

CONNECTION TECHNIQUES

(Wire Wrapped

RF

Mallina

.23)

was investigated very extensively

et al

(USA)

Joints)

The mechanical
by workers
is still

basis of the wire

at Bell

wrapped

joint (see figure

Telephone Laboratories 20 years ago. Their very

full

analysis of the joining system

considered to be essentially correct. The work includes photoelastic observations on

wrapped

A Concise Description of Each

74
joint

model

Invention in Date Order

to investigate strain patterns

produced by wrapping, and the study of

stress relaxation as a

function of time and temperature.

WRAPPED

SINGLE

BOUND JOINT

JOINT

4=1

i^J"
DOUBLE

MATERIALS

TYPICAL
WRAPPING
14-32

BOUND JOINT

TWIN

WRAPPED JOINT

POST

WIRE

BRASS (NICKEL FLASHED OR ELECTRO TINNED)

NICKEL SILVER -MONEL METAL- PHOSPHOR BRONZE

SINGLE CORE TINNED COPPER,

COPPER/NICKEL IRON (COPPER CORED)
S.W.G.

Figure 11.23. Wire-wrapped

The wire wrapped

which

joint consists of a wire

Sufficient deformation

is

engendered

is

tightly

many notches

in the

joints.

wrapped around

The wrapping

to create metal to metal interfaces with a high level of integrity.

several times during wrapping before final positioning in the wrap,

The

during wrapping.
stretched wire

SOURCE:
vol

1,

which

'Wire wrapped joints

'Solderless

Introduction:

a review' by

caused remains

which

is

in the

bent

stress

wire after wrapping because the

it.

M A Sollars Electrocomponent Science and Technology

Structure

wrapped connections' The Bell System Technical Journal (May 1953)

McRae

&

Tools by

R F

Mallina

Part 2 Necessary conditions for obtaining a

1953

is

wire,

under a high level of tensile

is

p 17 (1974)

SEE ALSO:

Part

tensile strain

locked by the notches formed in

is

a sharp cornered terminal.

created by the terminal in the wrapping wire

Part 3 Evaluation

&

TRANSISTORS

(Floating

Performance

tests

by

permanent connection by

WP

Mason and T F Osmer

R H Van Horn

Zone Refining of

Silicon)

Keck,

Emeis and

HC

Theurer (USA)

An improved

was developed which produced material of

silicon purification technique

that alloy silicon transistors

sufficient quality

could be fabricated with good yields. This was a novel variation of zone

refining called 'floating zone refining' developed

by P

H Keck

R Emeis

and independently by

and

H C

Theurer. This operation employs a vertical system and uses surface tension to support a stable liquid

zone formed by induction heating. Hence, the crucible

of

ohm-cm

resistivity

is

completely eliminated. Silicon with thousands

and minority carrier lifetimes of greater than 100 ps can be produced by

this

method.

SOURCE:
p 1028

'Contributions of materials technology to semiconductor devices' by

R L

Petritz Proc.

IRE

(May 1962)

SEE ALSO:

'Crystallisation of silicon

Rev. vol 89, p 1297 (March 1953)

from

a floating liquid zone'

by P

H Keck

and

E Golay Phys

A Concise Description of Each

'Growing single crystals without

'Removal of boron from

silicon

a crucible' Z. Naturforsch.

vol

Invention in Date Order

9A

175

p 67 (January 1954)

by hydrogen water vapour treatment'

J.

Metals vol

8,

p 1316 (October

1956)

1954

TRANSISTOR
The

father of the interdigitated transistor

When,

in

1954, he

hit

power handling

the

N H

(Interdigitated)

N H

is

Fletcher, an engineer with Transistor Products Inc.

upon the idea of elongated emitter

capability of devices, not a

Fletcher (USA)

way

was seeking

areas, Fletcher

means

to increase

boost their cut-off frequency levels.

to

His discoveries were applied by other firms to most transistor types over the next decade, but his

company

realised

SOURCE:

'Solid

few benefits from

state fingers

SEE ALSO: 'Some

own

his work.

by

in the die'

aspects of the design of

E Tatum

power

Electronics p

by

transistors'

N H

94 (19 February 1968)

Fletcher Proc.

IRE p 551 (May

1955)

1954

TRANSISTOR RADIO SET

1954 the

In

success,

it

Regency (USA)

transistor radio, the

first

Regency, appeared on the market.

Although not

commercial

introduced the transistor into the consumer market and gave transistor makers the impetus

they needed to develop mass production techniques. That, coupled with an awakening of interest by
the military, increased transistor sales meteorically in the mid-fifties.

SOURCE:

germanium

'Silicon,

Electronic Engineer p 30

1954

&

silver

the

25th anniversary'

transistor's

C P Kocher

by

The

(November 1972)

SOLAR BATTERY

Chapin,

GL

S Fuller and

Pearson (USA)

As an outgrowth of work on
Pearson

in

transistors, Bell Laboratories scientists

1954 invented the silicon solar battery

into electricity.

an

Chapin,

S Fuller and

G L

efficient device for converting sunlight directly

Arrays of these devices are used to power

satellites

and as energy sources for other

uses.

SOURCE:

Mission Communications

the Story of Bell Laboratories by

C Mabon

(Murray

Hill,

NJ:

Bell Laboratories Inc.) p 172 (1975)

1955

CRYOTRON
A

D Buck

super-conducting switching element was

however,

The

it

was not

until

rod

wound with

examined by de Haas and Casimir-Jonker

becomes

niobium wire At

the

niobium wire

is

1935;

on the existence of a

critical

magnetic

field

above which

normal conductor. The original cryotron utilized a small tantalum

liquid

helium temperatures the tantalum wire has a

the order of several hundred gauss, whereas that of

when

in

1955 that Buck demonstrated a practical device which he called the cryotron.

basic principle of the cryotron depends

the superconducting metal

first

(USA)

niobium

is

pulsed with a suitable current, the magnetic field that

destroy the superconductivity in the tantalum but not in

critical field

of

of the order of 2000 gauss. Consquently,

itself.

The

it

creates

is

sufficient to

current in the niobium wire can be

smaller than that in the tantalum wire so that a small current can control a larger one, thus producing
a current gain in the device.

SOURCE:

'Solid state devices other than semiconductors' by

B Lax and

Mavroides Proc. IRE

p 1016 (May 1962)

SEE ALSO:

'The cryotron

p 482 (April 1956)

a superconductive

computer component' by

D Buck

Proc.

IRE

vol 44,

A Concise Description of Each

176

1955

Invention in Date Order

INFRA-RED EMISSION FR OM GALLIUM

ARSENIDE SEMICONDUCTORS

Braunstein (USA)

Radiation produced by carrier injection has been observed from GaSb, GaAs, InP and the Ge;Si alloys
at

room temperature and 77

K.

The

maximum

spectral distributions of the radiation are

at

close to the best estimates of the band gaps of these materials; consequently, the evidence
radiation

SOURCE:
1956

due

is

recombination of electron-hole

to the direct

'Radiative transitions in semiconductors' by

Braunstein Phys. Rev. vol 99, p 1892 (1955)

of III V impurities into germanium and silicon by Fuller

germanium and

Reis (USA)

Research on the diffusion

BTL, and by Dunlap

at the

at

GE

The BTL was

foundation for transistor fabrication using diffusion as a key process step.

fully integrate these results into

S Fuller and

device technology was the diffusion process.

in

that the

pairs.

DIFFUSION PROCESS
The next major advance

energies

is

laid the

the

first

to

silicon transistors.

Diffusion techniques have proved to be one of the best controlled methods for preparing p-n junctions.

Because the

common

doping impurities diffuse very slowly

semiconductors

in

at rates

which can be

varied by adjusting temperatures, close control and reproducibility of the impurity distributions can be

Hence, control over the

achieved.

The
to

electrical

form base regions only

ability to

may be

parameters of the resulting devices

a fraction of a

maintained.

micron thick allows very high-frequency transistors

be fabricated.

SOURCE:

'Contributions of materials technology to semiconductor devices' by

R L

Petritz Proc.

IRE

p 1029 (May 1962)

SEE ALSO:

'Diffusion processes in

Control of composition

germanium and

by

silicon'

C
N B

Reis and

semiconductors by freezing methods edited by

in

S Fuller. Chaper 6 of

Hannay.

(New

York:

Reinhold Pub. Corp.) (1959)

1956

D A McLean

SOLID ELECTROLYTE CAPACITOR

From

the time transistors

began

to

and F S Power (USA)

be produced commercially, the need for a solid electrolytic capacitor

as a coupling capacitor or a bypass capacitor for electronic

equipment has increased. Since McLean

and Power announced the development of the tantalum solid electrolytic capacitor
this capacitor

began

to

appear with great frequency

the solid capacitor gradually

SOURCE:

began

in literature

in

1956, studies of

through the world and applications of

to spread.

'Miniaturised aluminium solid electrolyte capacitors using a highly effective enlargement

technique' by

Hirata and

Yamasaki IEEE Trans, on

Parts,

Hybrids

&

Packaging vol PHP- 12

No

3,

p 217 (September 1976)

SEE ALSO:

'Tantalum solid electrolyte capacitor' by

D A McLean

and F S Power Proc. IRE vol 44.

p 872 (July 1956)

1956

VALVES VAPOUR COOLING

vapour-cooled tubes were made by Beutheret

The

first

mm

square tapering to 5

was

to stabilise the

known

mm

square over 20

mm

anode temperature and prevent

Beutheret (France)

who used an anode

with teeth approximately 10

protruding from the surface.

a

The

sudden catastrophic increase

in

object of the teeth

anode temperature

as calefraction.

SOURCE:

Electronic Engineer's Reference

Book (London: Newnes-Butterworth) Chapter

7,

pp 7-47

(1976)

SEE ALSO:
1956

'The Vaportron Technique' by

Beutheret Rev. Tech.

'FLOWSOLDERING' OF PRINTED CIRCUITS

In the

Flowsolder dipping

difficulties inherent in the

unit,

Thomson-CSF

vol

24 (1956)

Fry's Metal Foundries Ltd (UK)

developed by Fry's Metal Foundries Ltd which avoids some of the

conventional

flat

dipsoldering of printed circuits, a stationary

wave of molten

A Concise
solder

is

pumping

created by

Description of Each Invention

Date Order-

Ill

upwards through a rectangular nozzle and the pre-fluxed

the metal

panels are passed through the crest of the wave.

developed

in

It is

claimed

which

that this unit,

fluxes, facilitates the soldering of printed circuits, free

from

is

circuit

used with specially

faulty joints or bridging (see

figure 11.24).

Figure 11.24.

systems of wave-soldering.

& A

F C Barnes Electronic

Strauss

SEMICONDUCTOR DIODE FUNCTION

J Giacoletto and J O'Connell

CAPACITOR
A semiconductor junction

(USA)

SOURCE:

'Flowsolder Method of Soldering Printed Circuits'

Engineering vol 28,

1956

Two

No

345, pp 494-6

when biased

the junction, leaving

and hence the

rise to a

electrical

in the reverse

When

can be varied by the bias voltage.

away from

(November 1956)

uncompensated

charge of

this

(non-conducting) direction

is

which

a capacitance

biased in this direction the mobile charge carriers are

moved

The width,

fixed charges in a region near the junction.

space-charge layer, depends on the applied voltage, thus giving

junction transition capacitance.

SOURCE:

'History, present status

and future developments of electronic components' by P S Darnell

IRE: Transactions on Component Parts p 128 (September 1958)

SEE ALSO: 'A variable capacitor germanium junction diode

RCA Review vol 17, p 68 (March 1956)
1956

TRANSATLANTIC TELEPHONE CABLE

for

UHF' by L J

Giacoletto and

O'Connell

(UK/USA)

(TAT-1)

25 September 1956 was an auspicious date for international telecommunications being the day
transatlantic telephone cable

The

history of the Atlantic cables started in 1858 with the laying of the

did not have a very long

life

that the

(TAT-1) entered service.

first

first

but did prove the feasibility of the operation.

telegraph cable which

By 1956

there

were 28

transatlantic telegraph cables.

As

far as a telephone service

was concerned

the

main problem

lay with the fact that repeaters

necessary to amplify the already weak signals on their long journey,

were

in the

was

felt that

the repeaters

using 51 American
the water for

its

made

this

repeaters.

in

Then

first

life

required of them for deep water service.

Scotland under the Atlantic to Clarenville

the line goes overland to Terenceville

journey to Sydney Mines

repeaters, the

impetus development work was brought to the point where

would exhibit the 20 year

Consequently, TAT-1 runs from Oban

made

in

Nova

two of which are buried

in

Scotia.

in

Newfoundland,

where again

to

Canada.

takes to

Newfoundland.
in the transatlantic

while from Clarenville the cable becomes a 60-circuit single cable system,

Newfoundland

it

In the latter run the cable uses 16 British

For the cable's 36 telephone channels two cables are used, one for each direction,
section

were

repeatered telephone links

course of preliminary experiment. In 1946 a repeatered link was laid between the United

Kingdom and mainland Europe. With

it

By 1920

connecting

A Concise

178

In the

Description of Each Invention in Date Order

main section one telephone channel had been reserved

From Sydney Mines,

link.

the circuit takes a short radio

allow circuits to be directed to Montreal and

Although

New

family of

TAT

cables,

Kingdom-Canada

Spruce Lake where

to

it

is

telegraph

divided to

York.

1956 the 36-channel cable was hailed as an

in

latest in the

as a United

hop

historical

achievement only 20 years

later the

TAT-6, sports over 100 times the capacity while TAT-7 and TAT-8

are already being considered.

SOURCE: "TAT-U
1956

20 years

old'

ITU Telecommunication Journal

MAGNETIC MATERIALYTTRIUM IRON

GARNET
The

vol 43, XII, p

F Bertaut and F Forrat (France)

crystallographic structure of yttrium iron garnet (YIG)

was discovered by Bertaut and Forrat

1956 and very soon afterwards large bulk crystals (several centimetres

grown by

the molten flux technique.

Yttrium iron garnet was found

in

to

one dimension) began

have a saturation magnetisation of 1750 gauss, and, unlike the previously available

materials, to

have a ferrimagnetic resonance linewidth of the order of

SOURCE:

'Epitaxial magnetic garnets'

No

SEE ALSO:
Sci. Paris,

by

Collins and

'Structure of ferrimagnetic ferrites of rare earths' by

vol 242, p

new breed

oersted

at

10

ferrite

GHz.

Smith The Radio and Electronic

F Bertaut and F

Forrat C. R. Acad.

382 (1956)

Telephone Laboratories

the Leprechaun, the

in

be

12 p 707 (December 1975)

TRANSISTORIZED COMPUTER
Bell

A B

to

be cubic, to be essentially an

insulator, to

Engineer vol 45,

1956

734 (1976)

first

in

New

Bell Laboratories

(USA)

York, the place where the transistor was invented in 1947, builds

experimental transistorized computer. The on-off switching transistor fathers

IBM, Philco and General

of more reliable, more economical machines.

Electric quickly

follow suit with 'second generation' computers.

SOURCE:

The Timetable of Technology (London: Michael Joseph, Marshall Editions) p 153 (November

1982)

1956

RADIO PAGING

Multitone (UK)

Concurrently with the development of two-way radio communication, there has been a remarkable

development of radio-paging equipment and

mid-1950s using
around 70 kHz.
Hospital,

100000 paging

of the

to

first

of these systems was installed by the Multitone

MHz

450

bands.

Development

receivers in use in Britain alone.

is

now

The

in the

Company

at St

Thomas's

very widespread with over 2000 systems and

receivers involved are very small, weighing only

few ounces.
of mobile radio' by

Brinkley The Radio and Electronic Engineer vol 45,

1975)

FULL FREQUENCY-RANGE ELECTROSTATIC

LOUDSPEAKER
Much work was done on
to

paging systems were established

be served and operated on very low frequencies

1956. Later the technique changed to v.h.f. radiating system using frequencies in

in

SOURCE: 'Fifty years

No 10, p 556 (October
1957

first

The

services.

magnetic loop around the building

One

London

the 27, 150 and

electrostatic loudspeakers in the

Walker (UK)

1920s and 30s, but

have made the mistake of assuming the basic principle

to

all

early workers

Inventors sought to

the non-linearity distortion inherent in this square-law relationship by

employing push-pull

arrangements,

plates

in

is

which the diaphragm,

at a

high and constant

DC

voltage,

was placed between

of fixed perforated electrodes across which the audio programme voltage was applied.

was only achieved

in practice

seem

be necessarily that the force between

proportional to the square of the voltage between them.

two capacitor

overcome

if

confined

the vibration amplitude

all

was kept small compared with

a pair

But linearity

the plate spacing, and this

these early electrostatic loudspeakers to high audio frequencies only.

A Concise
F V Hunt of Harvard

Professor

Description of Each Invention

University seems to have been the

The

voltage.

principle

diaphragm had a constant

is

that all parts of the

move about on

to

Walker and

DTN

in a

that gives

Williamson discovered

low

the

if

instead of being held at a constant

it

proportional to the product

is

There

situated.

is

it

diaphragm surface, thus preventing each

the

by making the diaphragm of very thin

charged up

which

field in

179

diaphragm amplitudes,

diaphragm move equally. This does not happen

under the desired constant-charge condition

charge on

then simply that the force on a constant charge

of the charge and the strength of the electric

however,

electric

Date Order

appreciate that the above

first to

non-linearity could theoretically be totally removed, even for very large

electrically conductive

in

part of the

a tacit assumption,

is

in practice,

causing charge

diaphragm from operating

distortion.

that this latter

major cause of distortion could be removed

plastic film, treated to be sufficiently

conductive to allow

to

it

be

reasonable time, but not sufficiently to allow any significant moving about of charge

during a low-frequency audio cycle.

It

frequencies with very low distortion.

damage occurring

then

The

became possible

plastic

to

high signal levels, and led ultimately, after

at

been solved, to the marketing of the

achieve large acoustic outputs

at

bass

diaphragm also greatly reduced the danger of spark

many

other engineering problems had

successful full-frequency-range electrostatic loudspeaker in

first

1957.

Recent improvements by P

Walker have been largely concerned with making the polar radiation

characteristic of the loudspeaker vary less with frequency than in the earlier designs,

and controlled manner. The electrode area

being fed to the outer sections via a delay

line.

and

in a

smooth

divided into a number of annular sections, the signals

is

The wavefront

radiated

located behind the loudspeaker, but since the actual radiating area

is

is

then as

if

from

quite large, high

a point source

volume

levels

can be produced.

SOURCE: Communication
SEE ALSO: Walker P

from P

Baxandall, Malvern (22 July 1982)

'Wide Range Electrostatic Loudspeakers' Wireless World (May, June, August

1955)

Walker P

Walker P

No

'New Developments
and Williamson

in Electrostatic

DTN

Loudspeakers'

'Improvements Relating

J.

Audio Eng. Soc. (November 1980)

to Electrostatic

Loudspeakers' British Patent

815, 978. (Application dated 20 July 1954. Complete filed 19 October 1955. Complete published

8 July 1959)

Hunt F
1957

Elect roacoustics Chapter 6 (Cambridge,

MA:

Harvard University Press/John Wiley) (1954)

PLUMBICON TV CAMERA TUBE

Philips introduce the

Vidicon.

BBC

which soon becomes universal

SOURCE: The

TV

Plumbicon

In Britain the

bases

Philips (Holland)

camera tube,
all

its

colour

in

a greatly

improved version of

plans for the development of colour

TV

its

TV

predecessor, the

on the new tube,

design.

Timetable of Technology (London: Michael Joseph, Marshall Editions) p 157 (November

1982)

1957

PLATED- WIRE MEMORIES

The plated-wire memory uses
digital information.

The

UF

Gianole (USA)

the principle of the direction of magnetization in a material to store

original concept of the wire

memory was

invented

in

1957 by

U F

Gianole

of Bell Laboratories. Plated-wire memories require no standby power, are non-volatile, inexpensive to

manufacture and will work

SOURCE:

in a high electrical noise

Mission Communications

environment.

the Story of Bell Laboratories by

C Mabon

(Murray

Hill,

NJ:

Bell Laboratories) p 179 (1975)

1957

RESISTORS (Nickel-Chromium Thin

It

is

well

Ashworth

known

that

nichrome

is

Film)

the material

R H
most used today

Alderton and

F Ashworth (UK)

in thin-film resistors.

Alderton and

stressed the importance of the following parameters: the source temperature, the degree of

A Concise Description of Each

180

vacuum maintaining
the vapour phase

350C and

than

in the

They

system, and the temperature of the receiving surface during deposition from

state that stable films

vacuum

the

Invention in Date Order

in the

can only be made

system better than 10~ 4

surface resistivity that produced stable films

the substrate temperature

if

They

torr.

was 300S3/Q These

also stated that the

results are

still

is

greater

maximum

used today as a guide

production of nichrome films. Alderton and Ashworth measured the reistivity as a function of

in the

thickness and obtained a temperature coefficient of resistance from 100-200ppm/"C.

SOURCE:

'Resistive thin films and thin film resistors

Electronic

Components p 748 (September 1964)

SEE ALSO: 'Vacuum

Brit. J.

1957

history, science

deposited films of a nickel-chromium alloy' by

Applied Physics vol

SPUTNIK

8,

R H

Bennett

Alderton and F Ashworth

p 205 (1957)

(USSR)

1 Satellite

Launched 4 October 1957.

First artificial

Study of ionosphere, radio wave propagation.

satellite.

Decayed on 4 January, 1958.

Batteries. Transmitted for 21 days.

SOURCE:

and technology' by

Table of Artificial Satellites Launched Between 1957 and 1976 (Geneva:

International

Telecommunication Union) (1977)

1957

SPUTNIK
Launched

(USSR)

2 Satellite

November

1957. Study of ultraviolet rays and X-rays from the sun. Study of cosmic rays.

Medico-biological study of the dog Laika. Transmitted for seven days. Decayed on 14 April 1958.

SOURCE:

Table of Artificial Satellites Launched Between 1957 and 1976 (Geneva:

International

Telecommunication Union) (1977)

1957

TRANSISTORS

Another important technological advance

by

(Oxide Masking Process)

in this period

was

the

J Frosch (USA)

development of oxide masking

for silicon

Frosch of BTL. He observed that a thermally grown oxide on silicon impeded the diffusion of

certain impurities, including boron

and phosphorus. This technique, coupled with photograshic masking

against etching, provides a powerful tool for silicon processing.

SOURCE:
p 1030

SEE ALSO:
L Derick
1958

first

'Surface protection and selective masking during diffusion in silicon' by

Field Effect

commercial

employed by CFTH,

was

Petritz Proc.

IRE

Frosch and

Electrochem. Soc. vol 104, p 547 (September 1957)

J.

TECHNETRON
The

R L

'Contributions of materials technology to semiconductor devices' by

(May 1962)

germanium

volts, a gate

(FET)

FET was

S Teszner (France)

produced

a General Electric

alloy semiconductor.

in

France

Company
It

had

1958, by Stanislas Teszner. a Polish scientist

in

Called the Technetron, Teszner's device

affiliate.

transonductance of 80 micro-ohms, a pinchoff of 35

leakage current of 4 microamps, and a low gate capacitance of 0.9 picofarads. The low

trans-conductance and high leakage severely limited

closer to the operating levels of

some

tubes, and

its

its

applications. But the high pinchoff voltage

was

be operated

at a

gate capacitance permitted

it

to

few megahertz.

SOURCE:

'Solid state

an

old-timer

comes of

age' by

Cohen Electronics p 123 (19 February

1968)

1958

W C Dash (USA)

PEDESTAL PULLING OF SILICON

The

'pedestal'

method was devised

to avoid

oxygen contamination and

high perfection attainable with the Czochralski technique.

heated

mound

The support

is

In this

at

the

same time achieve

method the melt

is

the

an inductively

held on top of a solid silicon support by surface tension and electromagnetic levitation.
sectored to inhibit electromagnetic coupling to the pedestal.

seed

is

inserted and the

A Concise
growing

crystal

is

withdrawn

SOURCE: 'Growth of silicon

No 4, p459 (April 1959)

WC

SEE ALSO:
1958

Dash

which may vary from

at a rate

per minute during the major part of

Description of Each Invention

its

cm

per minute

the start to 3 or 4

at

from dislocations' by

crystals free

Dash.

Appl.

J.

Phys.

vol 30,

L
sequence came the tunnel diode,

form

to

first

Esaki (Japan)

now (USA)
Again with

described by Esaki in 1958.

between two such highly-doped

a p-n junction

regions that, in equilibrium, the continuity of the Fermi level across the junction would result

energy barrier to the flow of carriers

at

mm

Appl. Phys. vol 29, p 736 (1958)

J.

hindsight, what a beautifully simple idea

impedance

growth.

TUNNEL DIODE
First in chronological

Date Order

in

low forward

in

The device

the 'forward' direction.

bias, progresses

in

an

thus presents a high

through a region of negative impedance and then into a

normal 'forward' region of positive resistance.

fairly

SOURCE:

'Semiconductor devices

SEE ALSO: 'New phenomenon

in

by

portrait of a technological explosion'

Radio and Electronic Engineer vol 45,

No

10,

Mackintosh The

p 517 (October 1975)

narrow germanium p-n Junctions' by

Esaki Phys. Rev. vol 109,

p 603 (1958)

1958

FIELD-EFFECT VARISTOR
This device, closely related

makes

it

in principle to the field-effect transistor,

ideally suited for a current regulator in circuits

over wide
high,

Bell Laboratories

limits.

making

It

can also be used as a current limiter or pulse shaper.

principles developed by Shockley,

SOURCE:

1958

'History, present status and future

first

based on the

is

very

field effect

development of electronic components' by P S Darnell

p 128 (September 1958)

'A Field Effect Varistor' Bell Labs. Record vol 36, p 150 (April 1958)

VIDEO TAPE RECORDER

The

impedance

Its a.c.
is

Dacey and Ross.

IRE Transactions on Components Parts

SEE ALSO:

has a constant-current feature which

where either the load or supply voltage varies

useful as a coupling choke or as an ac switch. This device

it

(USA)

Ampex (USA)
Ampex, was

battery of 'video' tape recorders, a system called

television studios early in 1958. This system used tape

moving

at

American

installed in the largest

a speed of

200 inches per second but

only half an inch wide; the recording being done on three tracks, two for storing the video signals and

one for sound.

special

machine

for the cutting

and editing of the tape had

edited visually like cine film. Today, the majority of television

before transmission,

in

black-and-white as well as

also easily be transferred on to videotape.

difference; the quality

An

is

live, film

is

can

programme

for

homes and

with 'cassettes', which are inserted into a special

Ampex

tape, the other 8

sound and vision, electronically recorded. The

third

mm

film with

system a British-German

venture, works with a fast-rotating (1500 rpm) disc and a pickup, providing a

SOURCE: A

could be

or video, the viewer cannot detect the

the 'canned' television

Two work

replay unit plugged into the television set; one system uses

programme of up

it

on videotape

in colour; cine-film material shot for television

Whether

important development of video recording

parallel tracks for

devised as

are recorded

equally high.

schools, There are three rival systems.

two

to be

programmes

monochrome

or colour

to 12 minutes.

History of Inventions by

Larsen (London:

Dent

&

Sons/New York: Roy

Publishers)

p 330 (1971)

1958

EXPLORER
Launched

(USA)

Satellite

February 1958. Measurement of cosmic radiation and micrometeorites. Discovery of the

than Allen radiation

belt.

Batteries. Transmitted

up

to

23

May

1958.

Decayed on

31

March 1970.

A Concise Description of Each

182

SOURCE:

Invention in Date Order

Table of Artificial Satellites Launched Between 1957 and 1976 (Geneva:

International

Telecommunication Union) (1977)

1958

VANGUARD-1

(USA)

Satellite

Launched 7 March 1958.

atmosphere. Batteries and solar

SOURCE:

Year Programme.

Part of the International Geophysical

Studied the earth and measured the

discovery of the 'pear-shaped' earth.

cells.

Transmitted

until 12

'far out'

Permitted the
density of the

February 1965.

Table of Artificial Satellites Launched Between 1957 and 1976 (Geneva:

International

Telecommunication Union) (1977)

1958

AUTOMATIC CIRCUIT ASSEMBLY

US Army

Signal Corps (USA)

('Micro-Module' System)

By 1957 the goal for packaging had shifted from automation to miniaturisation. Working with the
Army Signal Corps, RCA suggested an approach that was similar to Tinkertoy's but with smaller
wafers. Using wafers 310 mils square, spaced 10 mils apart,

RCA

encapsulated the assembled module

with an epoxy resin to increase mechanical strength and provide environmental protection.

With

RCA

as the

prime contractor for an $18-million contract, the Signal Corps promoted micromodule

as a standard package.

Danko and Weldon Lane,

Signal Corps team headed by Daniel Elders, Stan

established a continuing development

programme

4-3 Mc IE AMPLIFIER

for the

micromodule (see

figure

1.25).

CIRCUIT.

NEUTRALISING
INPUT O-

NEUTS/kLISING

OUTPUT

O OUTPUT

teOpFfJ

(HIGH)

INPUT
(HIGH)

OUTPUT
(LOW)

H"
INPUT
(LOW)

F AMPLIFIER

MICROMODULE
f=

0-36

- 3-75 v

(O-36'M

AUDIO AMPLIFIER CIRCUIT

'8-2K

-oVc
INPUT O

1|

>

-O OUTPUT

3?

2-2/-F
I-8K

:39K

b+l-25v

AUDIO AMPLIFIER MICROMODULE

0-3G

Figure 11.25. Typical micromodule

The micromodule approach combined high packaging

It

was

the

first

attempt

at

circuit assemblies.

density,

machine assembly and modular design.

functional modular replacement, where the entire

module was

treated as a

A
single component.

shaped

Concise Description of Each Invention

The programme

chance of achieving sufficient volume for a competitive

SOURCE:

'Solid state devices

packaging and

SEE ALSO:

materials' by

R L Goldberg

Satellite

Launched

October 1958.

11

RCA

DA-36-039-SC-76968

Signal Corps. Contract

PIONEER- 1

1960s, the IC deflated

its

Electronic Design vol 24,

Camden, NJ

(USA)

Moon

probe. Failed to reach the

Decayed on 12 October 1958 coming back

SOURCE:

in the early

price.

November 1972)

p 126/7 (23

1958

183

established a compact universal packaging system using standard-

But just as micromodule was gaining popularity

parts.

Date Order

in

to earth

moon. Sent data

and burning

in the

43 hours. Batteries.

for

atmosphere.

Table of Artificial Satellites Launched Between 1957 and 1976 (Geneva:

International

Telecommunication Union) (1977)

1958

SCORE

(USA)

Satellite

Launched

December

18

communication

SOURCE:

satellite.

1958.

Signal

Communication by Orbiting Relay Equipment.

First

Transmitted taped messages for 13 days. Decayed on 21 January, 1959.

Table of Artificial Satellites Launched Between 1957 and 1976 (Geneva:

International

Telecommunication Union) (1977)

1958

MOSSBAUER EFFECT
The Mossbauer
bound

effect

in

the

Mossbauer (Germany)

phenomenon of recoiless resonance fluorescence of gamma

The extreme sharpness of

in solids.

accuracy

is

RL
gamma

the recoiless

made

observing small energy differences

the

transitions

Mossbauer

and the

rays from nuclei

and

relative ease

effect an important tool in nuclear

physics, solid state physics etc.

SOURCE:

1958

LASER

The Encyclopaedia of Physics (2nd edn) edited by

&

Reinhold

Besancon (New York: Van Nostrand,

Litton Educational Pub. Inc.)

AL

(Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission

Schalow and

C H Townes (USA)

of Radiation)

Because of the great

interest

aroused by masers

it

was not

1957

until

was

that further serious attention

given to the idea of producing an optical version of the maser.

In their classic article of

1958 on the principles of laser action Schalow and Townes suggested potassium

vapour as a possible medium and much

effort

was devoted

were rather puzzling, especially as other works

this failure

to

Another medium under consideration was ruby (Cr 3+

predicted.

it

the surprise and general jubilation, therefore,

laser action in 1960.

announcing

his

Maiman's own

first

found caesium vapour

in

Bell Telephone Laboratories concluded that the existing material

of success and the experts of the time expected that the

The reasons

but with no success.

later

ALO3) although an

was much too poor

laser

was

would be based on a

short-lived as the manuscript

for

behave as

internal report at
to give

when Maiman, who had persevered with

jubilation

to

any hope

gas. Great

was

ruby, achieved

which he prepared

remarkable result was rejected by Physical Review Letters and an historic scoop of

journalism was achieved by the journals Nature and British Communications and Electronics

scientific

which carried the

Some months
few years

first

later the

announcement

in the established scientific literature.

helium/neon laser was successfully operated and there followed over the next

tremendous explosion of publications on

laser transitions in

hundreds of different materials

and on the properties of laser devices.

SOURCE:
No 10,

45,

'Lasers and optical electronics' by

A Gambling

The Radio and Electronic Engineer vol

p 539 (October 1975)

SEE ALSO:

infrared and optical masers' by

p 1940 (15 December 1958)

A L

Schalow and

C H Townes

Phys.

Rev.

vol

112,

A Concise

84

Description of Each Invention in Date Order

infrared and optical masers'

Quantum

Electronics edited by

C H Townes (New

Columbia

York:

University Press) (1960)

'Stimulated optical production in ruby' by

1958

T H Maiman

Nature vol 187, p 493 (6 August 1960)

PACEMAKER
The

A
was invented

cardiac pacemaker

1958 by Doctor Ake Senning of Sweden. The

in

The pacemaker

took place in the early 1960s.

Senning (Sweden)

is

implants

first

capable of stimulating other organs as well as the

heart.

In

October 1986 a baby was born

It

was given

a cardiac

SOURCE: The Book

NOTE: The

first

was only

three days old. This

&

Macdonald

version, the

of the

IN

was by Chandack, Gage and Greatbach

Meanwhile

COLOUR

1960.

in

1958, two years

Ampex (USA)

name

VR

Ampex.

1000 B.

It

It

was presented

was followed

1963 by a transistor

in

10.

the Japanese had been steadily

in

1958 Toshiba announced the

in

19S9

in

1962 Shiba Electric (now Hitachi),

JVC

in

Modern World' Science Museum/John Murray (1992)

video recorder, under the

VR

heart.

operation to be

first

Co.) p 96 (1990)

colour video recorder must also be credited to

first

after the first

was the

child.

self-contained pacemaker

VIDEO RECORDER
The

it

of Inventions and Discoveries Associate Editor Valerie-Anne Giscard d'Estaing

Press,

SOURCE: 'Making
1958

Manchester suffering from a congenital malformation of the

young

carried out in Europe on such a

(UK: Queen Anne

in

pacemaker when

developed the

first

first

working on video recorder technology:

singlehead video recorder;

two-head video recorder, the KVI;

in

cooperation with Asahi Broadcasting, presented a professional

transistorised video recorder;

in

1964 Sony marketed the

in

1965 Shiba Electric marketed a small portable video recorder;

in

Europe Philips launched

SOURCE: The Book

1959

first

their

video recorder for the general public;

VR

650

in 1964.

of Inventions and Discoveries Associate Editor Valerie-Anne Giscard d'Estaing

&

(UK: Queen Anne

Press,

INTRINSIC

PHOTOCONDUCTORS

Telluride

10/z

Macdonald

Co.) p 240 (1990)

W D Lawson, S Nielsen, E H

(Cadmium

and Mercury Telluride)

The elements mercury, cadmium and

Putley,

S Young (UK)

compounds CdTe

tellurium have been purified and crystals of the

and HgTe, and of the mixed compounds CdTeHgTe have been prepared. X-ray and cooling-curve data
have established

that coefficient

and conductivity measurements show

that

HgTe

is

(~

100).

HgTe

with a very low activation energy (0.01 eV) and a high mobility ratio
infrared radiation out to a wavelength of 38/x, but the
in position

with composition from 0.8/u

in

pure

CdTe

mixed

crystals

SOURCE:
Nielsen,

1959

'Preparation and properties of

E H

Putley and

S Young

J.

HgTe and mixed

circuitry

interconnections are

all

is

opaque

is

to

made from

crystals of

the

mixed

90 per cent HgTe.

crystals.

HgTe-CdTe' by

Lawson, S

Phys. Chem. Solids, vol 9, p 325 (1959)

THIN FILM CIRCUITSTANTALUM

Tantalum film

semiconductor

show absorption edges which vary

to 13/x in crystals containing

Photoconductivity has been observed in filamentary detectors

Bell Laboratories

(USA)

a single material technology in that capacitors, resistors and elementary

derived from tantalum. Use of tantalum for this purpose

is

based on

its

chemical

A Concise
and

structural stability,

to protect

and adjust

and on

Description of Each Invention in Date Order

capability of being anodized to

its

and

dielectrics for capacitors,

In addition to the general value of tantalum film circuitry, tantalum film

resistors.

and resistance networks, especially when sputtered

resistors

form

185

in nitrogen,

have independent

interest as

exceptional circuit elements.

SOURCE:
IEEE

'Developments

SEE ALSO:
vol 3, part 6,

1959

D A McLean N

tantalum nitride resistors' by

in

Schwartz and E

Tidd

March 1964)

International Convention (26

'Microcircuity with Refractory Metals' by

D A McLean IRE

Wescon Convention Record

pp 87-91 (1959)

MICROELECTRONICS (INTEGRATED

J S Kilby (USA)

CIRCUIT-PATENT)
it

is,

therefore, a principal object of this invention to provide a novel miniaturised electronic circuit

body of semiconductor material containing

fabricated from a

components of the electronic

SOURCE: US

SEE ALSO: US
1959

No

Patent

Patent

LUNIK-1 (Mechta)

3 138

No

743

filed

6 February 1959

261 081 patented 19 July 1966

SOURCE:

wherein

all

S Kilby)
(J

S Kilby and Texas Instruments).

(USSR)

In solar orbit.

Moon

studying circumterrestrial and circumlunar space.

moon. Emission of

(J

Satellite

Launched 2 January 1959.

a diffused p-n junction

completely integrated into the body of semiconductor material.'

circuit are

sodium vapour cloud.

probe passed within 600

No

magnetic

field

km

detected

of moon. Equipment for

when

passing close to the

Batteries.

Table of Artificial Satellites Launched Between

1957 and 1976 (Geneva:

International

Telecommunication Union) (1977)

1959

DISCOVERER- 1

(USA)

Satellite

Launched 28 February 1959.

mission not fully accomplished.

Stabilization defective:

Decayed

early

March 1959.

SOURCE:

Table of Artificial Satellites Launched Between

1957 and 1976 (Geneva:

International

Telecommunication Union) (1977)

1959

PLANAR PROCESS
At Fairchild, Dr Jean

mesa

transistors.

A Hoemi (USA)

Hoerni, a physicist, was trying to develop a family of double-diffused silicon

But instead of mounting the base layer on top of the collector, the traditional mesa

approach, Hoerni diffused

it

down

into the collector

and protected the base-collector junction on the

top surface with a layer of boron-and-phosphorous diffused silicon oxide. This

was

less brittle than the

mesa and

far

more

reliable

first

planar transistor

dust or other foreign matter could not contaminate

the protected p-n junction. In 1959 Fairchild started marketing planar transistors and shortly thereafter

applied the planar technique to the

SOURCE:

'Silicon,

germanium

&

new

integrated circuits.

silver

the transistor's 25 anniversary' by

C P Kocher

The Electrical

Engineer p 30 (November 1972)

1960

COMPUTER-AIDED DESIGN

Military (USA)

Computer-aided design (CAD) began

in the

1960s

in the

context of

US

military aeronautics design

programs.

The term

refers to a set of techniques that can

be used

designed, to manipulate that data in a conversational

to create data that describe an object to be

mode and

to arrive at a finished

form of the

design.

After
It

its

adoption by military,

CAD

penetrated civil aeronautics and the auto and computing industries.

enables an object (for example, a car) to be drawn in three dimensions and to be examined

in a

A Concise

86

Description of Each Invention

number of

great

in

Date Order

even before the building has begun. Today

theoretical circumstances,

CAD

plays an

essential role in almost all fields of industry.

SOURCE:
(New
1960

and Discoveries 1993

Inventions

edited by Valerie-Anne Giscard d'Estaing and

HD

NEURISTOR

may be

neuristor

The

Mark Young

York: Facts on File) p 219

is

visualised as a channel having energy available to

it

everywhere along

its

length.

channel includes certain triggerable (active) processes arranged so that when any section

line or

of line

Crane (USA)

triggered the locally available energy

neighbouring sections of line are activated.

to as a discharge, since

converted into 'trigger form'. Thus, successive

is itself

signal propagating in this

manner

is

generally referred

continually regenerated by discharging available energy into the line as

it is

it

propagates.

SOURCE:

'Neuristor

H D

by

a novel design and system concept'

Crane Proc. IRE vol 50, p 2048

(October 1962)

SEE ALSO:
AD240306

'Neuristor studies' by

H D

Crane Stanford Electronics Lab.

Rept.

Tech.

No

1056-2

(11 July 1960)

'An integrable

MOS

neuristor line' by

Kulkarni-Kohli and

Newcombe

Proc.

IEEE p 1630

(November 1976)
1960

FEMITRON

Microwave devices incorporating

The term

and Dyke.

field-emission cathodes have been described by Charbonnier et al,

'femitron' was, in fact,

in particular

it,

used by Dyke to describe a microwave amplifier

first

resembling a 2-cavity klystron but incorporating a

femitron and derivatives of

W P Dyke (USA)

Microwave Amplifier)

(Field Emission

emission cathode in the input-cavity gap. The

field

frequency-multiplying devices, have also been investigated

by Fontana and Shaw.

SOURCE:

'Field emission

Electron Devices vol

SEE ALSO:
J

No

microwave
p

5,

a reappraisal' by

amplifier:

5 1 (September

Sangster IEE Solid-State

'Basic and applied studies of field emission at microwave frequencies' by

P Barbour, L E

'Field emission, a

Garrett and

newly

W P Dyke Proc.

IEEE

practical electron source'

'Microwave devices with

field

&

977)

vol 51,

by

emission cathodes' by

P Dyke IRE

M Charbonnier,

pp 991-1004 (1963)
Trans, vol 4, pp 38, 45 (1960)

Fontana and

Shaw

Trans. Amer.

Inst.

Engrs. vol 81, pp 43-8 (1962)

"The carbon

1960

fibre field emitter'

by F S Baker

et al J.

Appl.Phys. vol

SUB-MILLIMETRE PHOTOCONDUCTIVE

DETECTOR

E H

Photoconductivity has been observed using a cryostat

fitted

and harmonic generator operating

room temperature and

The sample dimensions were

cm x

.0

cm

faces.

at

mm

and 4

a black polythene

0.5

cm x

The magnetic

0.5

cm x

field

with a light pipe so that a specimen 2 could

and 4.0

0.1

mercury lamp and grating spectrometer covering the range

0.5

Putley (UK)

(n-Type InSb)

be illuminated with radiation of wavelength between

filter at

pp 2105-15 (1974)

7,

0.1 to

mm. The

filter in

1.0

cm

was applied

mm. The sources of radiation were a

.4 mm. and a Philips DX151 klystron

light-pipe

the helium to

was

fitted

with a black paper

remove short-wave

and indium electrodes were applied

at right

radiation.
to opposite

angles to the direction of current flow

and of the incident radiation. The radiation was directed along the long direction of the sample. For
the majority of these experiments the radiation

amplifier and phase sensitive detector.

n-lype indium antimonide.

was modulated

at

800

c/s

and detected using

a tuned

When

was reduced

the temperature

at

below

to

was about 10-30S2.

the sample resistance

minimum

Concise Description of Each Invention

1.5

mm

SOURCE:

and lO"

at

Date Order

187

and a magnetic induction of 6-8000 gauss applied,

The sample was

able to detect the applied radiation the

x 10~ 10

detectable energy per unit bandwidth being approximately 5

10

in

0.5

at

mm,

5 x

10"

4 mm.

impurity photoconductivity

in n-type InSb' Proc.

Phys.

No

vol 76, part 5,

Soc.

491

(1

November 1960) p 802

1960

COMPUTERS (CD
CDC

The

1604

general-purpose data-processing system manufactured by the Control-Data

is

The

Corporation.

Control-Data Corporation (USA)

1604)

first installation

was made

The

diodes and 25 000 transistors.

in

January 1960. The entire system includes some 100000

number system

internal

There are 62 24-bit one-address instructions (2 per word) each including a

bits.

and 15

a three-bit index

bits for the address.

Arithmetic

are provided.

is

Indirect addressing

Addition requires 4.8 to 9.6

32768 words of magnetic-core

including storage access.

six-bit operation code,

and

six index registers

in the parallel

synchronous mode

built-in

is

performed with fixed or floating point

concurrently with other operations.

word length of 48

the binary, with a

is

multiplication 25.2 to 63.6 /xs

(is,

storage are provided. Input-output equipment

includes paper-tape typewriter, punched cards, magnetic tape (up to 24 units) and a

667-1000

lines-

per-minute printer.

SOURCE.
Dyne

1960

'The evolution of computing machines and systems' by Serrell, Astrahan, Patterson and

IRE p 1054 (May 1962)

Proc.

PRINTED WIRING MULTILAYER BOARDS

Photocircuits Corp.

Miniaturised replacement for back-panel wiring in computers

sandwiches produced
are being

in

made by

many

new development

complicated interconnections

among

levels in a multilayered circuit are

will

Sea Cliff Ave., Glen Cove,

31

have uses

closely spaced

New

York.

The

having multiple crossovers and

in circuits

component

made through use of

Connections between different

leads.

Tuf-Plate plated-through-holes.

sandwich measures only 0.026 inch

layered printed circuit

may be accomplished by printed circuit

and pressure. The components

layers and laminated together under heat

Photocircuits Corporation,

manufacturer believes the

(USA)

typical six-

in thickness compared with a thickness of

0.062 inch for a conventional single circuit board.

SOURCE: 'On
1960

the market

PC sandwich six-layered

COMPUTERS (HONEYWELL
The Honeywell 800

is

p 90 (8 April 1960)

unit' Electronics

Honeywell (USA)

800)

a general purpose data-processing system capable of running as

programmes simultaneously without

special instructions.

The

installation

first

many

was made

as 8 distinct

in

December

1960.

The system includes 30000 diodes and 6000

number
digits.

are

structure

These 48

59 basic

is

excluding peripheral equipment. The internal

transistors,

binary and binarycoded decimal with a word length of 48

bits are assignable to

bits,

or 12 decimal

numerical, alphanumerical or pure binary information.

instructions, each consisting of a twelve-bit operation core

There

and 3 twelve-bit addresses.

Eight index registers are available for each of the 8 programmes which can be run concurrently. Other
special-purpose registers are available. Arithmetic

mode, concurrently with other operations.

storage access.

Up

to

is

performed

in a

Addition requires 24

32000 words of magnetic-core

synchronous parallel-serial-parallel

/xs,

multiplication 162 ps including

storage can be used.

includes punched cards, paper tape and a 900 lines-per-minute printer.

Up

to

Input-output equipment

64 magnetic tape

units

can be connected to the system.

SOURCE:
Dyne

Proc.

'The evolution of computing machines and systems' by Serrell, Astrahan, Patterson and

IRE p 1054 (May 1962)

A Concise Description of Each

188

1960

CIRCUITRY

Various (USA)

(Linear Integrated Circuits)

came

Linear ICs

Invention in Date Order

own

into their

op amps,

Starting with

in the 1960s.

grew

steadily

two manufacturers

Texas

linear monolithics

complexity and functions.

in

Monolithic op amps were

the result of the

acceptance

first

more

introduced in the early

first

Instruments and Westinghouse

were

selling models.

an industry accustomed

its

development led

Talbert.

came out with

but use resistors and capacitors

and diodes, even matched transistors and diodes

particularly those of large value

limited

stories in

Rather than translate a discrete

sorts.

design into a monolithic form, the standard approach, Widlar played the linear microcircuit
different set of rules: use transistors

the 702,

The 702 found

one of the biggest success

to the 709,

them. The 709 was a revolution of

to

least

Fairchild, in 1964,

Bob Widlar and Dave

collaboration between

significantly,

At

1960s.

Then

only where necessary.

use of a big resistor seemed inevitable, Widlar put a dc-biased transistor in

its

place.

game by

with impunity,
He

Even where
exploited the

monolith's natural ability to produce matched resistors and only assumed loose absolute values.

SOURCE:
1960

E A

integrated circuits' by

Torrero Electronic Design vol 24, p 77 (23

LIGHT EMITTING DIODE (LED)

known

has been

It

some time

for

that rectifying contacts to

through them (Wolff el al 1955). Experiments

at this

November 1972)

W Allen and P E Gibbons (UK)

GaP

emit light when current

is

passed

laboratory and elsewhere suggest that the electronic

transitions involved in this electroluminescence are different for the

two directions of current

flow.

We

consider alloyed or point-contact junctions on n-type GaP. Then the light emitted with forward bias has
a

spectrum which

is

a comparatively

present in the GaP. If the junction

certain voltage

which has

is

a very

is

Beyond

reached.

narrow band, the position of the band depending on the impurities

biased in the reverse direction the current flowing

broad spectrum extending from the infra-red

(Loebner and Poor 1959).

would seem

It

and orange

this voltage the current increases rapidly

down

to the absorption

that electroluminescence in the

is

small until a

light is emitted

edge or beyond

forward direction

is

radiative recombination of injected carriers via impurity levels, while that in the reverse direction

by

to emission

'hot' carriers

SOURCE: 'Breakdown

and

produced by an avalanche break down (Chynoweth and

light

Journal of Electronics vol VII,

1960

COMPUTERS
The

UNIVAC

Solid State 80/90

a central processor, a

SOURCE:

1960

in

gallium phosphide diodes' by

Launched

to

due

1956).

W Allen and P E Gibbons

Sperry Corporation (USA)

was designed

as a

medium-sized dataprocessing system.

The term

use of 'Ferractor' magnetic amplifiers and transistors. The system consists of

read-punch

450 card-per-minute card reader and

unit, a

installation

was made

in

for either the

600 lines-per-minute

80-column or the 90-column punched-card

January 1960.

'The evolution of computing machines and systems' by Serrell, Astrahan, Patterson and

Proc.

TIROS-1

first

is

p 518 (December 1959)

The card equipment can be obtained

system. The

Dyne

6,

(UNI VAC Solid State 80/90)

'solid-state' refers to the

printer.

emission

No

McKay

due

IRE p 1053 (May 1962)

(USA)

Satellite

April 1960.

First

meteorological

satellite.

Sent

22952 photos up

to 17

June 1960. 9000

solar cells. Batteries.

SOURCE:

Table of

Artificial

Satellites

Launched Between 1957 and 1976 (Geneva:

International

Telecommunication Union) (1977)

1960

ECHO-1

(USA)

Satellite

Launched 12 August 1960. Passive telecommunication

70

solar cells

SOURCE:

and

satellite.

Relayed voice and television signals.

batteries.

Table of Artificial Satellites Launched Between 1957 and 1976 (Geneva:

Telecommunication Union) (1977)

International

A Concise Description of Each

1960

COURIER-IB

Invention in Date Order

189

(USA)

Satellite

Launched 4 October 1960.

First active repeater

communication

satellite.

Operated for 17 days. 19 152

solar cells. Batteries.

SOURCE:

Table of Artificial Satellites Launched Between 1957 and 1976 (Geneva:

International

Telecommunication Union) (1977)

1960

TRANSIT-IB

(USA)

Satellite

Launched 13 April 1960.

Batteries.

Decayed on

SOURCE:

First navigation

Transmitted

satellite.

12 July

until

1960.

Solar cells.

5 October 1967.

Table of Artificial Satellites Launched Between 1957 and 1976 (Geneva:

International

Telecommunication Union) (1977)

1960

EPITAXIAL CRYSTAL

GROWTH

HH

H Christensen, J J
& H C Theurer (USA)

Loor,

Kleimock

Until 1960 the semiconductor industry followed a pattern of starting with a crystal as pure as needed in
the initial stage, and each step

added impurities

new method of

Laboratories announced a

from the gas phase with controlled impurity

laboratories, but

was not

it

semiconductor industry.

until the

Its

in a controlled

manner. In June 1960, the Bell Telephone

fabricating transistors using epitaxial single crystals

This technique had been studied

levels.

1960 announcement

unique advantage

that the potential

grow very

the ability to

is

was

fully

at a

grown

number of

grasped by the

thin regions of controlled

purity.

SOURCE:

R L

'Contributions of materials technology to semiconductor devices' by

Petritx Proc.

IRE

p 1030 (May 1962)

SEE ALSO: 'New

advances

Theurer. Presented

at the

'Epitaxy

approach

a fresh

by

in diffused devices'

IRE/AIEE

semiconductor

to

H H

Loor,

Christensen,

J J

Kleimock and H

Solid State Device Research Corp. Pittsburgh,

PA

(June 1960)

Motorola S/C Products

circuit design' Materials Dept.

Division International Electronics p 24 (March 1964)

1960

TELEPHONE ELECTRONIC SWITCHING SYSTEM

Bell

Labs (USA)

Historically, electronic switching systems for telephone

communications began

pioneering development undertaken there. The world's

first

place in Morris,

(No 101 ESS

111

(1960), and the

first

equipment

is

now found

is

in the

proceeding rapidly

80 percent of the world's switching

'ESS: 'Minimonster' by

One

many

countries, the bulk of

of the most significant developments

PBX

Suppl,

No

flexibility,

and here the

US

made

possible

accounts for over

entities.

A E

Joel Jnr.

IEEE Spectrum

'Morris electronic telephone exchange' by

IEEE 107

'Electronic

in

US. More than 82 percent of the world's telephone

by electronic switching has been stored program control

SEE ALSO:

their

switched electronically, as well as more than 48 percent of the world's electronic central

office systems, are located in the United States.

Proc.

and saw

production system was placed in service in the United States

While the development of electronic switching

SOURCE:

US

in 1963).

installed electronic
lines that are

in the

electronic switching field experiment took

20, p 257

p 33 (August 1976)

Keister,

Ketchledee and

C A

Lovell

(November 1960)

telephone switching systems (ESS 101)' by

A Depp

and

M A

Townsend IEEE

Trans. Communications, vol 83, p 329 (July 1964)

1960-

CIRCUITRY

Various (USA)

(Logic Circuits)

1964

Much

of the early activity was involved with digital logic families. Almost from the beginning, a host

of semiconductor manufacturers were attempting to establish the dominance of one logic family over
the other or

were second-sourcing the strong

suit

of a competitor.

A Concise

90

At the

Description of Each Invention in Date Order

start resistor-transistor logic

were strongly promoting

formed Signetics, and

took

it

High Level Logic (SUHL)

(RTL) seemed

Then

it.

in

way

to be the

diode-transistor logic

go Fairchild and Texas Instruments

1962 from the recently

in

(TTL) emerged

Transistor-transistor logic

off.

to

(DTL) appeared

1963 and again, more permanently,

in

Sylvania's Universal

in

Texas Instruments' 5400

series in

1964.

SOURCE:
1961

integrated Circuits' by

Torrero Electronic Design vol 24, p 76 (23

TAPE CASSETTE
It

was

in

1961 that the Dutch

was unveiled

in Berlin,

of charge so as

SOURCE:
(New

to

November 1972)

Philips (Holland)

company

long and designed for stereo and

1961

E A

mono

Germany

Philips developed the

first

mini tape cassette, which was 3.9 in

recordings. This cassette, along with the

in 1963. Philips

first

cassette recorder,

decided to allow manufactures to use

its

patent free

encourage the spread of the system throughout the world.

Inventions

and Discoveries 1993

Mark Young

edited by Valerie-Anne Giscard d'Estaing and

York: Facts on File) p 138.

B K

TRANSFERRED ELECTRON EFFECT

The

possibility of obtaining negative resistance effects in a

The

principle of the

is to

when they have

they transfer

SOURCE:

method

Ridley and

new way

in

T B Watkins (UK)

semiconductors

is

discussed.

heat carriers in a high mobility sub-band with an electric field so that

a high

enough 'temperature'

'The possibility of negative resistance effects

to a higher

in

energy low mobility sub-band.

semiconductors' by

B K

Ridley and

T B

Watkins Proc. Physical Soc. vol LXXVIII, p 293 (1961)

SEE ALSO: H Kromer

1961

Phys. Rev. vol 109, p 1856 (1958)

TRANSFERRED ELECTRONIC DEVICE

some semiconductors

In

the conduction

band system has two minima separated by only

and the lower minimum has associated with

At high

electric fields

it

C Hilsum (UK)

it

a smaller electron effective

a small energy,

mass than the upper minimum.

should be possible to transfer electrons to the upper

minimum where

they will

have a power mobility. The conductivity of a homogeneous crystal bar can therefore decrease as the
field is

increased and

it

is

semi-insulating GaAs.

SOURCE:

It

The

conceivable that a differential negative resistance could be obtained.

conditions needed for obtaining negative resistance are examined, and calculations

made

for

GaSb and

appears that negative resistances should be observable in both these materials.

'Transferred electron amplifiers and oscillators' by

C Hilsum

IRE

Proc.

vol 50,

No

2,

p 185

(February 1962)

SEE ALSO:

'Proposed negative mass microwave amplifier' by

H Kromer

Phys. Rev. vol 109, p 1856

(March 1958)

indium phosphide:
State

&

semiconductor for microwave devices' by

Electronic Devices vol

'Three-level oscillator: a
Lett,

1961

vol 6, p

1,

No

new form

1,

of transferred-electron device' by

Rees and

Hilsum and

some

The

Gray IEE Solid

H D Rees

Electron.

GaAs and Ge from

the

resulting technology has been found to posess advantages over vapour-phase epitaxy in

applications

film interface.

Nelson (USA)

apparatus and procedures have been developed for the epitaxial growth of

liquid state.

277 (1960)

LIQUID PHASE EPITAXY

An

H D

(September 1976)

demanding highly doped

In this connection,

impurities and mechanical

it

is

epitaxial films

and high-quality p-n junctions

at the substrate-

an important feature of the liquid phase process that chemical

damage of the

substrate are

the substrate surface prior to epitaxial growth.

removed when

material

is initially

clean interface p-n junction

is

dissolved from

thus obtained.

Since

liquid-phase epitaxy also favours the achievement of high doping and a steet concentration gradient

at

the p-n junctions, the process has proved itself eminently suitable for application in the manufacture

A
of

Ge

Concise Description of Each Invention

GaAs

In its application to the fabrication of the

tunnel diodes.

advantage of the liquid-phase process that the interface p-n junction

As

consequence,

this

planes of the wafer.

junction)

p-n junction

perfectly planar

is

An optimum geometry

Date Order

laser diode,

formed on

and also perpendicular

it

191

an additional

is

a (100) crystal plane.

to the (110) cleavage

(plane-parallel ends perpendicular to a perfectly

thus insured for diodes cleaved from (100) oriented

is

is

in

GaAs

flat

p-n

wafers whose p-n junction has

been formed by liquid-phase epitaxy.

SOURCE:

'Epitaxial

by

laser diodes'

SEE ALSO:

growth from the liquid

Nelson

'Epitaxial

RCA

state

and

its

application to the fabrication of tunnel and

Review p 603 (December 1963)

growth from the liquid phase' by

Nelson Solid State Device Conference

Stanford University (26 June 1961)

and applications III-V compound films deposited by liquid phase epitaxy' by

'Properties

H
1961

Kressel and

Nelson Physics of Thin Films vol 7 (New York: Academic Press) (1973)

VENUS-1

(USSR)

Satellite

Launched 12 February 1961. Automatic interplanetary

May

Minimum

1961.

distance to Venus

100000 km.

in the

second half of

Investigation of the radiation belts and of space radiation.

of solar corpuscular radiation.

measurements. Investigation of meteoristic dust. Solar

SOURCE:

Reached Venus

station.

Investigation of interplanetary ionised gas and

Magnetic

cells, batteries.

Table of Artificial Satellites Launched Between 1957 and 1976 (Geneva:

International

Telecommunication Union) (1977)

1961

VOSTOK-1

(USSR)

Satellite

Launched 12 April 1961.

after

one

orbit

SOURCE:

and

1.8

First

hours

in

manned

satellite.

Pilot Yuri Gagarin.

Returned

space on 12 April 1961 near Smelovka, 800

Table of Artificial Satellites Launched Between

km

USSR

to earth in the

south-east of

1957 and 1976 (Geneva:

Moscow.

International

Telecommunication Union) (1977)

1961

ELECTRONIC CLOCK
According

moving

P Vogel

to the present invention there is

parts

which comprises an

means arranged

distributing

to

&

Cie (Switzerland)

provided an electronic clock comprising no macroscopic

oscillator for delivering electrical

pulses at a given frequency,

be controlled by said oscillator for delivering

at

outputs thereof the

pulses delivered by the oscillator, a counting device arranged to be controlled by the oscillator for
delivering signals of a frequency of n cycles per hour, where n

is

an integral factor of 60, and

cycle

per minute, an electronic switch arranged to be controlled by the distributing means for delivering
signals corresponding to the state of the counting device said signals being associated with hours and

minutes successively,

SOURCE:

made

in the

MERCURY-ATLAS-4
Launched

13

USA

SOURCE:

docks'

(USA)

Satellite

stations).

on 13 September 1961.

in or relating to electronic

(No 94832) on 10 March 1961.

September 1961. Test of

performance (tracking
orbit

No 995 546 'Improvements

British Patent Specification

Application

1961

to a distribution matrix for controlling a display device.

a cabin with a

Cabin recovered

dummy

on board. Checking of ground equipment

in the Atlantic

260

km

east of the

Bermudas

after 1st

Batteries.

Table of Artificial Satellites Launched Between 1957 and 1976 (Geneva:

International

Telecommunication Union) (1977)

1961

OSCAR-1

(USA)

Satellite

Launched 12 December, 1961.

Decayed on 31 January 1962.

Orbital Satellite Carrying

Amateur Radio. Transmitted

for 18 days.

A Concise

92

SOURCE:

Description of Each Invention

in

Date Order

Table of Artificial Satellites Launched Between 1957 and 1976 (Geneva:

International

Telecommunication Union) (1977)

1961

MINICOMPUTER
It

is

generally accepted that the

12-bit
a

Digital

4K word memory machine

machine of

this type,

first

15 000.

and the market blossomed rapidly with

specialised machines with 8, 12 or 16 bits and varying

still

the

MSI and

SI logic,

strides

(USA)
in

1961

applications were found for

number of manufacturers designing

The

1500,

direct descendants of such

a reduction of 10:1

i.e.

was made possible by

which allowed computers

early days

Many

sizes.

available at prices around

same time increasing performance. Since those

and peripheral support great

memory

ten years. This price reduction, and/or increase in performance,

of integrated circuits,

Inc.

minicomputer was designed by Digital Equipment

selling for approximately

machines, with increased power are

Equipment

to

become

over

the introduction

physically smaller while

when machines had very

little

at

software

have been made with the addition of extras, such as disks and

magnetic tapes which allow the provision of operating systems running high level languages.

SOURCE: 'How

minicomputers can produce an integrated solution

Evans. Paper read

1962

SATELLITE
The

first

satellite,

and

the

(Telstar

earth satellite

was launched by

the

USSR

on 4 October 1957. Telstar

new form of

lb satellite

is

expected to remain

was powered by nickel-cadmium

the

first

communication

batteries,

(a

in orbit for

some 200

recharged by 3600 solar

I,

now

years;

cells,

and

travelling-wave tube for amplifying signals).

July 1962, 16 European countries were exchanging live television with the United States and

Telstar 2, launched on 7
satellite.

May

1963, paved the

way

commercial communication

for the world's first

Early Bird.

SOURCE:
1962

I,

global communication by sound and vision. Telstar

contained 1064 transistors and a single electron tube

By 23

successfully transmitted high-definition television pictures across the Atlantic on 10 July 1962,

has orbited the Earth about 17 000 times and

170

running of a business' by

Various (USA)

I)

successors promise a

its

silent,

at

to the

Seminex, London (25 March 1976)

'The scope of modern electronics' by F

MERCURY-ATLAS-6 'FRIENDSMP-7'

astronaut John

H Glenn

Jr.

& Power p

13 (January 1969)

(USA)

Satellite

Launched 20 February 1962. Investigation of man's

spacecraft:

Benson Electronics

capability in space.

First

Capsule recovered on 20 February 1962

United States manned

after three orbits

and

4.6-hour lifetime. Batteries.

SOURCE:

Table of Artificial Satellites Launched Between 1957 and 1976 (Geneva:

International

Telecommunication Union) (1977)

1962

OSO-1

(USA)

Satellite

Launched 7 March 1962. Orbiting Solar Observatory. Measurement of

in the ultraviolet,

data on 75 solar flares until 6 August 1963.

SOURCE:

solar electromagnetic radiation

X-ray and gamma-ray regions. Investigation of dust particles

I860 solar

in space.

Transmitted

cells.

Table of Artificial Satellites Launched Between 1957 and 1976 (Geneva:

International

Telecommunication Union) (1977)

1962

RELAY-1

Satellite

Launched

13

December 1962. Active telecommunication

Measurement of energy
components.

microwave communications.

satellite to test

levels of space radiation. Study of radiation effect on solar cells and electronic

Transmission of one television broadcast.

teleprinter circuits

SOURCE:

(USA)

8215 solar

cells, batteries.

12 simultaneous 2-way phone calls or 144

Experiments conducted

until

Table of Artificial Satellites Launched Between 1957 and

Telecommunication Union) (1977)

February 1965.

1976 (Geneva:

International

A Concise
1962

MOS

(Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor)

CIRCUIT
Who made

the

MOS

first

Description of Each Invention in Date Order

INTEGRATED

1962

RCA

the

at

SOURCE:
1962

multipurpose logic block of 16

MOS'

first

'DUANE' RELIABILITY

by

MOS

first

succeed in

to

transistors into a silicon chip,

GROWTH THEORY

Historically, the subject of reliability

in

T Duane (USA)

T Duane

in 1962, the literature

on

this subject

has proliferated.

However, these

had no

efforts

statistically

on

actual data

developed theory

reliability to fix their initial or starting points for their

growth curves.

in the structural reliability analysis, data relative to inherent or analytical reliability

available and evolving since 1955. This data

obtained from

first

time

late

mils.

growth theory of electronic systems has received an abundance of

to test their models.

of inherent or analytical design

50 x 50

October 1962.

investigators developed reliability growth analysis techniques based

and used these data

However,

Hofstein and Frederick P

Socolovsky The Electronic Engineer p 56 (February 1970)

attention and concern. Beginning with

Duane and other

F P Heiman (USA)

Stanley, head of the Integrated Electronics

1962 Electron Devices Meeting

their success at the

'The

Electronic Research Laboratory in Princeton, NJ, were the

in integrating a

They reported

Hofstein and

Undoubtedly, Drs Steven

integrated circuit?

Heiman, who working under the direction of Thomas

Group

193

became

static structural tests

has been

available with the publication of Jablecki of data

of major aircraft structural subsystems under relatively

controlled conditions at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in the years 1940 to 1949.

SOURCE:

'A theory of

Reliability

and Maintainability Symposium p 106 (1980)

SEE ALSO:

growth

reliability

in structural

systems' by

H B Chenoweth

'Learning curve approach to reliability monitoring' by

Aerospace vol

2,

Proceedings Annual

T Duane IEEE

Transactions on

p 563-6 (1964)

'Analysis of premature structural failures in static tested aircraft' by

S Jablecki Dissertation Die

Eidgenossichen Technesche Hochschule, Zurich, Switzerland (1955)

1962

B D Josephson (UK)

JOSEPHSON EFFECT
In spite of the fact that the history of the

(1962) for

its

Josephson effect

is

quite long,

theoretical prediction. Prior experimental results published

it

is

attributed to

Josephson

by Hahn and Meissner (1932)

by Dietrich (1952) and by Giaver and Megerle (1961) have been given without definite conclusions or
doubt about

effects, so that they

the Josephson absorption effect

1963) for

first

in

could not be decisive for discovery. The experimental confirmation of

(known

published results.

The

as the a.c. Josephson effect)

current discontinuities

in

is

attributed to Shapiro (1962,

the current-voltage characteristic

of the Josephson junction, introduced by the macroscopic quantum absorption effect, thus became
the generally accepted fact in physics.

In

emission effect (frequently termed as the

addition Janson el al (1965) described the Josephson

Josephson

d.c.

effect).

Further,

first-order

discoveries

based on the Josephson effect have been: the Mercerau effect or macroscopis quantum interference,
frequency multiplication (Mercerau

measurements (Langenberg

ratio

paper

in

1964), frequency mixing (Grimes and Shapiro 1966),

et al

et al

1966), followed by a series of other applications.

Josephson voltage introduction

is

published by Finnegan et al (1971).

The

e/h

crucial

This paper presents

clear and firm experimental evidence that the Josephson voltage stability exceeds the best Weston-cell
batteries used as national primary voltage standards.

SOURCE:

'An analysis of the inflexion point structure of Josephson absorption effect current

Ranko Mutabzija

Int.

SEE ALSO: 'New

I

Electronics vol 42,

Finnegan,

Giaver and

No

superconducting devices' by

Dietrich Z. Phys. vol 133, p

TF
I

J.

3,

B D Josephson.

Wireless World p

D N

by

484 (October 1966)

499 (1952)

Denenstein and

steps'

p 241 (1977)

Langenberg Phys. Rev.

Megerle Phys. Rev. vol 122, p 1101 (1961)

vol 4, p 1487 (1971)

A Concise

194

Description of Each Invention in Date Order

C C Grimes

and S Shapiro Phys. Rev. vol 169, p 186 (1966)

R Hahn

W Meissner

and

B D Josephson

DN
J

Physics

Langenberg,

E Mercerau, R C

vol

Lett,

An

B N

Taylor Phys. Rev. vol 150, p 186 (1966)

Lambe and A H

which each

SOURCE:

Cie (Switzerland)

unit comprises or consists of a layer of semi-conductive material, the layers being

their interfaces insulated

No:l 057 453 'Electronic Timepieces'.

British Patent Specification

MICROELECTRONICS

SOURCE:

as the

Yung Tao

and originally had 10

1/8 inch

(Flat-Pack)

modern

to lack sufficient heat sinking

a standard package size,

selected points at

made

Application

in

'Solid state devices

circuit

Tao (USA)

element of the early 1960s, transistor packages

and adequate interconnections. To dissipate heat and provide

created the flatpack in 1962 while at Texas Instruments.

It

was

1/4

leads.

packaging

and materials'

R L Goldberg

Electronic Design vol 24,

November 1972)

p 127 (23

SEMICONDUCTOR LASER

R N Hall, J D Kingsley, G E Fenner,

T J Soltys and R O Carlson (USA)

Coherent infrared radiation has been observed from forward biased

for this behaviour

is

GaAs

beam

pronounced narrowing of the spectral distribution of

upon

light,

the

increases abruptly, and upon

beam beyond

this

Evidence

p-n junctions.

based upon the sharply beamed radiation pattern of the emitted

observation of a threshold current beyond which the intensity of the

emission

at

November 1962

With the emergence of the IC

were found

from each other except

connected together.

electrically

Switzerland (No 13423) on 16

the

&

P Vogel

electronic timepiece, comprising an oscillator unit; a frequency divider unit and a time display

which the units are

by

274 (1964)

Silver Phys. Rev. Lett, vol 12, p

vol 11, p 80 (1963); Phys. Rev. vol 169, p 186 (1967)

Lett,

sandwiched together and having

1962

p 251 (1962)

ELECTRONIC WATCH
unit, in

1962

1,

Parker and

Jaklevic, J J

S Shapiro Phys. Rev.

1962

vol 74, p 715 (1932)

Z. Phys.

The stimulated

threshold.

believed to occur as the result of transitions between states of equal wave number in the

is

condition and valence bands.

SOURCE:
J

SEE ALSO:

R O

Carlson Phys. Rev.

Nathan and

1962

No

9,

p 366

G E

Hall,

Fenner,

GaAs

Kingsley,

November 1962)

(1

is

increased.

p-n junction.

As

We

is

the narrowing of

have observed such narrowing of an emission

the injection current

narrows by a factor of more than 20 to a width of

line

increased, the emission line at

is

We

less than kT/5.

believe that this narrowing

direct evidence for the occurrence of stimulated emission.

SOURCE:

R N

junctions' by

vol 9,

characteristic effect of stimulated emission of radiation in a fluorescing material

from a forward-biased

is

Lett,

Lasher (USA)

the emission line as the excitation

77

GaAs

'Coherent light emission from

Soltys and

Burns, F

'Stimulated emission of radiation from

MARINER-2

Dill Jr

and

p-n junctions' by

No

1,

fields,

p 62

1,

(1

Nathan,

P Dumke,

November 1962)

(USA)

Satellite

Launched 27 August 1962.

magnetic

GaAs

Lasher. App. Phys. Lett, vol

Data on interplanetary space during

charged particle distribution and intensity flux and

density of solar plasma and energy of

its

particles.

1962. Contact lost on 3 January 1963 at 87

Flew by

trip to

the planet

390000 km from

Venus, survey of the planet;

momentum

earth.

of cosmic dust, flow and

and scanned

9800

it

on 14 December

solar cells (222

W)

batteries.

A Concise Description of Each

SOURCE:

Invention in Date Order

Table of Artificial Satellites Launched Between 1957 and 1976 (Geneva:

195

International

Telecommunication Union) (1977)

1962

MARS-1

(USSR)

Satellite

Launched

November

1962.

Long-term space exploration.

radiocommunications. Lost earth lock

SOURCE:

106

at

Mkm.

Establishment of interplanetary space

Passed within 193 000

km

of planet. Solar

Table of Artificial Satellites Launched Between 1957 and 1976 (Geneva:

cells.

International

Telecommunication Union) (1977)

1962

ARIEL-1

(UK)

Satellite

Launched 26 April 1962. Ionspheric

X-ray and cosmic data

until

satellite

November

launched by United States rocket. Transmitted ionospheric.

1964. Solar cells.

Decayed on 24 May 1976.

SOURCE:

Table of Artificial Satellites Launched Between 1957 and 1976 (Geneva:

International

Telecommunication Union) (1977)

1963

RG

INK JET PRINTING PROCESS

In the early 1960s,

Sweet developed

Sweet (USA)

method of forming, charging and

electrostatically deflecting a

high-speed stream of small ink drops to produce high frequency oscillograph traces
signal-recording system. Each drop

is

given an electrostatic charge that

The drop

value of the electrical input signal to be recorded.

amount

depends on the magnitude of

that

of the charge.
is

As

charge and

its

is

is

in a direct-writing,

a function of the instantaneous

then deflected from

its

normal path by an

in a direction that is a function

moving

deflected drops are deposited on a strip of

chart paper, a trace

of the polarity
is

formed

that

representative of the input signal.

Lewis and Brown extended Sweet's technique

are stored in binary

form

to permit the printing of characters.

in a character generator.

to select a desired character.

An encoded

The binary image of

Character images

signal addresses the character generator

that character is then

used to generate the drop

charging signals necessary to deflect drops to the appropriate character matrix positions.

SOURCE: 'Application of ink jet technology to a word processing output printer'

D Hill, T H Williams and J W Woods IBM Journal of Research & Development p
SEE ALSO:

'High frequency recording with electrostatically deflected ink

Electronics Laboratory Technical Report

No

1772-1. Stanford University,

'High frequency recording with electrostatically deflected ink

CA

by

Buehler,

R G Sweet

Stanford

(1964)

R G Sweet

by

jets'

jets'

by

2 (January 1977)

Rev. Sci.

Inst,

vol 36,

131 (1965)
'Fluid Droplet Recorder' by

R G Sweet US

'Electrically operated character printer'

1963

Lewis and

GUNN DIODE OSCILLATOR

The observation
semiconductors.

frequency appear

is

described of a

When

Communications

SYNCOM-1

vol

shown

new phenomenon

in

B Gunn (USA)

the electrical conductivity of certain III V

oscillations of current in III

semiconductors' by

B Gunn

Solid State

p 88 (1963)

(USA)

Satellite

synchronous orbit but then

is

Patent 3 298 030 (1967)

specimen current.

Launched 14 February 1963,

A D Brown US

the applied electric field exceeds a critical value, oscillations of extremely high

in the

SOURCE: 'Microwave

1963

by

Patent 3 576 275 (1971)

in figure 11.26.

active telecommunication satellite.

lost contact

Successfully injected into a near

with ground station. 3840 solar cells (135

W)

battery.

Syncom-

A Concise

196

Description of Each Invention

in

Date Order

Figure 11.26. Syncom-3 (courtesy Mark Williams, Space Technology Consultant, and Hughes Aircraft).

SOURCE:

Table of

Satellites

Artificial

Launched Between 1957 and 1976 (Geneva:

International

Telecommunication Union) (1977)

1963

ELECTRONIC CALCULATOR
The

first

Bell

electronic calculators, containing discrete semiconductor

boards were produced

under licence

in

in

Punch Co (UK)

components wired

to printed circuit

1963 by a British firm, the Bell Punch Company. The machine was produced

America and

in

Japan, where the advantage of cheaper Japanese labour for the hundreds

of connections required led to a Japanese domination

in the

manufacture of calculators throughout the

1960s. Integrated circuitry was, of course, the perfect technology for the calculator, and

but

more compact and cheaper than bipolar

technologies.

The

first

By

integration

the most appropriate of the integrated circuit

the second half of the sixties, calculators using

American company

from a warehouse

in

to

make

calculators

was

MOS

integrated circuits were available.

a firm called Universal

immigrant labour from Vietnam and South America, assembled

five or six

company

a particularly vicious race

Valley.

Commodore

make

supplier,

was

the

Canadian

firm,

also used a Texas Instruments

Bowmar.

for

making

calculators itself and had found no interest in

in

thousand calculators a week

to enter

what was

Commodore, newly moved from Toronto

MOS

a particularly

of electromechanical calculators. Although these

from about $100

Data Machines, operating

Chicago. The company bought chips from Texas Instruments and, using cheap

for sale through a local department store. Probably the second

component

MOS slower

its

first

to

become

to Silicon

chip, but adopted a technology developed

compact

calculator.

technology

among

Bowmar had chosen

by

not to

the established manufacturers

mass-produced calculators dropped rapidly

in price

1971 to $40 or $50 the following year, the profits of these small entrepreneurial

A Concise

Description of Each Invention

in

Date Order

197

companies remained high.

The

situation had to

market

change as

became

it

By 1972 Bowmar was

lay.

staringly obvious

where the

it

had

had not demonstrated the

ever have taken place

or,

SOURCE:

in

Revolution

new

viability of the

product,

it

calculator provides

semiconductor industry, but

in the
is

if

small firms

doubtful whether such integration would

indeed, whether the calculator would ever have gained the acceptance

Miniature

The History

&

new

farmed out and

earlier

was joined by other semiconductor manufacturers, including Texas Instruments. The

perhaps the best example of rapid vertical integration

exploding

profits in the

struggling to get back into the business

it

has

Impact of Semiconductor Electronics by E Braun

and S Macdonald. To be published by Cambridge University Press.

SEE ALSO: 'Coming

of age

Supplement vol 68, 975, pp

ALSO:
1963

the Calculator business'

in

by

Valery

ION PLATING OF PLASTIC & METALS

DH
new

stems from the

interest in ion plating

characteristics or colours the ion plated coats

Among

these properties are:

such as metals on plastics;

(1) excellent adhesion of incompatible substrates

many

Scientist Calculator

Mattox (USA)

have when compared with films produced by other coating techniques.

(2) irregular surfaces of

New

World vol 78, 1442, p 357 (1972)

'Electronic Calculator' Wireless

World-wide

(1975)

ii-iv

types such as screw threads, bearings and tubes can be coated in one

operation because of the good 'throwing power' obtained in the process;

(3)

compact pin-hole-free

structures are

soldering to the metal coat

(4) oxides

is

formed with outstanding

and ceramic coating

can be produced;

(6) high rate production of coatings

is

for periods

up

when good adhesion

30 minutes

to

Although the technique was invented

New

possible because the soft

times are not necessary. However,

must be ion etched

in

1963

to

in the

remove

vacuum required means

with a rotary

commences.

the oxide before deposition

United States by

M Mattox of Sandia Laboratories,

until quite recently.

In the

just like a conventional evaporation one, in that the bell jar is evacuated

is

pump and

pump

that long

to metals is required, the metal substrate

Mexico, the true potential of ion plating had not been appreciated

beginning, the process

and wear characteristics and

possible with reactive ion plating;

is

(5) high corrosion resistant coating

down

friction

no problem;

5
After the pressure reaches about 10"

then a diffusion pump.

admitted through a needle valve until the pressure rises to about 2 x 10~ 2

torr.

torr,

first

argon

This soft vacuum

is

is

kept

constant by controlling the needle valve and partially opening the baffle valve to the diffusion pump.
In the case

of a metal, ion etching of the substrate

substrate and top and base plate.

is

carried out

negative voltage of from

by striking a discharge between the

first

kV

to

kV

is

applied to the substrate,

and the argon ion discharge remains so long as the cathode voltage or the argon pressure
to fall too low.

The bombardment of

the substrate with neutral and ionised argon

metal oxide and metal and etches the surface.

filament

is

SOURCE:
1963

switched on and the metal

'Ion plating

coat of

many

is

When

cleaning and etching

filed a patent application

colours'

describing a

and Ultrasonics
in

my

in

department

New

Scientist p

588

complete, the metal source

(9 June 1977)

H Rowen

and E

number of Surface Acoustic Wave devices

in a post deadline

paper presented

at

Santa Monica, California, October 14-16 1964.

at that

not allowed

evaporated into the argon discharge.

SURFACE ACOUSTIC WAVE DEVICES

and described these structures

is

is

atoms sputters off

time, constructed working

the 1964

Sittig

in

(USA)

December 1963

Symposium on Sonics

Dr Ehrhardt

Sittig,

who worked

models of these devices and subsequently

filed

an application describing an interdigital electrode structure for balanced (vs unbalanced) excitation of

Rayleigh surface waves on such devices.

work by

believe these efforts, which predate Professor

at least three years, constitute the original

invention of surface acoustic

wave

White's

devices.'

198

Concise Description of Each Invention

SOURCE:

NJ dated 20

Hill,

'Tapped ultrasonic delay line and uses therefore'

July 1977

H Rowen USA

NOTE: Lord

White's paper,

EK

device'

Rayleigh

waves along the

Sittig

No

Patent

14

boundary of a semi-infinite, isotropic and perfectly

summarised

elastic-wave propagation in
flow,

is

cadmium

computed

(in a piezoelectric

The

sulfide.

elastic

and the

cadmium

drift field in

Some

amplifiers are discussed.

semiconductor) are

Computed curves show

the

electric fields associated with surface

interaction impedance, relating the external electric

for propagation

on the basal plane of CdS and found

comparison with values characteristic of electromagnetic slow-wave

continuous

elastic solid. Professor

as follows.

dependendence on distance from the surface of the

power

December 1967

3 360 749 dated 26

Surface elastic-wave propagation, transduction and amplification

in

289

described the equations governing the propagation of surface elastic plane

first

stress-free

in 1967, is

USA

discussed with emphasis on characteristics useful in electronic devices.

field to

No

Patent

November 1966

wave delay

'Elastic

Date Order

from Bell Laboratories, Murray

Letter

SEE ALSO:
dated 29

in

sulfide is reported

circuits.

to

be low

Amplification with a

and differences between surface and bulk-wave

operating characteristics and fabrication techniques for making electrode

transducers on piezoelectric crystals are given, together with experimental results on several passive

surface-wave devices.

SOURCE:

wave propagation and

'Surface elastic

No

Devices vol ED- 14,

SEE ALSO: 'On waves

London Math. Soc.

amplification' by

White IEEE Trans, on Electron

4, p 181 (April 1967)

propagated along the plane surface of an elastic solid' by Lord Rayleigh Proc.

vol 17, p

4 (November 1885)

'Surface waves in anisotropic media' by

L Synge

(Dublin) vol A58, p 13

Proc. Royal Irish Acad.

(November 1956)
'Surface waves in anisotropic elastic media' by

V T Buchwold

Nature vol 191, p 899 (August 26 1961)

'Design of surface wave delay lines with interdigital transducers' by

Collins,
11, p

Reader and

Shaw IEEE

Trans,

on Microwave Theory

'Passive interdigital devices using surface acoustic waves'

Series 2 edited by

D P Morgan

Gerard,

The technology of
ESFI

MOS

such

as:

The

principal advantage of

absence of

technology

in 1963.

(epitaxial silicon films

except

silicon,

TECHNOLOGY

Various (USA)

silicon-on-insulating substrates, specifically silicon on sapphire, dates back to the

beginning of practical
SIS,

IEE Reprint

(May 1976)

SILICON ON SAPPHIRE

lines

J H
MTT17, No

Smith,

865 (November 1969)

(Peter Peregrinus)

1963

Techniques vol

&

SOS

The technology

insulators),

is

known by

SOS, SOSL

(silicon

different abbreviations,

on

spinel), etc.

circuitry is the inherent dielectric isolation, both dc

in the active

and essentially eliminates the

on

and

ac.

The

device areas, significantly reduces parasitic capacitance between

parasitic capacitance to the substrate. Diffusion of device electrodes

through the silicon film to the sapphire reduces electrode capacitance by several orders of magnitude

because of the reduction

capacitance enables

in junction area.

many

This significant reduction

devices to achieve their

maximum

in electrode

and interelectrode

band-width and frequency response;

minimum speed-power products (below 0.5 pJ) on SOS CMOS and

elements (/r > 2 x 10 9 Hz) such as dual-gate MOSFETs (tetrodes).

allows for very high speeds,

very high frequency linear

SOURCE:

'Recent

SOS

technology advances and applications' by

R S Ronen and F B

it

for

Micheletti Solid

State Technology p 39 (August 1975)

SEE ALSO:
and

Early publications on

Mueller and P

(1964)

SOS Technology

e.g.

Material and Devices, include:

Simpson, 'Single crystal silicon-on-Sapphire substrate'

Robinson 'Grown-film

silicon transistors

J.

Manasevit

Appl. Phys. vol 35, 1349 (1964);

on sapphire' Proc. IEEE vol 52, p 1487

A
1964

NIMBUS- 1

Concise Description of Each Invention

Launched 28 August 1964. Meteorological

achieve a precise continuously earth-pointing

satellite to

camera system (AVCS)

to provide

improved pictures of

by means of automatic picture transmission (APT) and to evaluate the high resolution

local clouds

infrared radiometer
batteries,

SOURCE:

199

(USA)

Satellite

orientation to evaluate the advanced vidicon

W)

Date Order

in

(HRIR) system

mapping global night-time cloud cover. 10 500

for

27 000 cloud cover photos returned

solar cells (450

23 September 1964.

until

Table of Artificial Satellites Launched Between 1957 and 1976 (Geneva:

International

Telecommunication Union) (1977)

1964

VOSKHOD-1

(USSR)

Satellite

Launched 12 October 1964. Manned

spacecraft.

Yegorov. Landed after 16 orbits (24.3 hours) 305

SOURCE:

V Komarov, K

three-man crew:

First

km

Feokistov,

northwest of Kustanay, Kazakhstan.

Table of Artificial Satellites Launched Between 1957 and 1976 (Geneva:

International

Telecommunication Union) (1977)

1964

PACKET-SWITCHNG-COMMUNICATIONS
Packet-switching

demands

different

telecommunications patterned. The

at

There

it,

it

on

its

network

may be

from

To make

some form of computing devicewhich can accept

way according

a connection

to the address

between two subscribers

established for the duration of the call.

and kept so

the

and instructions

to

normal

the same; but the switching

a packet,

carries.

it

however, also another major difference. The traditional communications network

is,

serial.

and send

communications

of

channels, whether wire or radio,

points and exchanges have 'intelligence'

look

kind

P Baran (USA)

is

essentially

such a system requires that the connection be

This means that the right switches have to be opened/closed

for that duration.

Such a requirement

is

not necessary with a packet-switched system or network. In this latter case you

transmit your data to the network, which then takes over, either sending

it

on or holding

The speed of transmission

addressee's receiver facilities are free and able to take

it.

function of the weight of loading within the network.

At the conceptual

thus

it

until the

becomes

level, this is quite a radical

approach to telecommunications.

To have

a fail-safe network, in the terms that

Baran proposed there should be 'over connection'.

other words, there should be not just one path in or out for a packet, but several.

determine the routing

reliability

can be

far

is

the availability of a channel at a particular time.

how many

this sort

In

then

of network, the

lower than would be necessary for a 'normal' linear communications system.

People have been trying to build such networks

certain

With

What would

are being planned or built,

high expectations are packetswitched

now

for around 10 years. Today, though no-one can be

most of the communications networks of which we have

among them the experimental Arpanet

in the

United States, the

commercial Telenet network (also American), Europe's interbank, Swift networks, Euronet, and the

European Informatics Network.

SOURCE:
1964

'Packet-switching's unsung hero' by

GEMINI-1
Launched
of the

R Malik New

8 April, 1964. Testing of the

spacecraft.

606

(8 September, 1977)

(USA)

Satellite

GEMINI

Scientist p

The

GEMINI

launch vehicle compatibility and the structural integrity

satellite re-entered the

atmosphere and disintegrated on 12 April 1964.

Batteries.

SOURCE:

Table of Artificial Satellites Launched Between 1957 and 1976 (Geneva:

Telecommunication Union) (1977)

International

A Concise

200
1964

Description of Each Invention in Date Order

'IMPATT' DIODE

RL

C deLoach

Johnston and B

(USA)

R L

In 1964, Bell Laboratories scientists

Johnston and

Avalanche Transit Time) diode, subsequently shown

Read

Jr,

directly

also of the Laboratories.

when

DC

voltage

diodes

applied to them

is

microwave systems because of

SOURCE:

IMPATT

are

IMPATT

discovered the

by an

effect

semiconductor devices

their high reliability

Mission Communications

B C deLoach

to operate

that generate

becoming increasingly important

and low

(IMPact

proposed earlier by

WT

microwaves

in the

design of

cost.

the Story of Bell Laboratories by

C Mabon

(Murray

Hill,

NJ:

Bell Laboratories Inc.) p 173 (1975)

SEE ALSO:
vol 37,

1964

W T Read Bell Syst.

'A proposed high frequency, negative resistance diode' by

Tech.

H K Gummel

TRANSISTOR MODELLING
Since the original paper by

Gummel

in 1964, a great deal

(USA)

of literature has appeared on the subject of

Gummel was

fundamental, or exact, transistor modelling.

the

to solve the

first

semiconductor

partial

difference equations with no basic simplifications in their one-dimensional steady-state form.

appeared

integral formulation

in

an improved form

in the

work of De Mari, who then went on

which he could obtain

a current driven transient solution for a diode.

was used and solutions were obtained

for

scheme and

scheme.

Gummel

a pure implicit first-order

implicit time integration methods, a

difference formulation.

finite

No

4,

iterative

vol

'An accurate numerical steady

State Electronics

1,

M Stark Philips Research Reports

(1976)

SEE ALSO: 'A self-consistent

by H K Gummel IEEE Trans,

scheme

ED-1

state

for one-dimensional steady state transistor calculations'

pp 455-65 (1964)

1,

one-dimensional solution of the p-n junction' by

de Mari Solid State Electronics vol

Finite Difference

York:

Wiley

&

1964

de Mari Solid

Sons

Inc.)

pp 101

et

arbitrary transient conditions'

pp 1021-53 (1968)

G E

Forsythe and

R Wasow (New

seq (1970)

Read diode

oscillator'

by

D L

Scharfetter and

H K Gummel IEEE

ED- 16, 64-77 (1969)

TRANSISTOR
The overlay

Army

11,

Methods for Partial Difference Equations by

'Large-signal analysis of a silicon

Trans, vol

pp 33-58 (1968)

'An accurate numerical one-dimensional solution of the p-n junction under

by

Crank Nicolson

This was followed by the analysis of a Read diode

'Fundamental one-dimensional analysis of transistors' by

Supplements

from

simple spatial discretization

and Scharfetter, also using a 1-dimensional implicit scheme, but introducing a new and

important spatial

SOURCE:

two

His

to tackle

the time-dependent 1-dimensional system. This required the use of a finite-difference formulation

by

J.

p401 (1958)

RCA

(Overlay)

transistors, first introduced in

Electronics

Command,

output stages then used

Ft

in military

at

100

MHz

at

RCA

under

a contract

Jersey, as a direct replacement for the

transmitting equipment.

produced 10 watts of output power

interdigitated structures of that

1964, was developed

Monmouth, New

(USA)

The

first

at

100

tube

commercial overlay, the 2N3375,

and could handle 4 watts

day were capable of 5 watts

from the

vacuum

MHz

at

400 MHz. Comparable

and 0.5

MHz

and 0.5 watts

at

400 MHz.

SOURCE:

'Solid state

a worthy challenger for

RF power

honors' by

transistor'

by

D R

Carley Electronics p 100

(19 February 1968)

SEE ALSO:

'The overlay

new

UHF

power

O' Brian Electronics p 70 (23 August 1965)

D R

Carley, P

L McGeough and

A Concise
1964

MICROELECTRONICS

(Beam Lead)

between the IC and

'Solid state devices

in

Date Order

201

Lepselter (USA)

Telephone Laboratories invented the beam lead as a mechanical and

In 1964, Martin Lepselter of Bell

electrical interconnection

SOURCE:

Description of Each Invention

packaging

its

case.

R L Goldberg

and materials'

Electronic Design vol 24,

November 1972)

p 127 (23

SEE ALSO: 'Beam

lead technology' by

P Lepselter The Bell System Tech. Journal

XVL, No

vol

2,

p 233 (February 1966)

1964

TELEMEDICINE

Various

The development of telemedicine

(USA

et al)

1964-69,

the United States can be divided into three stages:

in

1969-73 and 1973-present.

The

first

involved experimentation by medical practitioners on the clinical applications of

stage

The primary concern was

telecommunications technology.

two-way transmission

the feasibility of

of diagnostic information and clinical encounters via microwave links and video equipment.
Starting in 1964, the

out

Hospital,
In

TV

link

away

12 miles

interactive

first

a closed-circuit

1967, an interactive

TV

telemedicine project for the delivery of health care was carried

between Nebraska Psychiatric

under financing by

TV

was

link

installed

Institute,

Omaha, Neb., and Norfolk

State

the National Institute of Mental Health.

between Massachusetts General Hospital and Logan

International Airport, Boston, Mass., with financial support

from the United States Public Health Service

VA

Hospital link with Veterans Administration

expanded

(later

to a

Massachusetts General-Bedford

funds).

While

Nebraska

the

telemedicine

administrative purposes,

programme
used
link

in

to

the

system

was used primarily

Massachusetts General

use telemedicine

in

consultation

and

Hospital-Logan Airport system was the

first

psychiatric

for

physical diagnosis and general patient care.

The medical procedures

physical diagnosis that were found to provide effective treatment over the interactive

TV

were teleradiology, telestethoscopy and teleauscultation, speech therapy, teledermatology and

The

telepsychiatry.

successful demonstration of physical diagnosis procedures provided additional

incentives for Federal agencies to encourage further developments in the

The second telemedicine

stage

was characterised by

field.

knowledge

trend toward the exchange of

and experience among the participants, and by Government support and sponsorship of research
and demonstration programmes.

The major supporter was

the Department of Health, Education and Welfare,

the Health Care

Technology Division

projects during 1972: Illinois Mental Health Institute, Chicago,

111.;

Case Western Reserve University.

Cleveland, Ohio; Cambridge Hospital, Cambridge, Mass; Bethany/Garfield, Chicago,

Clinic, Waconia,

of Medicine

Minn; Dartmouth Medical School's

New

York,

NY.

refer patients to

Home

Janover

111.;

NH; and Mount

Lakeview

Sinai School

Science Foundation funded two telemedicine

project for geriatric patients in nursing

home

that usually

Boston City Hospital, and the Miami-Dade project between Dade County and Jackson

Memorial Hospital, Miami

During

INTERACT,

In addition, the National

projects in 1973: the Boston Nursing

in

which funded seven research and demonstration

Fla.

this stage, issues other than technical

ones received some attention. These included consideration

of the appropriate organisational and environmental settings for telemedicine implementation, manpower

mixes and the role of non-MD, providers, and rudimentary approaches

impact on healthcare delivery. The contributions of telemedicine
presented,

but although

some evaluation

significant efforts to investigate or

The

initial

projects were

document those

to evaluation of telemedicinels

to society as a

started during

this

whole were variously

period,

there

were no

benefits.

evaluation efforts did not reveal conclusive results, but a comparison between the telephone

and interactive

TV

encounters showed the former to be of shorter duration and more efficient for some

aspects of patient care.

A Concise

202

The

third,

and present, stage started

an innovative
or

Description of Each Invention in Date Order

mode

telemedicine has to

later,

in

1973 and

become

characteristic feature

its

Two

of medical-care delivery.

factors

must be

self-supporting, or at least economically viable

method of evaluation

the evaluation of telemedicine has to follow the concepts and

field

i.e.

evaluation in terms of structure, process and outcome variables

telemedicine has

programmes
It

become

economic

its

to survive, they

have had

viability
to

how

make

to

has been recognised that various problems in medical care

it

its

own; and

medical-care

The major new challenge

itself.

To

for

date, for telemedicine

may be

redressed by telemedicine, but

For those persons where time and distance barriers

access to medical care, telemedicine

difficult to obtain

pay for

it

on

in the

be heavily subsidised.

these depend on the vantage point of the user.

make

the idea of telemedicine as

is

dealt with during this stage; sooner

obviously very useful. The providers

is

recognise potential benefits, including greater opportunities to interact with other physicians, to consult

with specialists without worrying about the possibility of closings their patients, to have more free time,

and

work of

to supervise the

the system of medical care

a nurse practioner or physician assistant in a

lie in

by the various health actors or providers in

SOURCE: 'Coming
1964

by

Allen

1964

'Solid state devices

benefits to

it

1976)

B Rogers (USA)

Bryant (Buck) Rogers fostered the invention of the DIP while

p 127 (23

The

IEEE Spectrum p 33 (December

(DIP) (Dual-In-Line Package)

originally had 14 leads and looked just as

SOURCE:

clinic.

their respective roles.

the era of telemedicine'

MICROELECTRONICS

remote

the greater ability of the system to co-ordinate the activities undertaken

at

Fairchild Semiconductors in 1964.

It

does today.

packaging

and materials'

R L Goldberg

Electronic Design vol 24,

November 1972)

'ETCH-BACK' TECHNIQUE IN PRINTED WIRING

PLATED THROUGH HOLES
The interconnection of

the internal layers of circuitry

Autonetics (USA)

made

is

at the area

where the

drill

penetrates

through the copper pad exposing a cylinder of copper equivalent to the diameter of the drilled hole
times 0.0044 (as times thickness of one ounce of copper). This small area of exposed copper can also

be contaminated with epoxy smeared onto

it

during the drilling operation which can affect the resultant

adhesion of the copper to the electroless copper deposit. Therefore, a smoothing process was developed
at

Autonetics which would expose a greater amount of copper

more

reliable bond. This,

coupled with the fact

that the

at the

interconnection areas to provide

smoothing operation also removes from the

copper any smeared epoxy, provides for a more reliable interconnection than the standard T-joint.

SOURCE.

'Electroplating of plated through-hole interconnection circuit board' by

Quintana

AFS

Proc. p 175 (1964)

1964

WORDPROCESSOR
One

IBM (USA)

specialised office application that attracted computers

dominant manufacturer of

electric typewriters,

is

was word processing.

IBM,

already a

credited with creating the market in 1964

when

it

introduced a magnetic-tape typewriter. This unit could store information on magnetic media for later
modification and automatic retyping.

SOURCE:
1965

Electronics p 387 (17 April 1980)

SYNTHESIZER

Moog, Deutsch and Carlos (USA)

Despite a few earlier attempts, the history of sound synthesis (the creation of sounds from electric
pulses) did not begin until the early 1950s, with experiments carried out at the University of Bonn,

West Germany. The

Through

first

electronic music studio

complex assemblage of generators and

together manually afterward on magnetic tapes.

Robert

Moog (US)

(in collaboration

was

set

filters,

up

the

Because

1951

in

at a

West German radio

station.

composers created sounds which they put

this

was

with the composers Herbert

a very slow process, the engineer

Deutsch and Walter Carlos) had the

A Concise Description of Each

idea of bringing together

the necessary

all

Minimoog, which became available

SOURCE:
(New
1965

Inventions

equipment

and Discoveries 1993

when

the

word

was

'synthesizer'

edited by Valerie-Anne Giscard d'Estaing and

first

in the

used.

Mark Young

York: Facts on File) p 135

THE MOUSE
The mouse

is

However,

in 1983.

designed the mouse

was

it

at

is

Its

Englebart (USA)

desk and which makes

it

possible to interact

used was popularised by Apple with the Lisa and the Macintosh models

American inventor Douglas Engelbart who conceived and

the little-known

was

the Stanford Research Institute in the mid-1960s. His brilliant idea

computer operator place

mouse

on

a small device that slides in all directions

naturally with the computer.

the

203

one instrument. His research culminated

in

1965, and that was

in

Invention in Date Order

his or her

hand on

a small

box or mouse.

used to measure movements which are then transmitted to the computer via a lead

of the mouse. These movements are translated to the cursor on the screen:

mouse

the right the cursor goes to the right; if the

is

have

to

sphere on the underside of the

if

the

mouse

is

the

tail

pushed

to

pushed away from the user the cursor moves up,

and so on. This revolutionary input device, originally found only on Apple computers, was adopted by

IBM

in 1987.

SOURCE: The Book

(UK: Queen Anne
1965

of Inventions and Discoveries Associate Editor Valerie-Anne Giscard d'Estaing

Press,

Macdonald

&

Co.) (1990) p 124

WIEGAND WIRE

About 10 years ago, John Wiegand discovered

Wiegand (USA)

by properly work hardening a magnetic wire,

that

it

is

possible, along the exterior 'shell' of the wire, to produce a coercive force significantly greater than

the coercive force in the wire's core.

By

virtue of this magnetic differential,

and depending on certain

external conditions, the direction of magnetisation in the core of the wire can be the
to that in the shell.

And

switching from one state to the other

same or opposite

easily and repeatedly induced at

is

well-defined magnetic-field levels.

Short lengths of wire exhibiting the Wiegand effect can serve as the heart of magnetic pulse generators
that

have distinct advantages over similar devices, including non-contact operation and a

being 'read' by detection devices having virtually no input power.

that pulse signals are not rate sensitive,

facility for

Other important advantages are

meaning the amplitude of the pulse

signal remains the

same

regardless of speed of operation; they offer any combination of pulse-generation direction and polarity,
that

is,

unidirectional or bidirectional, unipolar or bipolar.

And such

polarity are available for pulse generation.

environments, including temperatures from

material composition and
at levels

95F

SOURCE:

direction and

+300F. Over the years, Wiegand has developed

work hardening procedures

to a point

where brief pulses (10~ 4 duration)

With properly-designed detectors, peak voltages of 500

of 2 milliwatts can be produced.

millivolts in the

to

Thus any combination of

devices are capable of withstanding severe

50-ohm load have been observed.

'Wiegand Wire: new material

E Wizen

by P

for magnetic-based devices'

Electronics p 100

(10 July 1975)

SEE ALSO: 'Wiegand

1965

effect

pushing

its

way

into

new

products' Electronics p 39 (14 April 1977)

SMOOTH-SURFACED WIRE DRAWING

Olsen,

RF

Jack and

EO

Fuchs (USA)

technique for producing wire with a very smooth surface by drawing

an ultrasonically agitated Squid has been devised

cleans the wire and dies so that the drawn wire

at Bell
is

Laboratories.

relatively free of

through dies submerged

it

The

in

agitated liquid continuously

embedded

particles

and surface

scratches.

Reduction of surface imperfections

smooth

in

wire improves

finish is desirable in those types of

its

properties in

some

instances.

For example, a

magnetic memories that store information on a thin film

of metal plated onto a wire. The wire finish should be as smooth as possible so that the film can be
deposited evenly.

A Concise

204

Description of Each Invention in Date Order

In this technique, the ultrasonic

contacts a solid surface.

energy forms extremely minute vapor cavities

The expansion and

the wire clean of foreign particles before

it

collapse of these cavities

enters the dies to be reduced.

them from collecting

the particles suspended in the liquid and prevents

thus they do not score the wire as

SOURCE:

it

drawn through

it

The

wherever

as cavitation

it

'scrubs'

ultrasonic agitation keeps

in the entry area of the dies;

the dies.

new drawing

'Very smooth-surfaced wire produced by

in the liquid

known

technique' Bell Laboratories Record

p 390 (October 1965)

Copyright 1965, Bell Telephone Laboratories,

1965

SATELLITEINTELSAT
The

first

internationally

(International)

owned

It

INTELSAT

satellite,

geo-stationary equatorial orbit, that

for transatlantic operation.

Reprinted by permission of Bell Laboratories Record.

Inc.

is at

was put

I,

an altitude of

had a mass of 39 kg (85

22400

into operation in 1965.

primary power 45

lb)

could be maintained

it

was

to ascertain

in a

West

system was to some

whether reliable communication

of the high path loss of 200 dB; however, the Earth stations employed

in spite

now well-known

the

Firstly,

was placed

W from solar cells and was

INTELSAT

capable of relaying 120 voice circuits or one television channel. The

extent experimental for two main reason.

It

miles, in a longitudinal position 30

parabolic reflector type aerials diameter

noise amplifiers and in this respect

it

was

transmission delay, Earth-satellite-Earth, of 250

ms was

85-100

Secondly,

a great success.

ft
it

with cryogenic-cooled lowwas

determine whether the

to

The decision was

operationally acceptable.

taken to continue with satellites in the geostationary orbit and this

used for

is

all

internationally

owned

satellites today.

SOURCE:

'Fixed communications' by

S Pudner Radio and Electronic Engineer vol 45,

No

10,

p 547

(October 1975)

1965

SELF-SCANNED INTEGRATED PHOTODIODE

P Weckler (USA)

ARRAYS
The

forming image sensors from arrays of silicon photo diodes on a single silicon chip

possibility of

has been recognised for

fifteen years ago.

that

It

years, probably since the inception of integrated circuit technology

that the array size

was

limited, not by the

them

To circumvent

in to a single

problem was

that

P Weckler

this

problem,

it

was necessary

to scan the diodes, that

function.

in

integration had been used in the Vidicon for

1965 that

this

on an integrated

The

SOURCE:

first fully

some

years,

and

and m.o.s.t's to perform the

circuit with the diodes

'Applications of self-scanned integrated photodiode arrays' by P

No

4,

it

was pointed out

now

serial

to include a

multiplexing

Fry The Radio and

pp 151-60 (April 1976)

'Operation of p-n junction photodeteclors in a photon flux integrating mode' by

No

3,

pp 65-73 (September 1967)

'Development and potential of optoelectronic techniques' by P

1965

second

technique could be used with photodiode arrays, the switching being

Weckler IEEE J Solid State Circuits SC-2,

8,

self-scanned arrays using this technique were announced in 1967.

Electronic Engineer vol 46,

SEE ALSO:

to multiplex

of detecting the minute photocurrents produced by the necessarily very small diodes.

achieved by m.o.s. transistors. The one step necessary to complete the picture was
shift register

is,

output lead by means of switching circuitry on the same integrated chip.

The technique of charge

No

some

number of diodes

could be included on the silicon, but by the number of output leads necessary to form connections

to these diodes.

by

many

was quickly apparent

Noble Component Technology 2

pp 23-8 (December 1967)

PROTON-1

(USSR)

Satellite

Launched 16 July 1965. Investigation of

solar

cosmic

rays.

chemical composition of particles of primary cosmic rays

in

Investigation of the energy spectrum and

theeneray range up

to 10

14

eV. Investigation

of nuclear interaction of ultra-high energy cosmic rays up to 10 12 eV. Determination of the absolute
intensity

and energy spectrum of electrons of galactic

origin.

Determination of the intensity and energy

A Concise
spectrum of

on

11

gamma

Description of Each Invention

in

Date Order

205

Decayed

rays of the galaxy with energies over 50 million eV. Solar cells, batteries.

October 1965.

SOURCE:

Table of Artificial Satellites Launched Between 1957 and 1976 (Geneva:

International

Telecommunication Union) (1977)

1965

ELECTRONIC TYPEWRITER
IBM

launched the

72BM

stored on magnetic tape.

IBM (USA)
typewriter with a

1965.

In

1972 Rank Xerox developed the

the

first

first

memory, which was

electronic typewriter with a live

Andrew Gabor

daisy wheel, which was invented by Dr

memory. This machine

also featured the

first

(US). In 1978 the Italian

company

and the Japanese company Casio marketed the

Olivetti

typewriters with rapid-access memories.

SOURCE:
(New
1965

72BM was

The

in

Inventions

They featured

is

and Discoveries 1993 edited by Valerie-Anne Giscard d'Estaing and Mark Young

Military (USA)

possible today to be 'absorbed' by a computer and

universe.

game

This concept

called virtual reality.

is

industry; however,

the one hand, a

its

is

It

best

move around in an imaginary and

known through its applications in

origins are in military applications.

computer generates synthetic images, and on the

through the intermediary of receptors placed

in a

The concept

is

synthetic
the video

simple enough.

other, the user controls these

On

images

glove (Dataglove), and visualises the result with

stereoscopic glasses that have listening devices (Eyephone). Each

is

electronic

York: Facts on File) p 219

VIRTUAL REALITY
It

first

'type wheels' rather than balls.

movement of

the fingers or the head

transmitted to the computer, which consequently interprets and modifies the surroundings.

It is

thus

possible to touch or displace objects or to change the field of vision.

SOURCE:
(New
1966

Inventions

and Discoveries 1993

OPTCAL FIBRE COMMUNICATIONS

K C Kao

and

G A Hockham

Another method of providing guidance, and of cunningly circumventing the problem of

in straight lines, is to

for the

As

Advancement of Science,

publication of the classic article of

August 1964,

early as

in

Kao and Hockham of STL

a formidable one; the attenuation of existing fibres

fibre

attenuations of 2

light travelling

an address to the British Association

the author speculated on the use of light and glass fibres in the

telephone network, instead of electric currents and wires, but developments did not

be low and

(USA)

use a fibre consisting of a glass core having a high refractive index surrounded

by a cladding of lower index.

to

Mark Young

edited by Valerie-Anne Giscard d'Estaing and

York: Facts on File) p 219

bundles were

fragile.

in 1966.

start in

earnest until

At the time the problem seemed

was about 1000 dB/km,

the band- width

Since then enormous strides have been

made

was expected

resulting in fibre

dB/km produced as a matter of routine, bandwidths of GHz in a km length of fibre

^m, and fibres coated with nylon which are too strong to be broken by hand.
1

having a diameter of 100

Such

fibres are flexible

bandwidth of

and capable of being incorporated into simple but effective forms of cable. The

a single fibre is

cables and the diameter

is

much

and the attenuation lower, than existing copper coaxial

greater,

considerably smaller.

could be very greatly increased, with

little

Thus

the capacity of the present telephone network

additional installation expense, by the gradual introduction

of optical fibre cables.

SOURCE:
No 10,

45,

'Lasers and optical electronics' by

SEE ALSO:

'Dielectric-fibre surface

Proc. Instn. Elect. Engrs. vol

1966

Gambling The Radio and Electronics Engineers

vol

p 541 (October 1975)

BIOSATELLITE-1

13,

waveguides

pp

for optical frequencies'

K C Kao

and

G A Hockham

(USA)

Satellite

Launched 14 December 1966.

by

151-8

To determine

the effects of the space environment

processes and study the effect of weightlessness on the

life

on various

life

processes of certain organisms and the

A Concise Description of Each

206

effects of radiation

on organisms

Invention in Date Order

in weightlessness.

SOURCE:

Due

to failure of the retro-rockets to fire,

it

was

Decayed on 15 February 1967.

not possible to recover the capsule. Batteries.

Table of Artificial Satellites Launched Between 1957 and 1976 (Geneva:

International

Telecommunication Union) (1977)

1966

ATS-1

(USA)

Satellite

Launched 7 December 1966. Experiments

to

advance the

of spacecraft communications (aircraft

fields

and ground), meterology (photos, transmission of weather facsimile) and control technology. Number
of scientific experiments to measure the orbital environment of the

22 000 solar

satellite.

cells

(185

W)

batteries.

SOURCE:

Table of Artificial Satellites Launched Between 1957 and 1976 (Geneva:

International

Telecommunication Union) (1977)

1966

LUNAR ORBITER-1

(USA)

Launched 10 August 1966.

Flying photographic laboratory.

of various types of surface on the

SURVEYOR

moon

10 856 solar

SOURCE:

APOLLO

spacecraft; monitored the meteroids and radiation intensity in the vicinity of the

provided precise trajectory information for use

field.

Obtained high resolution photographs

to assess their suitability as landing sites for

and

moon;

improving the definition of the moon's gravitational

in

cells, battery.

Table of Artificial Satellites Launched Between 1957 and 1976 (Geneva:

International

Telecommunication Union) (1977)

1966

NITRIDE-OVER-OXIDE SEMICONDUCTORS

After more than three years of legal proceedings between

Corporation, the

US

thus reaffirming

GE's

In

one form of the

silicon dioxide in

GE

Patent and Trademark Office has upheld

right to the patent,

GE

Horn (USA)

and International Business Machines

GE's claim

to priority of the invention,

number 3597 667.

inventions a thin film of silicon nitride

is

placed between the gate and

metaloxide-semiconductor field-effect transistors (MOSFETs). This structure virtually

eliminates the contamination by alkali ions that previously caused widespread failure of the tiny devices.
In another application of the invention, these nitride-overoxide layers are

transistors

The

GE

used

in

standard bipolar

and junction-sealing passivation layers Both the manufacturing yield and

of modern integrated circuits and semiconductor devices are 'substantially enhanced' by

reliability

the

as a surface

invention.

original

GE

patent application

problems between

instability

GE

was

filed

scientists

on

March 1966, following

Dr Dale

a discussion of

semiconductor

Brown and Dr Horn, during which Dr Horn

suggested silicon nitride over silicon dioxide as a passivation technique for overcoming these problems.

The

idea

was

tried

SOURCE: GE

and successfully demonstrated shortly

Public Information Release

thereafter.

(GE Research

&

Development Center, Schenectady,

NY

12301) p 2 (11 October 1976)

1966

TIROS-1

(USA)

Satellite

Launched 3 February 1966. Meteorogical

satellite

Environmental Survey

Satellite.

9100

TIROS
May 1967,

Part of the

Operational System (TOS), Advanced vidicon camera system (AVCS). Switched off on 8
solar cells, batteries.

SOURCE:

Table of

Artificial

Satellites

Telecommunication Union) (1977)

Launched Between 1957 and 1976 (Geneva:

International

A Concise Description of Each

1966

Invention in Date Order

FLIP-FLOP BONDING TECHNIQUE (FLIP-CHIPS)

207

GA

Wiessenstern and

Wingrove (USA)
The

bonding structure and method was invented and subsequently patented

flip-flop

in

1906 by

Wiessenstern and Wingrove. Since that time nearly every semiconductor manufacturer has experimented
with various forms of flip-flop bonding for the purpose of assembling integrated circuits, and possibly

some

To

discrete components, into larger subsystems.

this day,

no successful method of

flip-chip

bonding has become generally utilized on the open market.

SOURCE:

'A multichip package utilizing In-Cu flip-chip bonding' by

F Greenman. Proc. IEEE

SEE ALSO:

No

vol 57,

9,

P Youmans, R E Rose and

'Semiconductor device assembly with true metallurgical bonds' by

US

S Wingrove

Patent

No

p 1599 (September 1969)

Weissenstern and

3256465, 14 June 1966

L F

'Joining semiconductor devices with ductile pads' by

Miller 3rd Annual Hybrid Microelectronics

Symposium (29 October 1968)

1966

SURVEYOR-1

(USA)

Satellite

Launched 30 May 1966. Soft landed on

3960

13 July 1966.

SOURCE:

W)

solar cells (77

the

moon on

2 June 1966. Transmitted

150 photos up to

batteries.

Table of Artificial Satellites Launched Between 1957 and

1976 (Geneva:

International

Telecommunication Union) (1977)

1967

LASER TRIMMNG OF THICK FILM RESISTORS

The trimming of

electronic

components

the trimming of thick film resistors with

installed in the General

started in

C0

(USA)

1967 when the

lasers.

Two

Motors Delco Electronics plant

first

experiments were conducted on

years later 'Q-switched' laser systems were

in

Indiana for the manufacture of thick film

voltage regulators for automobiles.

SOURCE:

'Bright future for laser trimming' by

B Cozzens

Electronic Engineering p 58 (February

1976)

1967

SOYUZ-1

(USSR)

Satellite

Launched 23 April 1967. Manned

Pilot:

V Komarov,

SOURCE:

killed.

spacecraft. Re-entered

24 April 1967

after 17 orbits. Failed to land.

Solar cells.

Table of Artificial Satellites Launched Between 1957 and 1976 (Geneva:

International

Telecommunication Union) (1977)

1967

AUDIO NOISE REDUCTION SYSTEM

Utilizing the

masking

effect, together with signal

A301 achieves noise reduction

(a)

Dolby (USA)

compression and expansion, the Dolby Laboratories

by boosting low-level signal components during recording whenever

possible (compression), followed by complementary attenuation during playback (expansion), and (b)

by the masking

effect

whenever

the signal level

is

already so high that compression and expansion are

not possible.

Since masking
it

is

is less

effective with noise frequencies

somewhat removed from

the signal frequency,

necessary to deal with the various portions of the spectrum independently.

system then yields a lower

and apparently constantnoise

level, the classical

The

noise reduction

hush-hush or swish of

normal compression and expansion being absent.

The A301 system

in

splits the

audio spectrum into four bands and compresses and expands each of these

an essentially independent manner. Separate bands are provided for the

hum and rumble frequency

medium high frequencies

range (80 Hz, lowpass), for the mid-audio range (80 Hz-3 kHz, band-pass), for
(3

kHz, high-pass), and

for high frequencies (9

cannot prevent noise reduction

in

kHz, high-pass).

high-level signal in one band hence

another band in which the signal level

may be

low.

A Concise

208

From another

Description of Each Invention in Date Order

point of view, the system effectively produces a recording equalisation characteristic

which continuously conforms

incoming signal

itself to the

in

such a way as to improve the signal to

noise ratio during playback.

SOURCE: Dolby
SEE ALSO: 'An

Laboratories Technical Report A301.

audio noise reduction system' by

'Audio noise reduction: some practical aspects' by Ray

'The Dolby noise-reduction system

its

Dolby

J.

Audio Eng. Soc. vol

15,

p 383 (1967)

&

Dolby Audio magazine (June

July 1968)

impact on recording' by John Eargle Electronics World (May

1969)

Dolby noise reducer

part

1967

ION

(An introduction

to the

Dolby noise reduction system) by Geoffrey Shorter

(May 1970)

Wireless World pp 200-5

BEAM COATING

KL

Chopra and

Randlett

(USA)
The

history of Ion

Beam

Coating (IBC) covers a period of more than ten years beginning with metallic

coatings reported by Chopra and Randlett.

initially

when Spencer Schmidt

is

Carbon deposition with 'diamond

reported by Aisenberg and Chabot in 1970 and 1971.

et al

showed

bombarded with an energetic

that essentially

properties

like'

Rapid expansion of the

was

field resulted

any solid material can be deposited when a target

ion.

Although ion beam milling has been accepted for several years as the most desirable technique when

compared with chemical or plasma etching

circuitry in both research

and production

micron or submicron

for the fabrication of high resolution

installations, ion

beam

deposition

by research laboratories as the single economical process which affords

is

just

real

now

being accepted

flexibility in thin

film

High resolution microfabrication process with electron beam or x-ray lithography require

fabrication.

improved deposition technology. The answer may be ion beam coatings both

for research

and production

R Thompson.

Jr Solid State

applications.

SOURCE:

'Ion

beam

A new

coating:

deposition method' by George

Technology p 73 (December 1978)

SEE ALSO: 'Duoplasmatron ion beam source for vacuum sputtering

M R Randlett Rev. Sci. lustrum, vol 38, No 8, p 147 (1967)

of thin films' by

K L Chopra

and

S Aisenberg and

R Chabot

J.

S Aisenberg and

R Chabot

J.

Spencer and P

Appl. Phys. vol 42, p 2953 (1971

H Schmidt

J.

Vac. Sci. Tech.

'Deposition and evaluation of thin films by

E
1967

Spencer Solid State Technol. vol

'ROTATOR' CIRCUIT
This paper presents a

new

vol 6, p 112 (1970)

Vac. Sci. Techno!,

15,

DC

No

7,

vol 8, p

ion

beam

368 (1971)
sputtering'

NETWORK

linear, reciprocal, active

a nonlinear resistor, inductor, or capacitor is

is

Castellano and

Chua (USA)

They have

the unique property that

connected to one port of an R-, L-, or C-rotator,

respectively, the resulting two-terminal network behaves as a

characteristic curve

two-port network element called a rotator, of which

there are three types: an R-rotator, an L-rotator, and a C-rotator.

whenever

P H Schmidt, R

p 39 (1972)

new

resistor, inductor or capacitor

that of the original resistor, inductor or capacitor rotated

whose

by a prescribed angle

about the origin.

The

rotator

is

capacitances.

realizable by either a ^--network or a

It

can also be realised by a balanced

T-network of
lattice

linear resistances, inductances or

network of linear elements.

Operational

laboratory models are reported, and experimental data agree remarkably well with theoretical predictions.

The

sensitivity,

power

rating,

and

stability

performances of rotators are considered

in detail in this

paper and practical stability criteria are given. They are shown to be indispensable building blocks for
realising multi-valued elements

and some potential applications are described.

A Concise

SOURCE:

Description of Each Invention

new 'Network Component" by L

'The rotator a

Chua

in

Date Order

IEEE

Proc.

vol 55,

209

No

9,

p 1566

(September 1967)
1967

TRAPPATT DIODE
Transit

The

(Trapped Plasma Avalanche

Time Diode)
mode was discovered

trapatt

J Prager,

KKN

Chang and S

Weisbrod (USA)
in

1967 by Prager, Chang and Weisbrod.

has permitted the realisation

It

of high-efficiency solid-state microwave oscillators and amplifiers. Dc-rf conversion efficiencies as high

60%
35%

as
as

are obtained at frequencies of 1-2

at

GHz, and

several authors have reported efficiencies as high

X-band frequencies.

Trapatt action occurs

when

breakdown voltage

applied across the depleted diode.

is

a rapidly increasing reverse-bias voltage of magnitude greater than the

An

avalanche zone sweeps rapidly from the

junction, through the depletion layer to the substrate, leaving in

The diode drops

electrons and collapsing the electric field.

the carriers are said to be trapped, as their drift velocities

fall

wake

its

dense plasma of holes and

low voltage high-current

state,

and

well below their saturated values.

As

into a

the carriers drift slowly out of the active region under low-field conditions, the electric field within the

diode recovers.
the cycle

When

spend a long part of the cycle with

much lower

is

than in the impatt mode, since the carriers

J J

SEE ALSO:

'High power, high efficiency silicon avalanche diodes

Purcell

IEE

Solid-State

and Electron Devices

IEEE

vol

vol 55, p

586 (1967)

AMORPHOUS SEMICONDUCTOR SWITCHES

company

in

which

in a thermister

earlier studies is the cross-over

characteristics are

property of having an

which drops

to a

OFF

initial

exceeds a certain threshold value

corresponding to the load

line

there

is

a delay time

/h

happens

resistor, region (b),

which can be as long as 10

the device reverts to

its

high resistance

/^s,

state,

monostable element. Notice that the switch

curve for negative voltages

SOURCE: 'Amorphous

is

a mirror

image of

No

1,

'Reversible electrical switching

in

These devices

their circuit configuration

These devices have the remarkable

around 100

when

in a

megohms,

the voltage across

it

time typically of order nanoseconds, but

between the application of

is

allowed to

along region

is

below

fall

(d).

a switching voltage

minimum

In this sense, the

and

holding value,

device behaves

insensitive to the polarity of the supply; the

that for positive values.

semiconductor devices and components' by

Radio and Electronic Engineer vol 46,

SEE ALSO:

sandwiched between

is

around 10 V. The switching, which occurs along a load

the onset of switching. If the current in the On-state

as a

11.27(c).

resistance, region (c) of

V, h typically

Prager,

shows an early switch made

amorphous material

thin film electrodes (figure 11.27(b).

in figure

attracted international attention

first

resistance, corresponding to region (a), of order tens of

ON

much lower

shown

Ovshinsky (USA)

and their more modern counterparts are so-called threshold-switches, and

and resulting

by

at ultra frequencies'

Oxley,

Another possible discrete geometry used

type package.

sandwich using

C H

p 24 (September 1976)

1,

in 1968, figure 11.27(a)

a thin film of undisclosed glassy

massive carbon electrodes

No

Switching phenomenon have been noted for a decade but Ovshinsky

by producing a discrete component commercially

his

drift velocity.

'Design and performance of trapatt devices, oscillators and amplifiers' by

Howard and

by

to essentially zero,

are favourable to the production of

below the saturated

drift velocities well

KKN Chang and S Weisbrod Proc.

1968

waveforms produced

current and voltage

high efficiencies. The frequency of operation

SOURCE:

and the current returns

the electric field has fully recovered

The

repeated.

is

Allison and

Thompson The

p 12 (January 1976)

phenomena

in

disordered solids' by S

R Ovshinsky

Phys.

Rev. Lett, vol 21, p 1450 (1968)

1968

IRIS (ESRO-1)

Launched 17 May 1968.

solar

ESRO

Satellite
First

European Space Research Organisation

and cosmic radiations. 3456 solar

SOURCE:

cells, batteries.

Decayed on

(Europe)
satellite.

May

Measurements of

Table of Artificial Satellites Launched Between 1957 and 1976 (Geneva:

Telecommunication Union) (1977)

the

1971.
International

210

Concise Description of Each Invention

in

Date Order

thermistor rackagc

carbon electrodes

rv
Early discrete switches.

Figure 11.27. Amorphous silicon switch.

1968

C-MOS (Complementary Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor)

INTEGRATED CIRCUIT
At the October 1968 International Electron Devices Meeting
Electronics division announced two experimental
the

way

to

more successful

solid state

semiconductor) element for read-only

and silicon dioxide. Turned on by

memory
memory

MOS

in

applications,

MONTOS

is a

RCA

schemes

may show

that

(metal-oxide-nitride-oxide-

non-volatile sandwich of silicon nitride

MONOS

could lead to circuits having

and storage elements on the same chip, according

active, passive

Labs.,

Washington, the Westinghouse Molecular

field effect transistor

systems. One, the

a negative voltage,

GT & E

Westinghouse,

Sylvania (USA)

to

Hung C

Lin,

their

all

manager of advanced

techniques development.

The

transistors

on the same chip

to drive higher loads.

MOSFETs

Lin says, and are

made with

standard

The

by placing

And

MOS

between

lateral

non bipolar
most

manufactur ing techniques, Potentially, he adds,

memories but as

logic and shift-register

end could reduce the interface problems

the use of bipolar transistors at the output

devices and others such as transistor-transistor logic or diode-transistor logic.

The performance of complementary metal oxide semiconductor

must be

logic that there

to fabricate n

and

vertical

resulting devices are 10 times faster than

MOS

the structures could be used not only as large random-access

elements.

Paul

MOSFETs

other development, a complementary MOS-bipolar structure, gets around the fact that

are usually limited to driving only low-capacitance loads

good reason why

and p channels

who

Richman,

with

in the

same

its

not used

more

logic

often.

is

so

There

much
is.

It

better than p-channel

has been very difficult

substrate.

Walter Zloczower described

the

complementary

MOS

circuit

at

the

International Electron Devices Meeting in 1968, says that their difficulties with the extremely resistive

substrate have been

only source

Richman
ICs.

The

is

economic rather than technological. The material

a chemical firm

feels that the

RCA

RCA's method

in

GT & E

is

easy enough to make, but the

Germany.

approach

is

the

first

simplified

MOS

method of making complementary

and Westinghouse fabrication techniques have disadvantages, he says.

of forming conventional n and p channels in the same substrate requires extremely

careful control of the diffusion process and results in a rather high threshold voltage.

Westinghouse uses an elaborate procedure of etching

then etching back to form the p channels.
results in relatively

Neither

GT & E

Richman hopes
complementary

SOURCE:

slow

pits, filling

them with

This process involves

critical

epitaxial p-type material,

mechanical operations and

circuits.

nor Sylvania has immediate plans for marketing complementary

that the

MOS

new

fabrication

method

will

MOS

open up the memory applications

integrated circuits are so well suited.

'Electronics review

integrated electronics' Electronics p 49 (28 October 1968)

ICs.
for

But

which

A Concise
1968

THE 'TRINITRON'
A new

colour

Description of Each Invention in Date Order

Colour Cathode Ray Tube

CRT employing

a single lens in-line

large diameter lens minimizes electron

gun

plates attached to the top of the

beam

21

Sony (Japan)
gun was developed by Sony Corporation. The single

aberration, resulting in a high quality image. Electrostatic

beams

effectively converge the side

the phosphor screen.

at

The

unique arrangement of the electron optics of the gun permits modulating the electron scanning velocity,
giving rise to further improvement of the picture image.

number of

Aperture-Grill, which has a great

shadow mask,
a

CRT. Since

incorporated in the

is

shadow mask,

the

CRT

A new

the Aperture-Grill has a greater

yields a brighter picture.

The

the Aperture Grill

sensitive to terrestrial

is less

cylindrical face plate

whose

magnetism and

vertical curvature is

almost

30V", the world's

SOURCE:

'The

Trans, vol

BTR-14, p 19-27

SEE ALSO:
Electronics

&

largest,

1968

Ohkoshi

this

from Moire

patterns.

The

unique high-quality CRT, ranging

colour tube' by S Yoshida,

'TRINITRON' a new colour tube' by

3, No 4 (December 1969)

14 degree

&

free

it is

&

Ohkoshi

S Miyaoka. IEEE

S Yoshida,

Ohkoshi

&

S Miyaoka

Radio Technician vol

'A wide-deflection angle (114)

'25V inch

produces

(July 1968)

TRINITRON

Miyaoka. IEEE Chicago Spring Conference on

stripes

Additional advantages are that

with a variety of deflection angles.

'TRINITRON' a new

'The

transparency than

reduces the ambient light problem.

infinite,

Sony Corporation has manufactured more than 20 million of

to

that

beam

phosphor

vertically continuous

image limited only by the electron beam diameter.

a high resolution

from 5V"

colour selection mechanism called the

instead of the holes or slots found in a conventional

slits

TRINITRON

S Miyaoka

colour picture tube' by S Yoshida,

BTR

Ohkoshi

&

(12 June 1973)

colour picture tube and associated

IEEE Chicago Spring Conference on BTR

'BARITT' DIODE

GT

new developments' by S Yoshida,

(10 June 1974)

Wright (UK)

Wright described a new negative resistance microwave device based on the principle of barrier

In 1968

controlled injection and transit time delay the

device should operate

at

BARITT

moderate power and low noise

diode.
level.

His simple analysis suggested that the

In the

same

year, independently,

Ruegg

presented a paper on the simplified large-signal theory of a similar punch-through structure giving

considerably optimistic prospects

10-100

at

10

GHz. These

an estimated

theoretical

and Wright achieved negative resistance

pnp

structures

and

in

power

npn

in

silicon structures,

20%

and power output of

in

1970 when Sultan

and subsequently oscillations

1971 when Coleman and Sze reported oscillations

structures. Several experimental papers

BARITT

efficiency of the order of

works were confirmed experimentally

in

in

metal-semiconductor-metal

have since been presented, comparing the properties of different

diode structures and pointing out the reliable and low-noise operation of the device

at

moderate

levels.

SOURCE:

'Large-signal

analysis

of the silicon

pnp-BARRIT

diode'

by

Karasek Solid State

Electronics vol 19, p 625 (1976)

SEE ALSO: G T

H
1968

Wright

Elect. Lett,

vol 4,

543 (1968)

Ruegg. IEEE Trans. ED- 15, 577 (1968)

INTEGRATED CIRCUIT ALUMINIUM

METALLISATION

Noyce (USA)

An insight into Noyce's style of technical leadership is provided by Gordon Moore, a chemical physicist
who was one of the eight founders of Fairchild Semiconductors, and who quit in 1968 to join Noyce
in starting Intel, where he is now president and chief executive officer. 'Bob was certainly the idea
man in the group. can think of two things that at the time impressed me even more than what he did
I

for the integrated circuit.

with

all

the base.

One was

the use of

aluminium

for transistor contacts.

kinds of complex alloys to find one metal that would

One day Bob

said,

'Why

don't you try aluminium'.

make

remember

struggling

contact with both the emitter and

A Concise Description of Each

212
'So

aluminium and

tried

Invention in Date Order

worked

it

Bob suggested

electrical contacts.

1968

SOURCE:

'The genesis of the integrated

'MUTATOR' CIRCUIT
The
4>

was
it

circuit'

by

barriers.'

F Wolff IEEE Spectrum p 49 (August 1976)

NETWORK

L O Chua (USA)

basic problem of synthesising a nonlinear resistor, inductor, or capacitor with a prescribed

or q

i,

v curve

is

new

solved by introducing three

v, <p

i,

reflector has the property that a given

or q

v,

<fi

new elements

Active circuit realisations for each of these

or q

i,

is

<p

i,

or q

characterised by

compressed or expanded along

v curve can be

any prescribed single-valued (which need not be monotonic)

synthesized.

v,
is

Using these new elements as building blocks,

direction, or along a vertical direction.

v,

this resistor across

curve can be reflected about an arbitrary straight line through the origin. The scalor
the property that any

the property that a nonlinear resistor

transformed into a nonlinear inductor, or a nonlinear capacitor, upon connecting

two of an appropriate mutator. The

network elements, namely

linear two-port

The mutator has

the mutator, the reflector, and the scalor.

port

good

the use of nickel to fabricate junctions with

worked. These were both cases where he proposed

wouldn't work and which then got us past significant

something

really thought

there

one day and

it

That really got the double-diffused transistor out of

beautifully.

Then

the laboratory as a practical device.

a horizontal

is

it

shown

that

v curve can be

Laboratory models

are given.

of mutators, reflectors, and scalors have been built using discrete components. Oscilloscope tracings of
typical mutated, reflected

and scaled,

good agreement with theory

are in

remain

be solved are the

to

SOURCE:

'Synthesis of

stability

new

v, 4>

i,

at relatively

and q

v curves are given.

The experimental

low operating frequencies. The

and frequency limitation of the present

nonlinear network elements' by

Chua

results

problems that

practical

circuits.

Proc.

IEEE

vol 36,

No

8,

p 1325 (August 1968)

SEE ALSO:
J.

1968

RC

'Additional types of mutators and active

No

Electronics vol 42,

1,

synthesis using mutators' by

Murata

Int.

p 33 (1977)

HIGH DEFINITION TELEVISION

Nippon Broadcasting Corporation

(Japan)

In

NHK

1968 the

(Nippon Broadcasting Corporation),

into high definition television

with those of the

a quality of
this

far

NHK

in the

in

1974 were joined by Sony

development of

image comparable

would need a change

and

that is to say

to that at the

new system

Japanese television, began research

in this

work. Sony engineers worked

called Hi-Vision

cinema images of

which would give television

125 scanning lines on 60 hertz.

production cameras and the whole stock of current television

in

as Europeans were concerned

They have launched

expense was excessive.

this

under the Eureka programme a high definition system with images of 1250 lines
existing networks (Pal Secam

600 million or so television

NTSC) and

in particular

sets in service in the

with the standard

As

sets.

a counter-attack

that is

D2-Mac

However

compatible with

Pacs (1984). So the

world won't have to be replaced. This system has

been available since 1988.

Doubtless

will take another ten years before high definition television systems, be they

it

Vision or the European and American

The

first

place

live high definition re-transmission organised

(UK: Queen Anne

Research

by the national Japanese channel

NHK

Macdonald

&

Co.) p 238 (1990)

the

Arpanet (USA)

end of September 1969, four

Institute, the University

US

academic

of California

at

institutions

Santa Barbara and

the University of Utah, the Stanford

at

Los Angeles

were linked by an

experimental computer network, ARPAnet, funded by the Advanced Research Projects Agency

of the

US

took

of Inventions and Discoveries Associate Editor Valerie-Anne Giscard d'Estaing

Press,

INTERNET
Towards

Japanese Hi-

fully operational.

time of the Opening ceremony of the Seoul Olympics on 17 September 1988.

at the

SOURCE: The Book

1969

(ACTIV Advanced Compatible TV), become

Department of Defense (DoD). With the benefit of

this military-inspired

(ARPA)

a quarter of a century of hindsight,

development can now be seen as one of the seminal events

in the history

of

A Concise

Description of Each Invention in Date Order

213

communications. Out of the ARPAnet has emerged the extraordinary phenomenon of the Internet

computer network

worldwide, while growing

that already links tens of millions of users

at a rate that,

unchecked, would cover the entire population of the earth by 2001.

The

first

distinguishing feature of the Internet

across the network

is

that

is

it

based on packet switching. Traffic carried

broken up into conveniently sized chunks of data, which are then augmented

is

by addressing and a variety of quality-control information before being committed

to the

network for

transmission.

Packet switching has two distinct advantages over the circuit-switching regime used
telephony. First,

to a connection if

Secondly,

highly efficient in the use of transmission bandwidth. Bandwidth

it is
it

is

generating packets, otherwise the bandwidth

packet switched network

link fails, then packets can simply

is

in
is

conventional

only allocated

available to other connections.

is

tolerant of failures or breaks in the network. If

one transmission

be rerouted along some alternative path through the network. The

perceived robustness of packet switching was an important consideration behind

DoD

funding for

ARPAnet.
Aside from being a packet-switched network, the Internet

distinguished by being organised as a

is

multiplicity of tens of thousands of interconnected subnetworks.

been able

to

grow so

fast.

It

why

This explains

has not been built from scratch; rather,

it

the Internet has

has been largely bolted together

from existing subnetworks.

The

individual subnetworks cover a variety of networking technologies, such as Ethernet local-area

networks and X.25 wide-area networks. These technically disparate subnetworks are bound together

by the

intellectual glue

generally

An

known by

TCP

of the IP (Internet Protocol) and the

(Transmission Control Protocol),

TCP/IP.

their joint label

Internet transmission path comprises three basic elements: the host

path, the subnetworks,

level 3, the

network

and the gateways

layer, of the

that link the

computers

at either

end of the

subnetworks (figure 11.28). The IP resides

OSI seven-layer model so

that IP functions

have

to

at

be provided within

the terminal machines and within every gateway.

Given the shortness of

radical

its

been remarkable. However,

history, the progress of the Internet has

achievement may yet

lie

ahead

the undermining of the

dominant

its

most

role of the telecoms operators.

Conventional wisdom holds that the multimedia future will be created around telecoms networks and
the standards of the

Broadband ISDN. The message of the Mbone

is

that

such cosy assumptions

necessarily so'.

100 000 000

stage

DARPA
10 000 000

stage 2

stage 3

enterprise
Internets

universality

1990:
1

</>

000 000

ARPANet

ceases

100 000

1992: Internet Society

created

1986:NSFNet

10 000

created

1989:

first

public

commercial Internets

1000

created

100
10
1

1968

1973

1979

1984

1990

Figure 11.28. The three ages of the

SOURCE:

1995

Internet.

'The net effect' by Roger Dettmer IEE Review p 67 (March 1995)

2001

'ain't

214
1969

Concise Description of Each Invention

in

Date Order

AERIAL MATCHING UNIT

In order to

match

random-length

50 or 75 ohms which

to the

aerial to a transmitter

will allow efficient

with a transformer of the correct

In such a transformer the

is

necessary to transform the aerial impedance

transfer.

The

ideal

way

bottom end of each winding may be connected

one end connected

make

appropriate tap earthed will

end of the

match impedances

to

is

to earth.

It

is

a small step

to the transmitter, the other to the aerial

and the

a variable ratio transformer.

were 3 turns (on

In the implementation, there

to the

it

(UK)

ratio.

to realise that a tapped coil with

and 2 turns

power

M Gordon

Eur Ing

a 2-in dia former) to the

12 taps 5 turns apart

first tap,

coil.

This was the basic matching unit but a variable capacitor was added, together with a 5 way, 2-gang
switch so that as well as the variable-ratio transformer with the capacitor across the primary one could

have a

parallel network, an

SOURCE:

L-network, a series capacitor or straight-through connection.

SEE ALSO: Amateur Radio

(RSGB) pp
1969

Techniques by Pat Hawker,

G3VA,

1969)

Edition 3 (and subsequent editions)

241, 242

A H

MAGNETIC BUBBLES

R F Fischer, A J
P Remeika and L G Van

Bobeck,

Perneski, J

(USA)

Uitert

RSGB) (May

Technical Topics column, Radio Communications (Journal of the

magnetic material usually consists of arrays of discrete localised volumes of material, defined as

domains, Each domain separated from

of the magnetisation vectors of

neighbours by domain walls has a preferential orientation

its

of the atomic magnetic moments within

all

have different orientations with respect to each other depending on

upon them.

force vectors acting

In

some

cases,

plate or layer in a reproducible way. This

is

volume. Domains may

its

energy content and the

their net

domains can be produced and moved about

the case for a

Figure 11.29 shows a typical domain structure in a magnetic garnet

materials.

with the random, worm-like domain patterns maintained, in the steady

magnetic anisotrophy of

this material. If

in a thin

number of ferromagnetic and ferrimagnetic

an increasing magnetic

state,

field is

at

zero magnetic field

by the inherent uniaxial

applied perpendicular to the

plane of the plate in figure 11.29 then the unfavourably oriented domains (with respect to the applied
field)

may be made

'magnetic bubbles'
in the direction

to shrink

if

and then

finally to collapse into cylindrical

of an applied magnetic gradient and their presence or absense

the plate constitutes the binary-coded information stored in the

SOURCE:

'Magnetic domain bubble memories' by

Electronic Engineer vol 45,

SEE ALSO:
Perneski,

1969

No

Van

Uitert

of

L Tomlinson and H H Weider The Radio &

IEEE

Trans, on Magnetics

A H Bobeck, R F Fischer, A
MAG-5, pp 544-54 (1969)

(UK)

Satellite

45E longitude over Indian Ocean. Spin

SOURCE:

at a certain position

12 p 727 (December 1975)

Launched 22 November, 1969. Government communication

at

like

memory.

'Application of orthoferrites to domain-wall devices' by

P Remeika and L

SKYNET-A

domains which look

they are observed in polarized light under a microscope; they can be displaced

stabilized

7236

satellite to

be placed

solar cells, batteries.

in

synchronous orbit

Launched by NASA.

Table of Artificial Satellites Launched Between 1957 and 1976 (Geneva:

International

Telecommunication Union) (1977)

1969

PARCOR
A new

NTT(Japan)

method of speech analysis and

of the partial autocorrelation

synthesis, in

(PARCOR)

and Telephone Public Corporation

which the speech spectra are expressed with the use

coefficients

in 1969.

was proposed and developed by Nippon Telegraph

A Concise

Description of Each Invention

Date Order

in

215

NO EXTERNAL
MAGNETIC FIELD

LARGE EXTERNAL
MAGNETIC FIELD

SMALL EXTERNAL
MAGNETIC FIELD

Figure 11.29. Oppositely oriented magnetic domains shown with and without an applied external magnetic
field having indicated polarity and direction. (After Bobeck and Scovil.)

In order to obtain a

speech of high quality,

and the driving source parameters and

it

necessary to extract the spectral envelope parameters

is

to reproduce these features of the original

PARCAR

as possible. In extracting these parameters efficiently,

Speech signals are sampled

at

every 125

before and just after the sampling time

Then

the deviation

/xs

through a

coefficients

PARCAR

analyzer.

between the predicted value and the

value

real

is

PARCOR

informations are compressed to 57 bits which consist of the

PARCOR

coefficient)

and driving source parameters of 17

bits/s.

The speech compression by

of the

PCM

method and

analysis mentioned above.

is

the

PARCOR

PARCOR

method

is

Speech synthesis

very efficient.

The

The

signal amplitude just

predicted with a set of n samples by the least square method.

is

informations obtained during a certain time (one frame 15 ms) are the

(5 bits to a

speech as accurately

were introduced.

measured.

PARCOR

The extracted
coefficients.

coefficients of 8 x 5
bits.

of the recent high-speed logic elements (LSI IC),

it

about one fifteenth of the 56 000

is

When
is

40

bits

This corresponds to 3800

bits/s

just an inverse process of the speech

type speech analysis and synthesis system

conventional parameter editing and synthesis method.

eight

Speech

the

PARCOR

is

superior to the

synthesizer

is

composed

possible to respond simultaneously to

many

telephone circuits.

This speech analysis and synthesis system based on

compared with

that of the conventional recording

PARCOR

coefficients has

and editing system and various

services will be possible. Moreover, this analysis

method

is

many response words

flexible

expected to produce

new

speech response
services such as

the automatic speech recognition and the perception of speaking voices, etc.

SOURCE:
F

'Speech analysis and synthesis system based on

Itakura and S Saito Meeting

Record of

partial

the Acoustical Society of

auto correlation coefficients' by

Japan 2-2-6 (October 1969)

(In

Japanese)

SEE ALSO:

'Digital filtering techniques for

speech analysis and synthesis' by F Itakura and S Saito

A Concise Description of Each

216

Conference Record 7

'New speech

No
1969

12,

Invention in Date Order

Cong. Acoust. 25C1, Budapest (1971)

Int.

PARCOR'

analysis and synthesis system

pp 58-78 (1973)

by Fumitada Itakura Nikkei Electronics vol

'BUCKET-BRIGADE' DELAY CIRCUIT

The general

principle

is

new

signal

at

F L

be delayed

that the signal to

interconnected by switches operated

As

2,

(In Japanese)

sample can evidently not be stored

Sangster and

sampled and stored

is

same frequency

the

Teer (USA)

cascade of capacitors

in a

as the signal sampler.

sample present

in a capacitor before the signal

completely removed, only half the number of capacitors actually do store information

is

any moment,

at

the others being empty.

In the past only rather complicated circuitry has been proposed for this function,

so that even in

A much

simpler solution

integrated form there

presents itself

when

was no chance

for an inexpensive

sample transfer

signal

leads to a

much

not established by a charge transfer in the direction of

is

what

signal travel but in the opposite direction, by

compact design.

is

essentially a charge deficit transfer. This principle

simpler resistorless circuit suitable for realization in integrated-circuit form.

SOURCE: 'Bucket-Brigade electronics possibilities for delay, time-axis conversion and scanning' by
F L J Sangster and K Teer. IEEE Journal of Solid State Circuits vol SC-4 No 3, p 131 (June 1969)
1969

MICROELECTRONICS
CDI
In

Bell Laboratories

(Bipolar)

Ferranti (UK)

(Collector Diffusion Isolation)

1970 manufacturers began

to investigate bipolar processes

competitive with m.o.s. For example there was the

first at

Bell Labs and then

suggested

by

c.d.i.

which seemed

were compatible with

with a slice of 10 to 202

cm

which could operate

circuits

n + diffusions were
at first.

made through

in a

is

The

SOURCE:

it

'The semiconductor story' by

SEE ALSO: 'Collector k-diffusion

R A Pedersen Proc. IEEE vol

The Magistor, invented by E C Hudson,

breakdown with beta values

SOURCE:
Res. Dev.

The

in the

of then had

make

down on top of
now buried n +

contact with the

them. The
layers laid

isolated the area within. In this base area

flat

No

Dean Wireless World p 170

9, p

grown

in the holes to

surface.

(April 1973)

B T Murphy V

Glinski,

Gary

1523 (September 1969)

E C Hudson IBM (USA)

Jr, is

a dual-collector planar transistor operating

range of 30 to 100. In effect,

this beta

below avalanche

appears to amplify a typical

sensitive axes are orthogonal to the substrate surface.

'A magnetic sensor

vol 25,

SEE ALSO:

p-type epitaxial layer put

isolated integrated circuits' by

57,

MAGISTOR' MAGNETIC SENSOR

Hall voltage.

cm

to gain access to the electrodes, silicon is

level as the oxide, thus giving a

and

1969

all

system for example, started

c.d.i.

made, as well as any second emitter for a Shottky diode. After the oxide

has been deposited and holes cut in

same

Lyle

the epitaxial layer to

These not only acted as collector contacts but

the n + emitter diffusion

excess of 1.5GHz and

in

p-type silicon into which n-layers were diffused. These were later to be

formed

the collectors of transistors

the s

of being

IV which was

Ferranti, the Isoplanar process of Fairchild, the Process

the advantage of using less surface area than earlier processes.

down

to offer prospect

process (collector diffusion isolation) developed

Plessey's research centre at Caswell, and the Dutch Locos process developed by Philips.

at

All of these

(USA)

No

3,

utilising

an avalanching semiconductor device' by

Vinal

IBM

J.

p 196 (May 1981)

'Transistor responds to magnetic fields' ed Robert

pp 73-8 (15 February 1969)

H Cushman

Electronic Design

News

A Concise
1969

Description of Each Invention

SEMICONDUCTOR MEMORY SYSTEM

Agusta,

Date Order

in

R D Moore

and

G K

Tu

(USA)
Since the
in a

first

disclosure, by Agusta and Ayling et

computer system, the rapid development of

and power advantages of the

SOURCE:

silicon technology

memory

field

due

to the speed,

latter.

memory

'Nonvolatile semiconductor

probably

has led to the gradual (and

eventually complete) replacement of magnetics by semiconductors in the

density, cost

memory

the actual application of semiconductor

ah of

devices' by

J J

Chang

IEEE

Proc.

vol

64 No

7,

p 1039

(July 1976)

SEE ALSO:

'A 64

bit

memory

planar double-diffused monolithic

B Agusta ISCC

chip' by

Digest of

Tech. Papers p 38 (February 1969)

'A high-performance monolithic

by

store'

R D Moore and

Ayling,

G K

Tu ISCC Digest of Tech.

Papers p 36 (February 1969)

1970

TUNG-FANG-HUNG (CHINA
Launched 24 April 1970.

SOURCE:

(People's Republic of China)

1) Satellite

First satellite of the People's

Republic of China.

Table of Artificial Satellites Launched Between 1957 and 1976 (Geneva:

International

Telecommunication Union) (1977)

1970

VIDEO CASSETTE RECORDERS

Various (Japan, Europe)

In addition to professional video recorders, manufacturers also

market.

was

It

for this purpose that video cassette recorders

Towards the end of

The

first

the 1960s Matsushita,

prestige to the point where, today,

October 1970 Philips launched

In

SOURCE: The Book

it

its

for

Philips (Holland)

home

970

opposed

to tapes).

and Sony together developed the standard U-Matic.

in 1970.

Subsequently the standard U-Matic gained

in

considered to be the standard professional recorder.

VCR

an apparatus aimed

at

mass market.

the

were the

&

Co.) p
to

first

17 (1990)

produce a machine with

its

own

tuner and timer

(i.e.

suitable

viewers) in 1973.

SOURCE:
1

is

(as

of Inventions and Discoveries Associate Editor Valerie-Anne Giscard d'Estaing

(UK: Queen Anne Press, Macdonald

NOTE:

JVC

models were launched on the market

designed models intended for the mass

were developed

Private

communication from E Davies, London

UNIX

Bell Labs, University of California

(USA)
The Unix operating system grew out of research done
of California

at

Dennis Ritchie.

Berkeley.

Today there are versions of

supercomputers. The

name Unix

The main advantage of

this rather

and multi-user, which explains

called Unix

sums
3

in the

seemed

System

and Xenix.

set to

become

it

Laboratories and at the University

Bell

minicomputers by Ken Thompson and

for almost every sort of

dates from 1970, and the

complex operating system on

first

machine, from portables

microcomputer

that

that they

were setting up

seems

it

is

multi-task

for micros are

Bell Laboratories belong) have invested considerable

The Open Software Foundation was born

it

is

growing share of the market. The two main versions

AT&T (to which

to

version was marketed in 1975.

its

Unix System

the world standard, seven major builders representing

Siemens, Nixdorf and Apollo,

SOURCE:

its

itself

at

for

development of the Unix operating system. At the time when

computer science announced

standard.

was orginally designed

It

a foundation

in

all set to fight

May

the

which would develop

1988.

monopoly

version

40 per cent of world

its

own Unix

Formed of IBM, HP, DEC,

that

AT&T

was building

Bull.

up.

The Book of Inventions and Discoveries Associate Editor Valerie-Anne Giscard d'Estaing

(UK: Queen Anne

Press,

Macdonald

&

Co.) p

17 (1990)

A Concise

218
1970

Description of Each Invention in Date Order

W S Boyle & G E Smith (USA)

CHARGE COUPLED DEVICES

Storing charge in potential wells created at the surface of a semiconductor and

moving the

(representing information) over the surface by

moving

the charge

minima.

potential

Principle of operation: creation of potential wells.

Consider the application of an increasingly positive voltage to the gate of the m.o.s. structure shown
figure

1.30(a).

As

is to

resembles that of the gate of an m.o.s. transistor,

of majority carriers

(i.e.

a small positive gate bias causes the repulsion

i.e.

holes) from the semiconductor immediately beneath the gate (figure 11.30(b)),

Vth makes

whilst a gate bias in excess of the threshold voltage,

form

at the

oxide-semiconductor interface (figure

however, the existence of a gate voltage

in

there

is

1.30(c)).

excess of

layer will form immediately in the structure of figure

V,h
1

possible for an inversion layer to

it

Unlike the situation

in an m.o.s. transistor,

does not necessarily mean

1.30(a).

This

is

form the channel, no such source

an inversion

that

because, whereas in an m.o.s. t.

a source diffusion capable of supplying, almost instantaneously, a large

carriers to

in

be expected, the influence of the gate on the underlying semiconductor closely

number of minority

exists adjacent to each c.c.d. electrode.

v<

ELECTRODE

OXIDE-*-:

-/DEPLETION LAYER

p-TYPE SEVICONCCTCR

(b)

CO)

a ""<>

.r.-.Y.y.Y.

INVERSION LAYER

(c)

Figure 11.30. Single

c.c.d. electrode

showing the creation of depletion and inversion layers under

the influence

of an increasingly positive electrode voltage.

SOURCE: 'Charge
& Electronic

Radio

coupled devices

concepts, technologies and

Engineer vol 45,

SEE ALSO: 'Charge coupled

vol 49, p583 (1970)

No

1,

applications' by J

D A Benyon

The

p 647 (November 1975)

semiconductor devices' by

S Boyle and

G E

Smith Bell System Tech.

J.

1970

X-RAY LITHOGRAPHY FOR BUBBLE DEVICES

Spiller,

Castellani,

Feder,

Romankiw, J Topalian and

Heritage (USA)
X-rays have been used for several decades to obtain images of objects,
for the fabrication of microelectronic devices

were made

simple, they have a high throughput because

have a resolution which

produced the

first

is at

least as

good

in 1970.

First

proposals to use x-rays

X-ray lithographic systems are very

many wafers can be exposed simultaneously and

as that of electron

beam

they

systems. In 1972 Spears and Smith

devices using proximity printing with x-rays and demonstrated the high resolution

capability of x-ray lithography.

In particular, x-ray lithography lends itself to the fabrication of high

resolution devices requiring no alignment capability, such as magnetic bubble devices.

SOURCE:

'X-ray lithography for bubble devices' by

Romankiw and

SEE ALSO:

Spiller,

Fedor.

Topalian,

Castellani,

Heritage Solid State Technology p 62 (April 1976)

'X-ray projection printing of electrical circuit patterns' by

1065 (August 1970)

Feder

IBM

Report TR22,

A Concise

Description of Each Invention in Date Order

'High resolution pattern replication using soft x-rays' by

8,

'Evolution of bubble circuits processed by a single

IEEE

Strauss

The concept of floppy

discs

much

has become a very

is

by

level'

MAG-9,

Smith Electron.

vol

Lett,

A H

rapidly

in-device

becoming accepted

when

in

many

first,

was

obscure one

a pretty

In

at that.

its

original

form

was

it

IBM

370 when introduced

part of the diagnostic system

IBM 3300

370/155 and 165 and formed part of the controller for the

it

communications systems.

disk drive. At that stage

a read-only device and enabled diagnostic programs to be introduced quickly, to identify faults

and help
Indeed,

reduce maintenance time.

to

was not

it

1973

until

that

it

can be properly said

system. That was the 3740 data entry system

because

was

by accident.

designed and developed by IBM, was simply a component of the

and

Danylchuck, F

areas of data processing. Indeed,

talking about data entry and data

The

1970

IBM (USA)

yet the very concept of floppy discs appears to have started almost

for the

Bobeck,

p 474 (1973)

And

it

it

have formed an integral part of an

to

IBM

which promptly established an industry standard and,

much

provided three times the storage and

faster access, rendered

what competition there

virtually obsolete overnight.

SOURCE:
1970

mask

Trans, on Magnetics vol

'FLOPPY DISC RECORDER

in

Spears and

p 102 (1972)

Rossol and

1970

DL

NATO-1

"Accident' became the floppy discs' by

W Boffin, Electronics Weekly p

NATO

Satellite

Launched 20 March 1970.

the equator at approximately

wideband

data, telegraph

SOURCE:

Telecommunication

18W

data).

(12

May

1976)

(International)

Geostationary space craft stationed over

satellite.

Hundreds of communications of various types (voice,

longitude.

and facsimile

11

More than 7000

solar cells, batteries.

Table of Artificial Satellites Launched Between 1957 and 1976 (Geneva:

International

Telecommunication Union) (1977)

1971

BUMPED TAPE AUTOMATIC BONDING

The concept began with Tape Automated Bonding which automated

packaged IC devices,

initially

contact pads or bumps.

making

it

now

BTAB

using patterned etched copper

modified

possible to gang

bond

this

S Fraenkel (USA)

the bonding and assembly of

lead frames and IC chips with raised

foil

approach by providing the bumps

to conventional

bonding material and the physical standoff

S Liu and

at the

end of each lead

IC chips. These bumps provided the requisite

The

to prevent lead/chip shorting.

potential for

volume

production and cost savings motivated the development of essential equipment, materials, processes

and tooling. However, because of competitive and proprietary aspects, much development was carried
out independently and thus often duplicated.

SOURCE: 'BTAB's

future

SEE ALSO: 'Bumped

an

optimistic prognosis' Solid Stae Technology p 77 (March 1980)

tape automated bonding

(BTAB)

applications' by

Proc. International Microelectronic Conference Anaheim,

CA

RF

Unger,

Burns and

Kanz

pp 71-7 (February-March 1979)

27,

'Application of tape automated bonding technology for hybrids' by

R G Oswald

and

R Rodrigues

de Miranda Solid State Technology pp 33-8 (March 1977)

1971

HOLOGRAM MATRIX RADAR

Iizuka

V K Nguyen

and

Ogura

(Canada)

The concept of hologram matrix

is

proposed.

This concept was incorporated into the design of a

novel radar which, unlike conventional radars, determines the distance by the spatial distribution of the
scattered

wave

built for the

rather than by the lapse of times.

purpose of mapping

in other fields.

The

radar based upon this principle

ice thickness in the range of 0.5

but

it

was developed and

has potential applications

A Concise

220
Such

Description of Each Invention

Date Order

in

a radar has real-time processing capability resulting

The programability of

computer subsystems.

from an amalgamation of the antenna and

the radiation pattern

by software of the processing

Capability of dual focussing of the transmitter and receiver

simplifies the construction of the radar.

eliminates the necessity of either pulsing, or frequency modulation of the transmitting signal. Superior

performance

advantageous for measuring lossy

in the short range, with high resolution, is particularly

ice.

These features were substantiated by experimental

results obtained

from the

field

operation of the

system.

SOURCE:

'A hologram matrix radars' by

Weedmark

Proc.

IEEE

SEE ALSO: 'Review

thickness' by
in Toronto,

Iizuka,

Ogura,

V K Nguyen

and

Ogura. Presented

Yen, Van-Khai

M28-M33 (December
its

at the

Aerospace Electronic Symposium

J.

No

vol 17,

10,

1971)

application to a novel radar' by

H Ogura

and

Iizuka.

Proc.

IEEE

(Lett.)

pp 1040-1 (July 1973)

Gilbert (USA)

carrier-domain device, as conceived by Gilbert, consists of an elongated bipolar transistor, within

which emitter-current flow

is

restricted to a small region

known

as a domain.

The domain can be moved

within the device, subject to an external signal. Using this concept novel devices,

from

directly
is

Nguyen and John R

published in Can. Aeronaut. Space

is

CARRIER-DOMAIN MAGNETOMETER
A

1495 (October 1976)

10, p

Canada on March 16 1971. Text

'Hologram matrix and

1971

No

of the electrical properties of ice and HISS down-looking radar for measuring ice

Iizuka,

pp 429-30 and pp

vol 61,

vol 64,

their

geometry, can be designed.

a magnetic-field sensor in

which two domains are caused

by the application of a magnetic

at a rate

One form of

field

normal

to rotate together

to the silicon surface.

The

proportional to the magnetic-flux density.

whose functions

arise

carrier-domain device proposed by Gilbert

first

around a circular device

Output current pulses are produced

successful carrier-domain magnetometer

(c.d.m.) based on this design has been fabricated and operated by the authors, and brief details of

its

operation have been published.

SOURCE:
and

GG

'The carrier-domain magnetometer: a novel silicon magnetic

Bloodworth Solid-State and Electron Devices vol

SEE ALSO: 'New

planar distributed devices based on a

Technical Digest p 166 (1971) (Ref.

'Novel magnetic

'Novel magnetic

1971

Manley,

GG

field

domain

pp 608-10 (1976)

first

6,

field sensor'

by

N Manley

p 176 (November 1978)

principle'

by Gilbert B IEEE ISSCC

proposed device designs' by Gilbert B

(Ref. 2: p 183)

sensor using carrier domain rotation: operation and practical performance' by

Bloodworth and

Y Z Bahnas

Electron. Lett, vol 12, pp 610-1

ELECTRONIC DIGITAL WATCH

The

No

p 183)

sensor using carrier domain rotation:

field

Electron. Lett, vol 12,

1:

2,

electronic digital watch

(1976) (Ref.

3:

p 183)

Time Computer Corporation (USA)

was introduced

in the fall

of 1971: the Pulsar, retailing for $2000 with

an 18-carat gold case bracelet. Touch a button and the light-emitting diodes showed the time.

(It

took

about a year for Pulsar to add the day and date.)

SOURCE:
1971

FAMOS

Electronics p 401 (17 April 1980).

(Floating-Gate Avalanche-Injection

Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor)

Frohman-Bentchkowsky (USA)

INTEGRATED

CIRCUIT
Famos

describes the floating-gate avalanche-injection metal-oxide semiconductor transistor that

Frohman-Bentchkowsky developed

The Famos device

made

is

at Intel

Corp.

essentially a silicon-gate

in

MOS

to the floating silicon gate. Instead, charge

is

Dov

1971.
field-effect transistor in

which no connection

is

injected into the gate by avalanches of high-energy

A Concise Description of Each

electrons from either the source or the drain.

voltage of

28

Invention in Date Order

221

volts applied to the pn junction releases

the electrons.

Data

stored in a

is

Famos memory by charging

The threshold voltage then changes, and

The Famos

cell

the floating-gate insulator

is

the basis for readout.

has generally been considered more reliable than nitride storage mechanism used

reprogrammable metal-nitride-oxide-semiconductor memories.

in

above the channel region.

the presence or absence of conduction

through a thin oxide layer into traps

at

MNOS

In

But a

the oxide-nitride interface.

memories

carriers tunnel

of stored charge

partial loss

during readout limits the number of readout cycles to approximately 10".

In

Famos memories, on

the other hand, there

the loss of stored electrons

no loss of charge due to reading. Moreover, over time,

is

negligible, less than

is

one per

cell per year,

and information retention

is

excellent.

SOURCE:
1971

DSCS-1

'The Famos principle' Electronics p 109 (3 March 1977)

(USA)

Satellite

Launched

November

1971. Defense Satellite

multichannel communications payload.

Communication System. Synchronous

Four antennae, two

for

satellite

narrow beams for ground controlled direction beaming for high-volume communications.
1300

carrying

wide earth coverage and two with

Capacity:

circuits.

SOURCE:

Table of Artificial Satellites Launched Between 1957 and 1976 (Geneva:

International

Telecommunication Union) (1977)

1971

CERAMIC CHIP CARRIER

A

3M

Co. (USA)

popular IC package was the ceramic chip-carrier. About one third the size of a comparable DIP,

originated in 1971

at

the

3M

Co., in St Paul, Minn.

whose bottom periphery contained

bonded

to a

a pattern of gold

It

was

it

a square, multilayered ceramic package

bumps on 40-

The chip was

or 50-mil centres.

gold base pad inside a cavity within the ceramic. The small hermetically sealed package

could be easily attached or removed from pc boards and hybrids.

SOURCE:
1971

Electronics p 389 (17 April 1980)

SALYUT-1

(USSR)

Satellite

Launched 19 April 1971. Objectives:

Control by remote

command

23 days

Decayed on

in Salyut.

SOURCE:

scientific research

and testing of on-board systems and

or by crew. Visited by crews of Soyuz-10 and Soyuz-1

11

The

latter

units.

spent

October, 1971.

Table of Artificial Satellites Launched Between

1957 and 1976 (Geneva:

International

Telecommunication Union) (1977)

1971

LIQUID CRYSTAL STUDY OF OXIDE DEFECTS

One

of the most convenient techniques was

first

reported by Keen.

Keen (UK)
It

consists of introducing, between

the oxidised silicon and a tin oxide coated glass slide, a thin film of negative nematic liquid crystal.

applying a voltage across

liquid crystal.

this 'capacitor' structure, defects

For plane electrodes without an oxide layer the same turbulence

In the case of oxides containing defects,

On

can be seen as highly turbulent regions of

however, the turbulence

is

is

present everywhere.

particularly violent

making location

of a defect easy.

SOURCE:
and

R A

'Polarity

dependent oxide defects located using liquid crystals' by

Stuart Solid State Electronics vol 19, p 133 (1976)

SEE ALSO:

Keen Electron

Lett,

vol 7,

No

15,

p 432 (1971)

AK

Zakzouk.

W Eccleston

A Concise Description of Each

222
1971

Invention in Date Order

MICROPROCESSOR
In 1971

MEHoff(USA)

Marcian E Hoff, then working

developed the

for Intel,

microprocessor which he baptised the

first

4004. Hoff brought together the elementary functions of a computer on a single electronic component
(an integrated circuit).

SOURCE: The Book

(UK: Queen Anne
1972

contained the equivalent of 230 transistors and was a four-bit processor.

It

of Inventions and Discoveries Associate Editor Valerie-Anne Giscard d'Estaing

&

Macdonald

Press,

Co.) p 119 (1990)

MICROCOMPUTER
For three years a great revolution has been taking place
first

(USA)

Intel

microcomputer was introduced by

Intel, these

in digital electronics.

Since 1972, when the

devices have been very successfully used in a wide

range of applications, including process control, data communications, instrumentation and commercial
systems.

The key

to this success

microcomputers are used

SOURCE:

is

due

to the price/performance ratio

enhancement

when

that occurs

system when compared with more traditional approaches.

in a

'The microcomputer comes of age' by

Kornstein Microelectronics vol

No

8,

p 17

1,

(1976)

1972

VIDEOGAMES
First to

Magnavox (USA)

market a video game consumers could buy and take home was Magnavox,

their original

Odyssey game was not an immediate sensation, perhaps because

score-keeping feature, lacked sounds, and required a plastic overlay on the

net, goals

and boundaries of

scoring and sound for $89.95. Also,

circuits are

The second major milestone

when

Atari and Sears

Inc.)

was assured

Atari

is

to

home

video games was established just over a year ago

features associated with Atari's successful line of coin

closely with one of

the add-on

TV

game

chips.

was expected

to

sell

to enter the

games became obvious

market came

announced production of

New

favourable.

in

its

to other entrepreneurs.

March 1976 when

AY-3-8500 TV-game

companies anxious

for

that

were constructed

$1000-$3000 each

peak somewhere under $100

Meanwhile, with Odyssey more streamlined and the Atari/Sears venture

TV

These chips greatly reduced

coin-game products

The coin games normally

version

games and

integrated circuit suppliers (American Microsystems,

its

a supply of dedicated, proprietary

with hundreds of standard logic circuits.

aspects of consumer

Since then,

offered with automatic serve, digital

produce and market Hockey Pong for the 1975 Christmas season.

the parts count, and costs, associated with Atari's original

consumer acceptance of

now

stationary playing-court features are electronically generated.

all

in the evolution of

teamed up

By working

screen to simulate the

produced by Texas Instruments and the General Instrument Corp.

The product had many of the important

sold briskly.

had no automatic

a playing field (static electricity held the overlay in place).

Odyssey has evolved through four model changes and

Magnavox's game

TV

However,

in 1972.

it

first

video

opportunity

(GI) Hicksville,

integrated circuits. Product acceptance

home

but.

proven success, the lucrative

For many, the

the General Instrument Corp.

for an early shot at the

retail.

was

NY,

swift and

game sweepstakes quickly

snapped up GI's projected 1976 production capacity of game chips.

SOURCE:

'Electronic

SEE ALSO:

Gamesmanship' by

Mennie IEEE Spectrum p 27 (December 1976)

'Video games: perishable or durable'

J.

Electronics Industry. Japan vol 23,

No

10,

p 38

(October 1976)

1972

LANDSAT-1 (ERTS-1)

(USA)

Satellite

Launched 23 July 1972. Earth Resources Technology

Satellite.

Objectives: to obtain coverage of the

United States and other major land masses with multispectral, high spatial resolution (60 m) images of
solar radiation reflected

from the earth's surface. These images

will

be used

in agricultural, geological,

geographical, hydrological and oceanographical research.

SOURCE:

Table of Artificial Satellites Launched Between 1957 and 1976 (Geneva:

Telecommunication Union) (1977)

International

A
1972

Concise Description of Each Invention

MICROELECTRONICS (V-MOS
Because of the work of
California,

semiconductor technology

itself in a big

compete with the new,

that will

Date Order

way

to

faster

223

J Rodgers (USA)

American Microsystems

a 27-year-old research engineer,

on the verge of committing

is

technique)

in

V-MOS

an

Inc., in

Santa Clara,

n-channel metal-oxide

and denser bipolar

static

designs and

processes.

The engineer
in

TJ

is

Rodgers, who, as a doctoral candidate

nearby Palo Alto, invented the V-groove

was

to

MOS

push

technology to

limits so

its

power products and high packing

MOS

engineering

in electrical

at

Stanford University

process (Electronics 18 September p 65).

His goal

would achieve bipolar speeds as well as high speed

it

random

densities in read-only and static random-access memories,

logic and microprocessor designs.

SOURCE:
1972

'Young EE's ideas

to alter

AMI's

direction' Electronics p 14 (22 January 1976)

NITROGEN-FIRED COPPER WIRING

market researchers

In late 1971,

precious metals

made

at

Owens-Illinois

the time right for research

young chemist, John

Grier,

Grier (USA)

Toledo, Ohio, decided that the rising cost of

Inc.,

on non-noble conductors

who had been

for thick-film microelectronics.

with the firm for five years, was assigned as program

manager.
Grier decided to concentrate on creating a workable nitrogen-fired copper paste. There had been earlier
research on copper pastes, but these compositions used 100-micrometre copper particles to produce

conductors with poor peel strength and low conductivity.

He went

to 3 to 5

and vehicle

that

/zm copper

particles for the functional phase of the ink

could survive

firing at

and found both

screenable copper paste that had good peel strength and conductivity.
predicted that the

SOURCE:
1972

new copper

paste

would be

suitable for microstrip

it

At

that point Grier correctly

and thick-film hybrid applications.

EMI (UK)

skull surrounds the brain

organ;

binder

Electronics p 121 (28 October 1976)

X-RAY SCANNER
The

a glass

about 800 C. The late 1972 result was a patented, practical,

and provides a very good protection for

also heavily attenuates diagnostic X-rays.

The

imaged by X-rays, which does not have much contrast

make imaging of

the brain

brain
to

is

this

a relatively

show up

its

most delicate and

vital

homogeneous organ, when

structure.

These two problems

by conventional X-radiography of very limited diagnostic value. Contrast

techniques can be used to improve the imaging but they do involve

some

and the

risk to the patients

need for hospitalisation. They are expensive.

In 1972,

EMI

Limited introduced computerised axial tomography to overcome these limitations. This

new technique was developed at the Central Research Laboratories of EMI.

showed that this was a major advance in diagnostic imaging.
radical

In

computerized axial tomography the patient

The transmitted beam

Another detector

is

The frame, carrying

is

used

is

scanned by a tightly collimated narrow beam of X-rays.

detected and converted to an electric signal after passing through the patient.
in the reference

mode

to

measure the primary X-ray beam.

number

the X-ray source and detectors traverses linearly across the patient, a large

of readings of X-ray intensity are taken and stored as

by a small angle and the process

until a large

Clinical trials rapidly

is

it

traverses, the gantry

repeated. This series of verses and angular

is

then indexed round

movements

is

repeated

matrix of data has been acquired.

The computer then uses

or printed as a

this data to calculate the

map

of X-ray absorption numbers by a line printer.

effects of absorption in other parts of the

bone structure

is

overcome.

map of
map on a

X-ray absorption coefficient

This can then be displayed as a brightness modulation

of the anatomy.

anatomy so

that the

this cross section

cathode ray tube

The computation cancels

problem of shadowing by the

out the
skull or

224

Concise Description of Each Invention

SOURCE:
1972

in

Date Order

'Section by section' by Shelley Stuart Electronics Weekly p 16 (7 April 1976)

W Bardsley, G W Green, C H

AUTOMATIC CONTROL OF CRYSTAL GROWTH

Holliday and

we

In this note,

DT

J Hurle (UK)

describe a novel, alternative method of automatic diameter control (or, more

may be of

control of cross-sectional area, since the crystals

strictly,

non-circular section) for which certain

advantages can be claimed. Put simply, the method comprises 'weighing' the growing crystal by means
of an industrial weighing

cell

from which the

pull rod

hung. The method requires that there are no

is

constraints to the vertical motion of the pull rod, and this

enters the growth chamber.
for the initial evacuation

and flushing before growth, the rod

The

pull rod has a self-aligning bearing at

and

is

The

electrical signal

rotated

by

low

friction pin

its

upper end

power

from the weighing

cell is

The

travel.

initial

sealed by a constrictable rubber sleeve.

is

provide a connection to the weighing

compared with
is

cell,

a signal from a rectilinear potentiometer

amplified and used to adjust the crucible heating

which minimises the difference

in that direction

setting electrically the

to

and fork arrangement.

driven from the leadscrew nut and any difference

by

achieved by a gas bearing where the rod

is

Normally, some of the ambient gas escapes through the gas bearing, but

The desired diameter

signal.

is

predetermined

magnitude of the potentiometer output voltage per unit distance of

growth out from the diameter of the seed

pull rod

crystal to the final diameter has also

been

automatically controlled by introducing a non-linear element in series with the potentiometer output
circuit.

SOURCE:
DTJ

and

SEE ALSO:
Cockayne,

Growth
1972

J.

Crystal Growth vol 16, p 277 (1972)

'Developments

W Green, D T

was

the

Hurle,

weighing method of automatic crystal pulling' by

GC

Joyce, J

Roslington, P

RANDOM ACCESS MEMORY

The RAM-father of them

It

in the
J

first

SOURCE:

all,

Intel

from

the 1103

Tufton and

Bardsley,

H C Webber J.

Crystal

in a

'Special

low-cost

report

MOS

(USA)

stampede

Intel started the

to

semiconductor memories.

memory could be

time that more than 1000 bits of read/write

semiconductor chip

369 (1974)

vol 24/25, p

1024 BIT

W Bardsley, G W Green, C H Holliday

'Automatic control of Czochralski crystal growth' by

Hurle

supplied on a single

configuration.

semiconductor

RAM's

land computer mainframe jobs'

by L Altman

Electronics p 64 (28 August 1972)

1972

INTEGRATED INJECTION LOGIC

Logic gates suitable for large-scale integration (LSI) should

Hart and

satisfy

Slob (Holland)

three important requirements.

Processing has to be simple and under good control to obtain an acceptable yield of reliable IC's
containing about 1000 gates.

extreme chip dimensions.

The

basic gate must be as simple and compact as possible to avoid

Finally, the power-delay time product

must be so high

that operation at a

reasonable speed does not cause excessive chip dissipation.

Multicollect or transistors fed by carrier injection proved to be a novel and attractive solution.
simplified (five masks) standard bipolar process

is

with interconnection widths and spacings of 5 /im.

additional advantage

is

a very

low supply voltage

used resulting

in a

The power-delay time product

(less than

packing density of 400 gates/mm 2

V). This,

is

0.4 pj per gate.

combined with

An

the possibility

of choosing the current level within several decades enables use in very low-power applications. With
a

normal seven-mask technology, analog circuitry has been combined with integrated injection logic
2

L).

SOURCE:

'Integrated injection logic

Journal of Solid State Circuits vol SC-7

SEE ALSO:
at the

IEEE

'Super integrated bipolar

Int.

new approach

No

5,

memory

to LSI'

by Kees Hart and Arie Slob IEEE

p 346 (October 1972)

devices' by S

K Wiedman

Electron Devices Conference (11-13 October 1971

and

H H

Berger. Presented

A Concise Description of Each

1972

DEEP PROTON-ISOLATED LASER

Invention in Date Order

225

P Dyment, L A D'Asaro, J C
B I Miller and J E Ripper

North,

(USA)
Proton bombardment as a means of isolation
It

was

now widely used

lasers with junctions at a depth of

fibreoptics, with

25 /im square

40

to

devices.

in 1972.

pm from the surface are required

used

fibres, are

number of semiconductor

for a

demonstrated for (GaAl)As/GaAs heterostructure lasers

first

High peak-power

where

is

for applications

couple the output of several lasers to form a

high brightness source.

SOURCE.

'Deep proton-isolated

Devices vol

3,

No

1,

and proton range data for InP and GaSb Solid-State and Electron

lasers

(January 1979)

SEE ALSO:

'Proton-bombardment formation of stripe-geometry heterostructure

operation'

Dyment, L

D'Asaro,

North,

Miller and J

lasers for

300

IEEE

Ripper Proc.

c.w.

vol 60,

pp 726-8 (1972)
1972

VIDEODISCS

Philips (Holland)

Philips Gloeilampenfabrieken demonstrated a long-playing video disk in

a dramatic

September 1972.

improvement over an AEG-Telefunken/Decca black-and-white video disk

demonstrated

in 1970.

that

It

was

had been

Because the Teldec disks had grooves and mechanical tracking, they suffered

from short playing time (an 8-inch disk played

for only 5 minutes)

and high record wear. The Philips

disks held 30 to 45 minutes of colour material and instead of grooves had submicrometer pits

molded

into a spiral track; a laser-generated light spot read the patterns.

SOURCE:
1973

Electronics p 409 (17 April 17 1980)

DRY ETCHING
The

Mitsubishi Electric

Co

(Japan)

application of dry etching techniques using plasma chemistry to semiconductor processing

introduced by Mitsubishi Electric Co., Japan.

able to etch silicon and

its

plasma was produced by

rf

shows

It

compounds (Si02, Si^N^.

(13.56

MHz)

that gas

was

plasma containing fluorine species are

In the experiments, the gas

used was

CF4

discharge and a barrel type plasma reactor was used.

The

etching mechanism was principally considered to be a chemical reaction between silicon and the fluorine

However, the

radicals in plasma.

known

not

details of the etching characteristics

and the etching mechanisms were

in those days.

This technique promised a number of advantages over wet etching methods

precise pattern control, problems of etchant preparation and disposal, and cost.

in

terms of improved

was expected

It

to play

an important role in the fabrication of Si integrated circuits (SLI, VLSI).

SOURCE: 'Etching characteristics of silicon, and its compounds

T Enomoto Jap. J Appl. Phys. vol 12, No (1973)

and
1973

SCANNING ACOUSTIC MICROSCOPE

In

by gas plasma' by

Abe,

Sonobe

C F Quate (USA)

1973 Professor Quate conceived an approach of elegant simplicity

would use sound,

fifty

which already exceeds the resolution of

idea,

can be as

which was

much

to

produce

rather than light, in order to form images. This achievement

of applied scientists for more than

The key

years, led to the extremely rapid

microscope

that

which had been the aim

development of

microscope

optical microscopes.

the recognition of the fact that velocities of acoustic

waves

in

some

solids

as seven times greater than the velocity in water, resulted in the production of a lens

which could focus

beam of sounds on

cannot image a complete

field,

its

axis, without significant aberrations.

Whilst such

a lens

Professor Quate recognised that the axial focus was enough for the

realisation of a mechanically-scanned

microscope

The scanning acoustic microscope has opened up

in

which

the

a completely

image was reproduced point by

new

field

point.

of microscopy which permits

the direct imaging of biological specimens and the examination of silicon integrated circuits and other
solid objects.

226

A Concise

Description of Each Invention in Date Order

SOURCE: 'Major prizes for

No 3, p 107 (March 1982)
SEE ALSO:

and Electronic Engineer

opto-electronics inventions' The Radio

'Seeing acoustically' by

R K

R L Rylander IEEE Spectrum

Mueller and

vol 52,

p 28 (February

1982)

D B Webb

'Thermal imaging via cooled detectors' by

No

The Radio and Electronic Engineer vol 52,

1,

p 17 (January 1982)

D A

'Recent developments in scanning acoustic microscopy' by

Wickramasinghe The Radio and Electronic Engineer vol 52, No

1973

LOGIC-STATE ANALYSER

Sinclair,

10, p

H K

Smith and

479 (October 1982)

C H House (USA)

(Displaying Binary

Notation in Is and 0s)

LOGIC-TIMING ANALYSER

(for

Recording,

Moore (USA)

Displaying and Analysing Complex Timing

Relationships)

One problem, two men, two

So Charles

Biomation Corp.

were the
circuits

solutions: yet both designers

right;

both of their designs were needed.

in Cupertino, California,

Moore of

developed two markedly different diagnostic instruments

that

such electronic tools for studying, designing and troubleshooting complex digital logic

first

and systems.

The 160 1L

is

a plug-in unit for

series oscilloscopes, giving a 12-channel, 16- word-memory

HP's 180

logic-state analyser for 10-megahertz operation.

256 logic

stores

were

House of Hewlett-Packard Co's Colorado Springs (Colo.) division, and

states

The Biomation 10-MHz 810-D

digital logic recorder

on each of eight channels, displaying waveform-like timing diagrams on an

oscilloscope.

SOURCE:

'Logic-analyser originators cited

for

innovation

testing

1977 award for achievement'

Electronics p 83 (27 October 1977)

1973

SKYLAB-1

(USA)

Satellite

Launched 14 May 1973. Manned

to live

and work

in

orbital research laboratory.

limits of earth-based observation; to

make

Objectives:

to

determine man's

ability

space for extended periods: to extend the science of solar astronomy beyond the

develop improved techniques for surveying earth resources, to

various investigations requiring a constant zero gravity environment.

SOURCE:

Table

of

Artificial

Launched

Satellites

Between

1957

and

1976

(International

Telecommunication Union, Geneva) (1977)

1974

Various (Worldwide)

IT (Information Technology)

Information and communications technologies are changing the

educate our children and ourselves. They are influencing the

entertain ourselves and do business.

New

options are being provided for us

education, environmental protection, culture, and business.

private individuals and public administrations

The impact of
at this

time.

this

way work,

is

study,

do research, and

way we do our banking, pay our

more

direct

becoming increasingly

in the field

bills,

of health care,

and open rapport between

possible.

information revolution on our society cannot yet be fully measured or predicted

The combination of new and

rapidly developing interactive multimedia computers and

applications with electronic networks will require a restructuring of our traditional approach to strategic

planning and organisational structure.

It

will also

mean

a considerable

change

in the

way we

interact

with each other, with business and with government.

Moreover,

it

has the potential to overcome the marginalising effects of distance and geography.

It

could

enable regional economies to be revitalised, and consumers and businesses in rural and remote areas to

be re-integrated into mainstream economic and cultural

activity.

A Concise Description of Each

Invention in Date Order

227

For each individual citizen, the information society also means greater choice and new opportunities,

new markets and employment

sharing of cultural knowledge and experiences and the creation of

opportunities.

SOURCE:
1974

& T Magazine No

17,

(July 1995)

ELECTRON BEAM LITHOGRAPHY

Electron-beam lithography was the key
its

ability to

Bell Laboratories

making

to

make masks with micrometre-wide

the

lines,

masks

(USA)

for the optical lithography units.

Without

no LSI lithography technique based on the use

of either masks or reticles would have been possible.

One of

the

first

electron-beam systems came from Bell Laboratories

Exposure System,

it

Wafer alignment with the beam was controlled by a

SOURCE
1974

in 1974.

made masks by using a raster-scanned beam aimed

at

Called the Electron-Beam

a continuously moving table.

laser interferometer.

Electronics p 388 (17 April 1980)

W R Cady and W

CATT (CONTROLLED AVALANCHE

S P Yu,

TRANSIT-TIME TRIODES)

Tantraporn (USA)

The use of avalanche and

transit-time effects in

microwave

transistor-like structures for increased gain

and higher-frequency operation has been proposed by us and others

in recent publications.

We

have

previously described the basic principle and large-signal theory of the controlled-avalanche transit-time
triode

(CATT) and have

also reported

purpose of the present paper

resulting

is

some

to discuss

experimental results in the 1-3

initial

more

fully certain aspects

of

CATT

GHz

region.

The

design and operation

from the avalanche-multiplication process and those whose importance has become clearer

through our further investigations.

SOURCE:

'Avalanche multiplication in CATTs' by

and Electron Devices

vol

1,

No

1,

SEE ALSO: 'A new three-terminal microwave power

IEEE Trans, vol ED-21, p 736 (1974)
'The third terminal

in

Eshbach, S P Yu and

W R Cady IEE Solid State

p 9 (September 1976)

microwave devices' by

oscillator'

Carroll Proc.

by S P Yu,

W R Cady and W Tantraporn

European Solid-State Device Research

Conf. Nottingham (1974)

'Transistor

vol 10, p

1974

PRESTEL
Mr

improvements using an impatt

collector'

by

Winstanley and

Carroll Electron. Lett.

516 (1974)

System

S Fedida (UK)

Fedida invented the concept of viewdata whilst working

early 1970s.

It

combines

at the

Post Office Research Centre in the

a modified television set, a telephone line

and a computer: a push button

control panel calls up a 'page' of the information required by a subscriber on to a television screen

using a telephone line link routed into a computer data bank. The simplicity of operating the system

provides the potential for the mass marketing of information on a wide range of general and technical
subjects.

SOURCE:

'1979 MacRobert award for software system inventor' S Fedida The Radio and Electronic

Engineer vol 50,

1974

WESTAR-1

No

1/2,

p 10

(USA)

Satellite

Launched 13 April 1974.

orbit over equator at

First

United States domestic communication

satellite

placed in synchronous

99 W. Can transmit 12 colour television channels or up

telephone circuits through five earth stations located close to

New

to

14400 one-way

York, Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas and

Los Angeles.

SOURCE:

Table of Artificial Satellites Launched Between 1957 and 1976 (Geneva:

Telecommunication Union) (1977)

International

A Concise

228
1974

Description of Each Invention in Date Order

SINGLE CHIP MICROPROCESSOR

16-BIT

The semiconductor

industry's

single-chip microprocessor

16-bit,

first

National Semiconductor Corp.

PACE

Called

National (USA)

(for processing

handle 16-bit instructions and addresses, and either 16-bit or 8-bit data.

MOS

silicon-gate

technology because, the company says,

n-MOS

established technology than

two power

requires only

be introduced by

to

p-MOS

It is

more predictable and

is

supplies,

+5 V

12

and

the entire circuit

fit

will

being built with p-channel

and meets both of PACE'S main requirements:

execution time for instructions, and enough density to

PACE

soon

is

and control element), the device

better

10-microsecond

on a single

chip.

V, instead of the three required with n-channel

fabrication.

SOURCE:
1974

show

'National to

BAR CODES

16-bit processor

on single chip' Electronics p 35 (28 November 1974)

Ad Hoc Committee

(The Uniform Product Code)

of the Grocery

Industry (USA)

historic

moment came

development

for

store in Troy,

Ohio

could read the

at

8.01

am

on 26 June 1974 when Clyde Dawson, director of research and

Marsh Supermarkets, bought

the

first

a 10-pack of Wrigley's

purchase made in the

first

Chewing

store to be fully

new Uniform Product Codes (UPC). The UPCs,

Gum

in his

or barcodes, the patterns of black and

white lines printed on the packaging of groceries and other merchandise, signalled a

development of the grocery industry

the

in the

company's

equipped with scanners which

new

stage in the

United States, a transformation brought about by the use of

UPC.

What was novel about

the process of innovation leading to be barcode

involved in this development were organized.

Industry,

went on

was formed

to

to

committee, the

was

way

the

in

which the people

Ad Hoc Committee

of the Grocery

decide whether a code was needed and once they had established the need, they

develop specifications for both a code and the equipment

to read

it.

From

these specifications

various manufacturers then designed the actual equipment.

The barcode system

change on

is

an early, perhaps the

a large scale that

major international industry.

it

first,

example of a new way of handling technological

affected very rapidly, not just one firm or sector but the whole of a

Essentially, the barcode

enterprise' version of central planning

and

was an innovation produced

Committee, came out of the particular structure and conditions found

The

1960s.

great achievement of the committee

States,

was not

in the

US

a 'free

Ad Hoc

food industry

just to devise the actual

in the

code system but

to

development of the whole of the food industry.

facilitate the future

SOURCE:

to order

the organization that carried out this project, the

'Packaging history:

1970-75' by

The emergence of

the uniform product

Morton History and Technology vol

1,

code (UPC)

in the

United

p 101 (Amsterdam: Harwood Academic

Publishers) (1994)

1975

THE GYROTRON

A G Gapanov

Although the foundations for high-power-gyrotron development were

reported real breakthrough describing a working device

made

to rotate at a cyclotron frequency

of

of the

it)

static

magnetic

field.

(which

Hence

it

is

is

was

in

laid

et al

(USSR)

sometime previously,

the

first

1975. In this device, the electrons are

also near the operating frequency or a sub-harmonic

sometimes called

'cyclotron resonance maser'.

All

devices mentioned here are based on developments arising from the concept of the cyclotron resonance
maser.

The impetus

who hoped

for the
to

development of gyrotrons came from Russian workers

in the

be able to heat dense plasma, confined by a powerful magnetic

microwave energy

at the

cyclotron resonance frequency.

If sufficient

nuclear-energy
field,

power could be absorbed

this way, then temperatures approaching those required for fusion could be reached.

required

magnetic
fields

is

in the region of 10 to

fields

of 2.0

used

to 4.0

in

20

MW

for several seconds.

The power

The frequency required

plasma containment machines (such as Tokamaks)

field,

by adsorbing

is

50 to 100

GHz

in

level

for typical

for

magnetic

A Concise

SOURCE:

SEE ALSO: Gapanov A V

Gapanov

A V

priority of

1975

'The gyrotron' by

LOCMOS

in

Date Order

229

Smith Electronics and Power p 389 (May 1981)

et al Radiofizika 18,

cm-mm

'A device for

et al

24 March 1967

Description of Each Invention

p 280 (1975)

No 223931

and sub-mm wave generation' Copyright

KD10

(Official bulletin

(Locally Oxidised

Complementary

Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor)

INTEGRATED

of

SM USSR

(1 1)

with

p 200. 1976)

Philips (Netherlands)

CIRCUIT

LOCMOS

is

an

acronym

locally-oxidized

for

CMOS,

Laboratories which produces a high performance, high density

CMOS. The LOCMOS 4000

needs

range which

LOCMOS

Features of
speeds.

is

invented

by Philips Research

CMOS

that costs

no more than standard

pin-for-pin compatible with other popular

and thus enables

less chip area per function

process

full

4000 ranges,

buffered circuitry to be built into every device.

4000 include high noise immunity, standardised outputs and increased system

The increased voltage

gain,

due

to buffering, gives

every device will give a guaranteed output of 400 /iA from a

almost ideal transfer characteristics, and

5V power

supply. Output impedance and

propagation delay are independent of input pattern and reduced sidewall capacitance results in higher
speed.

SOURCE:
1975

'Mullard announce

VIK1NG-1

LOCMOS

4000' Mullard Press Information Sheet, p

(September 1975)

(USA)

Satellite

Launched 20 August 1975.

Objectives:

to explore the surface

and atmosphere of the planet Mars.

Includes an orbiter and a lander separating on approach to Mars.

Orbiter: spacecraft arrived at

Mars

in

June 1976.

Lander: landed on Mars on 20 July 1976.

SOURCE:

Table of Artificial Satellites Launched Between 1957 and 1976 (Geneva:

International

Telecommunication Union) (1977)

1975

MICROELECTRONICS
For the

first

(Integrated Optical Circuits)

combined

time, scientists have

a laser with

Reinhart and

components such

lightguides in a single crystal microcircuit, just as multiple

components

R A Logan

(USA)

as modulators, filters, and

are fabricated in an integrated

electronic circuit.

The

devices, integrated optical circuits measuring usually about 6 by 15 mils, operate within the structure

of a semiconductor injection

laser.

This type of circuit represents an alternative to hybrid integrated optics where components
fabricated from different material systems are interconnected on a base.
optical circuit 'contains'

Franz

new

Reinhart and Ralph

the required

A Logan

components within

the

of Bell Laboratories, Murray

contrast, the

same
Hill,

often

new monolithic

single crystal.

New

Jersey, developed the

circuit.

SOURCE:
1975

many of

By

integrated optical circuits: another step forward' Bell Labs. Record p 349 (September 1975)

SILICON ANODISATION
The discovery

that silicon itself

R Cook

(ITT) (USA)

can be anodised opens an unexpected path to cheaper, denser, faster

integrated circuits.

The low-temperature process produces

the active elements

on

a chip, thus

in

one step the

dielectric

needed

to isolate

adding the advantages of dielectric isolation to any semiconductor

technology, whether bipolar or metal-oxide-semiconductore

Direct silicon anodisation

was discovered

quite by chance.

increased beyond the point required to anodise aluminium.

An

anodizing voltage was accidentally

The aluminium was destroyed, but

the

A Concise

230

Description of Each Invention in Date Order

silicon substrate beneath the

aluminium, when examined under a microscope, was seen

have been

to

transformed into a porous dielectric layers. Further experiment revealed that the dielectric on the silicon
surface could be tailored to almost any desired thickness simply by adjusting the anodising process.

SOURCE:

'Anodizing silicon

R Cook

economical way to isolate IC elements' by

is

Electronics (13

November 1975) p 109

1975

RANDOM ACCESS MEMORY

4096-BIT
In

development,

significant

Semiconductor has applied

Fairchild

The

technology to an injection-logic configuration.

The

access memory.
as fast as today's

oxide-isolated

Isoplanar

L random-

4096-bit

first

dynamic RAMs. The device

4-kilobit

it

more than twice

be ready for selective prototyping

will

summer.

late this

SOURCE:
1975

its

the industry's

result:

nominal access time of 100 nanoseconds, making

part has a

n-MOS

(USA)

Fairchild

'Fairchild develops

first

4K

RAM

to use

2
I

L' Electronics p 25 (26 June 1975)

THIN FILMSDIRECT BONDED COPPER

PROCESS
In the direct

Cu

atmosphere consists principally of

Burgess,

is

C A Neugebauer, G
R E Moore (USA)

accomplished by heating AI2O3 or

from 250

Foil thicknesses

foil.

Flanagan and

copper to ceramic bonding process, bonding

substrates in contact with the

to

mil can be used.

few minutes. The temperature

BeO

The gas

such as argon or nitrogen with a small addition of oxygen,

inert gas

few hundredths of a percent. The length of time required

typically of the order of a

typically a

for

bonding

place unless the temperature exceeds 1065C, but

it

is critically

for

bonding

is

Bonding does not take

important.

must be below 1083C, which

is

the melting point

of copper.

SOURCE:

G
1975

'Hybrid packages by the direct bonded copper process' by

Flanagan and

R E Moore

Solid State Technology p 42

VHS RECORDER
The

VHS

JVC

format (Video

The

1976.

VHS now

Home

System) was launched by

F Burgess,

N A

Neugabauer,

(May 1975)

JVC

in

(Japan)

October 1975 and marketed as from

holds a dominant position in the world market, with more than 80 per cent of

sales.

variation of the

VHS

model, the

VHS-C was

launched by

JVC

in

1982.

was then intended

It

the portable video and uses reduced size video cassettes which can be re-read on a traditional

for

VHS

recorder thanks to an adaptor.

JVC

VHS HQ

1985

Japan with an increase of horizontal lines on the image from 240 to 400.

In

in

launched the

(High Quality).

SOURCE: The Book

(UK: Queen Anne

Super

Super-8mm capable of competing with JVC's Super VHS.

of Inventions and Discoveries Associate Editor Valerie-Anne Giscard d'Estaing

Press,

Macdonald

&

Co.) p 239 (1990)

IBM (USA)

LASER PRINTER
The

first

laser pinter as introduced

by

IBM

in 1975.

designed for high-speed printing. In 1978 the

9700 from Xerox, but

began

to

expand

printing: a laser
In

In

1988 a technological agreement was made between ten Japanese companies (such as Sony and

Matushita) for the purposes of developing a

1975

March 1987 JVC brought out

In July

VHS

it

into the

beam

was not

until

1984

was an extremely expensive and bulky machine,

followd by the

ND2

with Hewlett-Packard's Laserjet

world of microcomputers

'paints' the letters

It

IBM 3800 was

onto a

It

roller,

works on

from Siemens and the

that the laser printer

a principle similar to that of offset

and the sheets of paper are printed by

rotation.

1988 colour laser printers came on to the market.

SOURCE:
(New

Inventions

and Discoveries 1993

York: Facts on File) p 218

edited by Valerie-Anne Giscard d'Estaing and

Mark Young

A
1975

Concise Description of Each Invention

STATIC INDUCTION THYRISTOR

The

Static Induction Thyristor (SIThy),

J-I

Date Order

in

Nishizawa (Japan)

proposed the three types of fundamental structures

has been developed to the various high power devices with the high efficiency. Figure
top surfaces of cathode electrode of the two SIThys. These are able

two micro-seconds. The continuous current of

is

350 A. The

one

large

is

231

the small

the reverse conducting

SIThy (34

SIThy

that is

to turn-off at

mm^

is

1.31

4000V

200 A,

composed with

1975,

in

shows

the

within one or

the other (62

mm$)

the reverse direction

diode.

Figure 11.31.

These SIThys have been developed

railway vehicle by

been adopted

GTO

Toyo

Electric

Static induction thyristor.

as the

Mfg.

power switching devices of

Co., Ltd.

the

(Gale Turn-off Thyristor) which has been switching

frequency of the SIThy, in

this

motor inverter of the

electric

Conventionally, one of the latest motor cars has

in

400 Hz. The high switching

case 2000 Hz, brings more smoothness and better controllability to the

train.

SOURCE:

Personal communication from Em.

Professor

Dr

Jun-ichi Nishizawa, President of

Tohoku

University.

1975

BETAMAX VIDEO RECORDER

Invented by the Japanese

Sony (Japan)

company Sony,

Betamax was launched

the

per cent of the world market. In January 1985 Sony launched a

called

High Band, with a

SOURCE: The Book

(UK: Queen Anne
1976

in 1975.

new

of Inventions and Discoveries Associate Editor Valerie-Anne Giscard d'Estaing

Press,

Macdonald

&

Co.) p 238 (1990)

RC

Dixon

et al

Spread-spectrum communication techniques are increasingly being used,

Betamax format,

better quality image.

SPREAD-SPECTRUM COMMUNICATION
TECHNIQUES
communications.

Today Betamax has 10

version of the

spread-spectrum system

wide frequency band which

is

many

is

one

in

(USA)

particularly

which the transmitted signal

is

for

times greater than the bandwidth of the original modulation.

Various code mixing techniques are used,

e.g. direct

sequences (DSK), 'frequency hopping' (which

can also be 'time-hopping' or 'time-frequency hopping') and chirp, or frequency sweeping.

receiver, the modulation (and

The

its

bandwidth)

is

SOURCE:

is

Private

Because the system

obtained by the choice of suitable spreading codes.

communication from

SEE ALSO: Spread Spectrum

Systems by

Guest, Malvern Wells,

RC

'Spread spectrum com. system uses modified

At the

recovered by reversing the transmitting code process.

deleterious effects of interfering can be significantly reduced.

coding, privacy

satellite

spread over

UK

Dixon (New York: John Wiley) (1976)

PPM'

Electronic Design (21 June 1961)

is

based on

A Concise

232

Shannon

'Poisson,

1976

Description of Each Invention in Date Order

&

P Costas Proc. IRE (December 1959)

the radio amateur' by J

MICROELECTRONICS

(16384

Random

bit

Access

(USA)

Intel

Memory)

triumph of semiconductor device technology, the 16 384-bit random access

a double level of poly silicon conductors shrinks the

has arrived.

'Enter the

16384

RAM"

bit

by

memory

B Coe and

in

Its

which

400 micrometres square. That

cell to

is

RAM.

less than half the cell size in the densest 4096-bit

SOURCE:

memory

unprecedented and springs from an enhanced n-channel silicon-gate technique,

bit density is

G Oldham

114(19 February

Electronics p

1976)

1976

AMORPHOUS SILICON SOLAR CELL

A new

RCA

type of solar cell has been developed

RCA

at

(USA)

Laboratories using amorphous silicon (a-Si)

deposited from a glow discharge in silane (SiH 4 ). These solar cells utilize

been fabricated

/im of a-Si and have

and Schottky-barrier structures on low-cost substrates such as

in heterojunction, p-i-n,

glass and steel.

Discharge-produced a-Si has optical and electronic properties that are ideally suited for a solar

The

material.

optical absorption coefficient

visible light range

/xm

is

cell

significantly larger than that of crystalline Si over the

<

and therefore most of the solar radiation with X

0.7 /j.m

is

absorbed

in a film

thick.

SOURCE:

'Properties of

Pankove, P

amorphous

DL

Zanzucchi and

SEE ALSO: 'Amorphous

and a-Si solar

silicon

Staebler

RCA Review
by

silicon solar cell'

D E

D E

by

cells'

Carlson,

C R

Wronski,

vol 38, p 211 (June 1977)

Carlson and

C R

Wronski App. Phys.

Lett,

vol 28,

p 671 (1976)

1976

POLYSILICON RESISTOR LOADED RAMs

In 1976,

Mostek introduced

diverged from the usual

in its cell

its

static

Poly

RAM

Mostek (USA)

process with the

designs in that

with ionimplanted polysilicon resistors.

it

MK4104,

a 4-K-by-l-bit static

replaced the depletion-mode

The design

of the 4104 shrank to 2.75 mil

The power

is

roughly

reduced because the high

Another feature of the Poly

resistivity

loads

compensates for increased leakages

is

that

part

transistor loads

laid

over the four transistors, the

half the size of conventional cells.

of the polysilicon loads

accurately controlled by ion implantation squeezes the current flow

bit.

RAM. The

not only saved chip area but also greatly

lowered power dissipation. Since the polysilicon resistors are actually

cell

MOS

down

typically,

to less than

their negative temperature coefficient

normally occur

at

5000 megohms,
nanoampere per

which automatically

elevated temperatures.

Moreover, the

polysilicon loads allow data retention in the cells even at greatly reduced supply voltages.

SOURCE:
1976

'Concepts for a dense new

COMPUTER
A
a

RAM'

Electronics p 1320 (27 September 1979)

(One Board with Programmable I/O)

complete general-purpose computer subsystem

major goal

all

that

Intel

fits

Corp. (USA)

on a single printed-circuit board has been

through the steady evolution of LSI technology.

Such

computer, consisting of a

central-processing unit, read/write and read-only memories, and parallel and serial input/output interface

components, could
manufacturers.

satisfy

most processing and control applications needed by original-equipment

single board

by providing a single solution

computer could greatly extend the range of computer applications

to three

problems

that

have often precluded the use of conventional

computers.

The primary reason

is

economic.

for use of a single

assembly of LSI devices rather than a multiboard subsystem

Extra board assemblies are costly in themselves and need related equipment, such as

backplanes and housing, that also adds to cost.

A Concise
Compactness and low power consumption

Description of Each Invention

in

Date Order

233

Using LSI for

are often prerequisites for products.

all

key computer functions reduces power consumption and provides a higher functional density than
conventional subsystem designs. This

new

LSI devices

class of

programmable input/output

interface

chips enables an 8-bit computer to be built as a subsystem on one printed-circuit board.

SOURCE:

1976

R Garrow,

'The 'super component': the one-board computer with programmable I/O' by

Johnson and

MARISAT-1

Maerz Electronics p 77

(5

February 1976)

(USA)

Satellite

Launched 19 February 1976. Maritime communications

satellite

positioned at

15W over

the Atlantic

Ocean.

SOURCE:

Table of Artificial Satellites Launched Between 1957 and 1976 (Geneva:

International

Telecommunication Union) (1977)

1976

MICROELECTRONICS
A

Philips (Holland)

(Versatile Arrays)

simple variation of standard silicon-gate technology has produced extremely versatile arrays that make

novel analog-to-digital converters, analog type displays and light-pattern scanners. The arrays consist

of devices similar to standard metal-oxide-semiconductor elements, except that a resistive electrode

structure replaces the normal metal insulated gate.

This structure permits a voltage gradient to be

up across the ends of the gate and then manipulated

to control the transistors either singly or in groups.

SOURCE: 'Resistive insulated

A Daverveld and J G deGroot
1977

MRI:

major electronic technique

V Whelan, L

March 1976)

Electronics p 111 (18

MAGNETIC RESONANCE IMAGING

Houndsfield (UK)

non-invasive diagnosis by computerised scanning, using nuclear,

is

and x-ray equipment.

ultrasonic, fluoroscopic

gates produce novel a-d converters, light scanners' by

set

MRI

(Magnetic Resonance Imaging)

technique that relies on the response of hydrogen atoms to a magnetic

is

a medical imaging

field to distinguish

between various

types of soft tissue. Computerised axial tomography can provide 'slices' of patients' anatomy and yield

valuable diagnosis, enabling physicians to visualise anatomic structures of live patients. This was the
first

equipment

SOURCE:

to provide detailed pictures

Electronic Inventions

of the body's soft tissues.

and Discoveries 4th edn, chapter 9

(Bristol:

Institute

of Physics

Publishing) (1997)

1977

CCD ANALOG-TO-DIGIAL COVERTER

GE

Corp. (USA)

For the industrial marketplace, the Research and Development Center of General Electric Corp,
Schenectady,

NY,

has fabricated the

first

CCD

analog-to-digital converter as a p-channel

providing a resolution equivalent to 10 to 12 binary

The

GE converter chip is big,

clock, counter and

displays.

Operating speed, though,

device, which runs

than

measuring 240 by

necessary control logic

all

at a

relies

80

them

to an

in

chip

bits.

mils, but

in fact,

it

it

contains a comparator, voltage reference,

even has decoder/drivers for gas-discharge

slow: about 20 milliseconds total for a 10-bit conversion.

clock frequency of up to 500

millivolt, digitising

Chip operation

is

MOS

The

kilohertz, resolves analog inputs to within better

accuracy of 0.5 least significant

bit.

on the transfer of fixed-size charge packets from one

site

to

another,

with

conventional digital circuitry controlling the conversion process.

SOURCE: 'CCD's
1977

edge towards high volume use' Electronics p 74 (17 March 1977)

ANISOTROPIC PERMANENT MAGNET

Matsushita Electric (Japan)

Matsushita Electric has developed what they claim to be the world's

for practical use.

The new magnet

is

first

anisotropic permanent magnet

made of manganese, aluminium and carbon

materials which are

available in abundance instead of cobalt and nickel, which are scarce and expensive.

It

has higher

A Concise

234

Description of Each Invention

Date Order

in

magnetic energy than the ordinary 'alnico' type magnet which contains cobalt and nickel and has good
mechanical strength and machinability, allowing

it

to

be shaped and

drilled.

Samples should be available

from June 1977.

The new magnet

in 1967;

the direction of magnetisation

was

succeeded
to

SOURCE:
1977

however, the magnet produced was of

distributed at random.

in aligning the direction in

more than

aluminium and carbon. The basic composition of the magnet

consists of manganese,

was developed by Matsushita

which

it

can be magnetised, so increasing the magnetic energy

of the isotropic magnet, giving a

five times that

maximum

is

energy product of 7

MG

Oe.

permanent magnet' Electronic Equipment News p 10 (June 1977)

'First anisotropic

POCKET TV RECEIVER
What

which

'isotropic' type, in

With the anisotropic version, the company has

(UK)

Sinclair Radionics

claimed to be the world's

first

pocket television

was launched

set

London

in

by Sinclair Radionics, the British company which pioneered the revolution

in

early this year

miniature electronic

calculators four years ago.

The

The

500000 12-year

of a

result

2-inch screen,

is

now

research and development programme, the Microvision, which has a

production

in

at Sinclair's

4 inches wide, 6 inches from front

set is

new assembly

plant in St Ives, Huntingdon.

picture which,

when viewed

at a

distance of one foot,

normal domestic compact portables

SOURCE:

at

deep and weighs 26^

to back, just 12 inches

operated by internal rechargable batteries or direct from the mains,

is

it

oz.

Yet,

produces a sharp black and white

of equivalent size and brilliance to that of

6 feet and 24 inch models

'Television with two inch screen' National Electronics

12

at

feet.

Review vol

3,

No 4,

p 74 (July/August

1977)

1977

TRIMOS

+ MOS)

(Triac

Another innovation

in

Stanford University (USA)

power

at

ISSCC comes from

California's Stanford University,

developed a way to put signal and power devices on one and the same piece of
Called Trimos, the

new technology

which has

silicon.

permits integrating an insulated-gate triac with metal-oxide-

semiconductor components, inviting a host of new applications

in crosspoint switching,

output stages,

and power control.

Trimos

MOS

is

actually a

transistors are

channel of each

merged device based on double-diffused

merged around a common

D-MOS

drain.

MOS

Contact

technology

made

is

two high-voltage D-

to the source

and diffused

The shared

device, forming symmetrical anode and cathode contacts.

gate

metal forms the unit's control electrode.

In

its

on

state, the

Trimos device exhibits a dynamic resistance of

on the order of amperes.

less than 10

ohms and can

simple shunt switch, in the form of a conventional

fabricated adjacent to the Trimos unit for switching

it

out of

its

on

MOS

state or inhibiting

pass currents

transistor,
it

can be

from triggering.

Without such a bypass structure, the Trimos device typically has turn-on and turn-off times on the order
of 200 nanoseconds, and

SOURCE:
1977

FLAD

its

single pulse dv/dt capability exceeds

'Trimos combines

triac,

MOS

1000

devices' Electronics p 42 (2

(Fluorescence- Activated Display)

volts per microsecond.

March 1978)

Institute for

Applied Solid State

Physics, Freiburg

Display-system designers will soon have a new device to

(FLAD). Invented

at the Institute for

work with

Applied Solid State Physics

(Germany)

the fluorescence-activated display

in Freiburg,

West Germany, the device

uses a layer of plastic material appropriately doped with fluorescent organic molecules.

ambient

The

light is collected, guided,

FLAD

dissipates the

and then emitted

same power

at the

segments of the display's

as a liquid-crystal display, but

higher. Moreover, the light can be any color in the spectrum

its

In this layer,

digits.

light intensity is said to

between green and

be

much

red, the inventors say.

A Concise

AG

West Germany's Siemens

digital tabletop

Description of Each Invention

FLAD

produce the

will

and alarm clocks, Later,

FLADs

will

display

be used

in

in

Date Order

235

for use in battery-operated

first, initially

pocket calculators, portable instruments,

and scales that indicate price and weight.

SOURCE:
1977

March 1977)

Electronics p 55 (17

MICROELECTRONICS H-MOS

Intel

new high-performance process

To achieve

their

method

for

two reasons.

neither

new device

First,

called

H-MOS,

(USA)

Intel has

chosen the direct device-scaling

evolves directly out of standard silicon-gate processing and so requires

it

structures not

complex

schemes

circuit

products). Second,

yields and

wide range of semiconductor

with the trend to smaller and smaller circuit patterns, as photolithographic

in

fits

it

would make

(either requirement

fabricating costs too unpredictable to guarantee their usefulness over a

methods grow more refined and electron-beam wafer-fabrication techniques stand ready

SOURCE: 'H-MOS scales traditional devices to higher performance level' by R

Boleky, R Jecmen, S Liu and W Owen Electronics p 94 (18 August 1977)

to take over.

Pashrey,

K Kokonnen,

E
1978

LASER- ANNEALED POLYSILICON

Researchers

MOS

at

Texas Instruments (USA)

Texas Instruments Inc.'s Central Research Laboratories have succeeded

in fabricating

devices in laser-annealed polysilicon on silicon dioxide. Not only will the devices have the speed

and density of those fabricated on sapphire, but the

all-silicon construction

could lead to true three

dimensional circuitry.

Unannealed polysilicon
Carrier flow

poor device

Armed

is

made up of randomly

is

impeded

across.

at best.

with a pulsed frequency-doubled neodymium-yttrium-aluminum garnet laser, TI scans the

polysilicon surface to induce localized melting.

so the

oriented crystal grains on the order of 500

each grain-to-grain boundary and the resulting low mobility would yield a

at

number of

interfaces

is

The

grains recrystallise with

reduced and mobility

is

enhanced.

With

much

larger dimensions

have

this set up, researchers

observed grains as large as 10 micrometres across.

To

build what

On

substrate.

polysilicon film.
a stepping

Then

calls silicon-on-insulator

it

this,

it

grows a

The samples

motor moves

the polysilicon

it

polysilicon gate

to
is

MOS

FETS, TI begins with

a single-crystal p-type silicon

/^m-thick oxide layer and then deposits a 0.5 /zm film of undoped

then go onto an

translation stage,

which

is

heated to 350C while

synchronisation with the pulsed laser.

selectively etched

is

Boron ions are implanted

oxide.

in

down

to the

form the channel, which

oxide level to isolate islands for each transistor.

is

covered with a thermally grown 500

deposited on the gate oxide and implanted with phosphorus.

It

also

gate

is

used

for a self-aligned arsenic ion implantation of the source and drain.

SOURCE:

'All-silicon devices will

match

SOS

in

performance' by John

Rosa Electronics p 39 (22

November 1979)
1978

ISL

(INTEGRATED SCHOTTKY LOGIC)

J Lohstroh

et al (Philips)

(Holland)

Consider a pair of bipolar technologies: low-power Schottky transistor-transistor logic aiming

at

high

speed for medium-scale parts like the 7400 family, and integrated injection logic, which merges
transistors specifically for the high packing density

be found

attributes of both could

can

in ISL, a

newly developed technology

parts

flip-flops,

in

in

large-scale integration.

at

the Digital Circuitry and

Memory Group

oscillators,

and the

like.

drawing only about 400 microamperes.

compared with

a limit of about

33

if

the

1.32).

in

'kit'

Such devices have exhibited gate propagation delays of

An ISL

MHz

of Philips

Eindhoven, the Netherlands, ISL has already performed admirably

about 3.5 nanoseconds (half that of low-power Schottky and a quarter that of

as

What

that stands for integrated Schottky logic (see figure

Developed by Jan Johstroh and colleagues

Gloeilampenfabrieken

needed

high-speed, low-power logic suitable for LSI. Apparently they

in a

D-type

for a similar

flip-flop toggles

2
I

L), with each gate

comfortably

low-power Schottky device.

at

60 megahertz,

A Concise

236

Description of Each Invention in Date Order

CURRENT
SOURCE C

-j

OUTPUTS

i.
SHALLOW
pRING

Nw

logic. In ISL. the normal

A p ring

. _
INPUT

^
^ METAUZATION

0, (LATERALor.pl

downward npn

SCHOTTKY OUTPUT

Sfl METALIZATION

transistor inherently

parallels the vertical transistor with a lateral

Figure 11.32. Integrated Schottky

SOURCE:

adds a

vertical

pnp

device.

pnp one.

'Two popular bipolar technologies combine

logic.

device' Electronics p 41 (8 June

in Philips'

1978)

1978

W Ruehle, V
IBM (USA)

LIGHT BUBBLES
Mobile

'light bubbles',

magnesium-doped

which appear

to the film via sets

When
that

voltage

appear

is

to

be electrical analogs to magnetic bubbles, have been generated

zinc-sulfide thin films,

Santa Barbara, California.

in

to

The

A Onton

Marello and

IBM

|im bubbles appear when 10 kHz, 190

in

Conference

scientists reported at the Electronic Materials

ac current

is

applied

of parallel 1-mm-wide metallic lines orthogonally placed on each side of the

film.

applied to a pair of intersected electrodes, the intersected area will emit light bubbles

move

in discrete steps

and

move

faster

when

the frequency rises to 50 kHz.

The

alternating-current thin-film electroluminescence, or actel, lasts as long as an hour and can be used to

form images on the film by stimulating different areas with

done

SEE ALSO:

scientists report observation of 'light bubbles' Electronics, p

'Electrical

much work needs

to be

33 (6 July 1978)

analogy to magnetic bubbles' Electronics Weekly p 7 (12 July 1978)

LIGHTWAVE POWERED TELEPHONE

Bell Laboratories has developed a telephone
a

an electron beam or by applying

practical,

to direct the bubbles.

SOURCE: IBM

1978

light or

However, before the technique becomes

voltages across the film.

development brings the

totally fibre-optic

Bell Laboratories

powered by

light carried to

phone system closer

it

(USA)

by a fibre-optic cable. Such

to reality, but

it

is

more than

major

technological advance.

The major problem was making

the

phone run off the power available from the

fibre cable.

The

biggest

headache here, according to De Loach, was the conventional telephone ringing mechanism.

So

new

ringer

was designed

that

worked

perfectly well at a couple of volts.

tone generator with a thin piezoelectric active element. 'This device has

De Loach.

'For example,

its

overall efficiency

from

It

uses an electroacoustic

some exceptional

specs,' says

the optical input to the acoustic output

is

more

than 33%'.

With the ringer problem solved, the power requirements of the

rest

of the phone were readily satisfied.

This power, as well as the ringer drive, comes from a Bell-developed photodetector, which converts
light to electrical pulses.

The same device can

act as a photodiode, too.

A Concise

Description of Each Invention in Date Order

The photodetector's narrow-bandwidth conversion

ever reported.

It

is

efficiency at 0.81 micrometre

double-heterostructure device

with

some of

GaAlAs

either

and the glass

layer,

the highest

of gallium aluminum

layers

sandwiching one of gallium arsenide and grown on a single crystal substrate.

substrate exposes

56%

is

237

arsenide

hole etched in the

fibre butted at that point

couples light to

and from the photodetector.

But the phone handset must send as well as receive, so Bell has designed the photodetector
light as well, at a

wavelength different from the incoming

switching, the phone sends signals back to the central office at a 0.9 /im wavelength.

duplex mode, taking further advantage of

The

laser light

coming from

modulated by the voice or

SOURCE:

'Bell

is

95%

on for about

Since the modulation bandwidth

wavelength, the change in pulse width

It

operates in a

is

pulse-width-

bandwidth capability.

fibre's

the central office

data.

generate

to

With time-sharing and automatic

light.

is

of the time.

It

small compared with the carrier

easily controllable.

is

Labs develops telephone powered by lightwaves alone' Electronics p 39 (23 November

1978)

SEE ALSO:
1978

OMIST

'De Loach built the fibre-optic phone' by

Hindin Electronics p 231 (25 October 1979)

A G

(Optical Metal Insulator Silicon Thyristor)

Nassibian,

(Australia)

RB

and J

Calligaro

G Simmons

(Canada)
Recently a novel metal-tunnel oxide n/p + silicon device with

l/V

much simpler

being of a

oscillators

RAMS

and

which

structure

The device has been shown

ROMS.

is

also compatible with LSI techniques, has been described.

have wide ranging

to

characteristics similar to those of

MIST), but with added advantage of

a silicon control rectifier (metal-insulator-silicon-thyristor, the

digital

and analogue

circuit applications, including

Furthermore, the device has been shown to be light sensitive.

This device has an advantage over the conventional analogue light-sensitive devices
digital-optical switch.

When

between two well-defined

the incident light

states.

is

in that

it is

a true

above a certain threshold intensity the device switches

In optical systems,

such a device can perform both optical transduction

and thresholding, thereby greatly simplifying the receiver system.

SOURCE:
and

'Digital optical metal insulator silicon thyristor (o.m.i.s.t.)'

G Simmons

Solid-State

and Electron Devices

SEE ALSO: 'Bistable impedance

H A R Wegener Appl. Phys.

and

1978

vol 2,

No

states in m.i.s. structures

Lett,

vol 23,

5,

AG

by

Nassibian,

R B

Calligaro

p 149 (September 1978)

through controlled inversion' by

H Kroger

pp 397-9 (1973)

ANALOGUE ALL-ELECTRONIC CLOCK FACE

Hosiden Electronics and

NEC

(Japan)
Electronic parts manufacturer Hosiden Electronics and Nippon Electric
a 60-pole

new

analogue fluorescent displace tube for use

inventions

now make

it

in clocks

Company (NEC) have developed

and the drive circuitry

possible to introduce electronics on a

full

to

go with

it.

The

scale to analogue clocks (which

use hands).

Since the clock face has been turned into a fluorescent display tube,

range of colours from yellow to blue using

filters.

vacuum tubes with anodes coated with phosphor, and they use
light emission.

This kind of tube was

first

It

radiates a green light

Analog systems have been around

irreplaceable part of every-day
that this

new

its

dependability, long

life

The

Japan since which time

it

is

easily visible.

It

suitable for use with

MOS

and meters, and they have become an

all-electronic analog clock has, therefore, a bright future

fluorescent display tube and

it

has

and mass production capability.

for a long time in timepieces

life.

in

which

low voltage low power consumption and high response speed making

LSI chips. Other features include

possible to achieve a

the electro-luminescence principle of

developed some ten years ago

has undergone improvements in performance.

now

is

it

Ordinary fluorescent tubes are direct-head 3-electrode

accompanying drive

circuitry

have been developed.

now

A Concise Description of Each

238

SOURCE:

Invention in Date Order

now go

'Analogue clocks can

electronic' Journal

of Electronics Industry (Japan) p 42 (April

1979)

1978

LASER OPTICAL RECORDING SYSTEM

(COMPACT DISC)
An

Philips (Netherlands)

ultra-compact diode laser optical recording system, the world's

by Philips.

500000

It

first,

has recently been introduced

allows high-density recording and retrieval of up to 10'" bits of data, equivalent to about

typewritten pages, on a pregrooved 30

cm

disk.

This capacity represents an improvement often

times compared with the most advanced magnetic disk pack systems currently available. The system
offers direct read-after-write with

random

ms, providing virtually instant access

The system uses

similar techniques

breakthrough, however, has

matching recording material.

come
The

to

mean time of 250

access; any address can be reached in a

x 10 y

of one side of the disk).

bits (the capacity

those developed for

VLP

(Video Long Play).

The

real

with the development of a suitable miniature diode laser and

laser

used

is

of the AlGaAs

DH

type and employs a 0.1

mm

square semiconductor chip housed in a transistor-sized encapsulation. Despite

its

small size, the device

develops a pulsed light output power equivalent to that of a large gas laser and

its

associated modulator.

SOURCE: "World's first diode laser

vol 1, No 2, p 128 (February 1979)
SEE ALSO: 'An
Chan,

optical recording system' Electronic

25

optical disk replaces

TR

S Nadan,

'Consumer
1978

to 5

Kohler,

tapes'

by

GC

Kenney,

DYK Lou, R McFarlane, A Y

Wagner and F Zernike IEEE Spectrum p 33 (February 1979)

and

electronics: personal

mag

Components and Applications

by

plentiful'

Mennie IEEE Spectrum p 62 (January 1979)

TAMED FREQUENCY MODULATION

Wiedenhof and J

Waalwijk

(Philips) (Holland)
Philips Research Laboratories in Eindhoven, have designed a different system of frequency modulation

Using

for transmitting digital information.

quality of detection

almost equal to the

is

The new method has been given

properties

tamed

FM

is

the

this

method

maximum

a very

narrow spectrum

can be obtained with

that

is

obtained while the

digital transmission.

name 'tamed frequency modulation' (TFM). Because

of

its

eminently suitable for digital radio communication.

SOURCE: 'Tamed FM for efficient

PR+PREL)

Eindhoven

digital transmission via radio' Philips Research, Philips,

(781 0/0920/ 186E

1978

LCP (LASER COLD PROCESSINGS OF

SEMICONDUCTORS
A new
in

and exciting technology has appeared

Quantronix Corporation (USA)

two years

in the last

that could be of

producing tomorrow's very large-scale integrated circuits as well as

LSI devices.

It

is

the use of a laser as a heat source for

steps in semiconductor manufacture

to ion implantation, diffusing a

some of

the

major importance

in raising the yields

of today's

many high-temperature process

damage due

for instance, annealing a wafer to eliminate crystal

wafer with dopants, and growing crystalline material from amorphous

or polycrystalline material.
In this

some

new

technique, an intense laser

beam

heats a semiconductor surface to a temperature at which

desirable physical or chemical change takes place in the material.

of this process

is that

to a small depth while the rest of the material stays near

technique

laser cold processing, or

SOURCE: 'Laser cold

K C Kiu Electronics p
1978

The main

practical

advantage

the laser spot limits irradiation to specific areas and the short pulse limits heating

ambient temperatures. Hence the name of the

LCP.

processing takes the heat off semiconductors' by

R A

Kaplan,

MG

Cohen, and

137 (28 February 1980)

ONE MEGABIT BUBBLE-MEMORY

There can no longer be any doubt

that

Intel,

bubble-memory systems

of not one but a pair of million-bit bubble

memory

Texas Instruments (USA)

are a reality

1978 saw

the introduction

chips. Intel Magnetics Inc., Santa Clara, Calif.,

was

A
with

first

operated

7110

its

1978

is

512 loops of 2048

bits

239
which when

bit loops,

The organization

each; with shorter loops,

has an access

it

ns.

Electronics p 133 (25 October 1979)

SEE ALSO:

256 4096

chip, a 4- square-centimetre device organized into

of Texas Instruments' megabit chip

SOURCE:

Date Order

in

100-kilohertz field frequency provides an average access of about 20 ms.

at a

of about 10

Concise Description of Each Invention

'Megabit bubble-memory chip gets support from LSI family' by

Clover and

many

kilometers.

Bryson,

Lee Electronics p 1059 (26 April 1979)

INTEGRATED OPTOELECTRONICS
Today

can transmit billions of

a single optical fibre

In fact, fibres

can handle more

or light emitting diodes

bits

can

bits

Yariv

of information per second over

of information per second than conventional optical sources

for reducing an electronic bottleneck

was

first

Combining

transmit and detectors can receive through them.

lasers

lasers,

on a single-crystal chip of GaAs

detectors, and active electronic devices for modulating the light

means

(USA)

et al

suggested 10 years ago by

Amnon

Yariv of the

California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. Research efforts since then indicate that the time

is

ripe

to put the idea into practice

SOURCE:

integrated optoelectronics' by

Bar-Chaim,

Ury and

IEEE Spectrum

Yariv

p 38

(May

1982)

SEE ALSO:
by
1979

Gunn

integration of an injection laser with a

P Lee, S Margalit,

Ury and

Yariv Appl. Phys.

oscillator
Lett,

TWO-LAYER RESIST TECHNIQUE FOR

SUBMICROMETRE LINES
method, a very

In the two-level resist

thin,

on a semi-insulating GaAs

vol 32, p

Bell

806 (1978)

Laboratories/MIT (USA)

1500-to-2000-angstrom amorphous upper layer of selenium

The

and germanium

is

made of any of

the standard resist polymers without the silver that renders

sputtered or evaporated onto a polymer layer.

This beginning layer

makes

Ge

fine

layer

make

is

is

thick

to

compensate

may

about 2 /^m thick,

latter,

be

them photosensitive.

for silicon's microscopic roughness,

which often

geometries impossible because of depth-of-field or optical-interference effects. Thus the S

an almost perfectly

flat

optical surface

which also cuts the

reflections

and refractions

that

for uncontrolled line widths.

To make

the thin upper layer photosensitive, the

silver selenide solution for

4300

enough

substrate'

30 seconds.

Then

team soaks the wafer

it

in a

room-temperature potassium

exposes patterns with ultraviolet

light, usually at a

wavelength, but sometimes as short as 3250 A.

Kai notes that the upper layer has more than twice the contrast of conventional

amorphous material

UV

SOURCE:

finely

resists

and

that the

grained, thus reducing the optical-dispersion effects that can impair

In fact, ultimate resolution is finer than the

resolution.

available

is

minimum

spot or line sizes possible with

sources.

'Two-layer

resist

technique produces submicrometer lines with standard optics' by James

Brinton Electronics p 47 (14 February 1980)

1979

CCD COLOUR TV CAMERA

Sony (Japan)

For improved sensitivity and resolution, the new camera uses two imager chips, one
green signal and the other to generate the red and blue signals.
chip

is

energy

used for green

in

a stripe filter is not required

and green

Sensitivity

is

to generate the

high because an entire

light generally contains

most of the

images.

The two chips

are offset horizontally by one half the horizontal pixel pitch, and sophisticated signal-

processing techniques are used to increase resolution to a value almost as high as what could be obtained
with a single chip having twice as
resolution of

280

many

pixels along each horizontal line.

test-pattern lines per picture height

across the width of each sensor.

The measured

is

Thus

measured

optical

obtained even though there are only 245 pixels

vertical resolution is

350

lines

from 492

pixels.

A Concise Description of Each

240

SOURCE:

'Color

TV

Invention in Date Order

CCD

camera using

imager chips gets

Electronics p 79 (14 February

first sale'

1980)

SEE ALSO:

Electronics p 67 (5 July 1979)

Electronics p 33 (9 January 1978)

Electronics p 63 (20 July 1978)

Electronics p 68 (28 September 1978)

1979

AMORPHOUS SILICON LIQUID-CRYSTAL

DISPLAY
A small experimental

liquid-crystal display that is addressed

film transistors has been developed

.6

by 2.2

cm

square. But

its

(0.6

by 0.9

Dundee

at

in)

and Dundee University (UK)

by a matrix of amorphous silicon

is

from complex

far

it

be described

means of overcoming

to the potential of

the addressing limitations of

and a response time for each liquid-crystal element of

in a

paper

measures

and consists of a five-by-seven array of display elements each 2

LCDs

amorphous
at

low

performance of individual devices looks acceptable, with an on current of 5 pA,

to-off current ratio,

thin-

University, Scotland, with funds from

development, which began four years ago, points

thin-film transistors as a
electrical

is to

by researchers

Radar Establishment. The display panel

Britain's Royal Signals and

1

RSRE

less than

The

cost.
a

mm

silicon

10

on-

100 ps. The work

Sixth European Solid State Device Research Conference at York,

at the

England, 15-18 September 1980, together with one from Plessey's Allen Clark Research Centre on
device physics of amorphous silicon transistors

SOURCE:

LCD

'British address

work

RSRE.

also funded by the

with amorphous silicon thin-film transistors'.

Electronics p 67 (28

August 1980)

SEE ALSO:
1979

Electronics p 69 (21 June 1979)

LASER-ENHANCED PLATING AND ETCHING

IBM (USA)

Recently, an interesting and novel application of lasers

on an electrode
It

is

was discovered

in

which

a laser

beam impinging

used to enhance local electroplating or etching rates by several orders of magnitude.

has also been discovered that with the aid of the laser

electroless plating at high deposition rates, to greatly

it

is

possible to produce very highly localized

enhance and localise the typical metal-exchange

(immersion) plating reactions, to obtain thermo-battery-driven reactions with simple single-element

aqueous solutions, and

to greatly

enhance localized chemical etching. Since

beams can be

laser

readily

focused to micron-sized dimensions and scanned over sizeable areas, the enhancement scheme makes
it

possible to plate and etch arbitrary patterns without the use of masks.

SOURCE: 'Laser-enhanced
No 2, p 136 (March 1982)

plating and etching:

mechanisms and

SEE ALSO: 'Laser enhanced electroplating and

R L Melcher and S E Blum Appl. Phys.

applications'

IBM J.

Res. Dev. vol 26,

von Gutfield, E E

maskless pattern generation' by

Tynan,

Lett,

'Laser enhanced electroplating and etching for maskless pattern generation' by

Tynan and L

T Romankiw.

1979

No 472 Electrochemical
Los Angeles, CA)

Extended Abstract

Meeting of the Electrochemical Society,

SATELLITE ECHO-CANCELLING CIRCUIT

By

the beginning of 1980, telephone

about eliminated by a

new

dubbed an echo

The chip

& T in

its

canceller

way by

could by

far,

satellite will

von Gutfield, E E

(USA)

satellite

was developed by researchers

itself

pp 79-2 (1979) (156th

have undergone a drastic technical

occur along the 45 000-mile-long

integrated circuit that

telephone network. So

telephone calls only one

that

Soc.

Bell Laboratories

communications by

The voice-garbling echoes

change.

vol 35, p 651 (1979)

double the number of

at

paths will be just

Bell Laboratories.

satellite circuits

used by

AT

because of echo problems, the company transmits transcontinental

satellite.

A Concise Description of Each

The echo

one-way transmission

for

when

transmission paths

is

by sampling

circuit

for

becomes too

AT &

electronically as

it

it

high.

The new

T.

occurs,

two cancel each

to the original signal so that the

241

controllable by the present echo suppressors, which open the

the echo's amplitude

enough two-way transmission standards

from a

Invention in Date Order

making

other.

It

But these devices do not meet high

digital

device removes an echo signal

a replica of

and adding the replica

it,

ideal for connection to Bell's all-digital

is

telephone network, which will be completed over the next 20 years.

SOURCE: 'No more

SEE ALSO:

echoes' Electronics p 228 (25 October 1979)

by Donald L Duttweiler IEEE Spectrum p 34 (October 1980)

'Bell's echo-killer chip'

'Silencing echoes on the telephone networks' by

No

vol 68,

1979

FLOTOX

8,

(Floating-Gate Tunnel Oxide)

Flotox resembles the

a voltage

Vg

Man Mohan

Sondhi and David

Famos

PROCESS

Intel

On

IEEE

(USA)

structure except for the additional tunneloxide region over the drain.

Vd

applied to the top gate and with the drain voltage

V, the floating gate

at

coupled to a positive potential. Electrons are attracted through the tunnel oxide
gate.

Berkley Proc.

p 948 (August 1980)

to

With

capacitively

is

charge the floating

the other hand, applying a positive potential to the drain and grounding the gate reverses the

process to discharge the floating gate.

Flotox, then, provides a simple, reproducible

SOURCE:

G
1979

EE-PROM

'16-K

COMPACT

on tunneling

relies

L Kuhn, A L Renninger and

means

for both

programming and erasing

for byte-erasable

program storage' by

memory

cell.

S Johnson,

Perlegos Electronics p 113 (28 February 1980)

DISC

Philips (Holland)

(See also page 238.)

The invention of

the

compact disc (CD) was the

Dutch electronics company Philips NV. Under a

company Sony,

CD

the

was

first

developed

result

of research carried out on the video disc by the

joint licensing

in 1979.

The

the analogue recording process used for the microgroove.

and

series

agreement by Philips and the Japanese

process of digital recording

signal

is

coded

in

is

used, rather than

binary form, using the

The conventional groove has therefore disappeared and has been replaced by millions
known as pits: approximately 4 million per second. The sound is reproduced by a laser

1.

of microcells

beam. The compact disc has

diameter of 5 inches and can hold 75 minutes of music or sound on one

side.

The

CD

music

was

first

marketed

records and

tapes

1983, and by 1991 had outstripped both traditional forms of recorded

in

in

terms of unit sales and values. In the space of a few years, the

achieved incredible success, and

its

applications are

many and

varied.

CD

brought out the prototypes of decoders that enabled fixed images, which had been stored on
alongside an audio signal, to be viewed on television. In 1985 the extensive storage capacity of

was applied

to computers.

speed, which

SOURCE:

it

CD

players

now have

New

the capability of running a disc at twice the normal

York p

Siemens (Germany)

Engineers of the Teletype and Data-Transmission group

at

Siemens

AG

in

Munich have developed

prototype colour ink-jet printer that can produce characters of seven different colours
per second in both directions across normal paper.

whose single-colour

and yellow

ink.

Mark Young

38

SEVEN-COLOUR INK-JET PRINTER

printer

CDs
CDs

possible to record an hour-long disc onto a cassette in just 30 minutes.

'Inventions and Discoveries 1993' edited by Valerie-Anne Giscard d'Estaing and

Facts on File

1979

makes

has

1984 Philips and Matsushita

In

ink-jet

The

unit consists of the

mechanism has been replaced by

at

the rate of

200

company's older PT80

a multinozzle unit for red, green,

Proper mixing of these inks yields the colours blue, magenta, cyan, and black. Colour

and mixture data are stored

a separate colour scanner.

in a

floppy-disk

One of

memory whose program

is

the biggest problems involved, the

derived from the output of

Siemens engineers

say,

was

A Concise

242

Description of Each Invention

in

Date Order

developing nonsmearing inks that would stay liquid

the paper.

If

customer reaction

is

in the

become dry

nozzles yet

right after they hit

favorable, the colour printer will go into production.

will

It

make

possible multicoloured graphic representations.

SOURCE:
1980

'Siemens develop seven-colour ink-jet

p 71 (13 September 1979)

printer' Electronics

OUTDOOR LARGE SCREEN COLOUR DISPLAY

Mitsubishi Electric Corporation

SYSTEM

(Japan)

large screen colour display system for use in outdoor video system has been developed and introduced

by Mitsubishi Electric Corp. The display screen consists of

light emitting tubes

a matrix array of small, high brightness

and can present sharp colour pictures even

Many

in full daylight.

systems have been installed for various outdoor video services such as

in sports

video display

stadiums, racetracks,

or as an advertising media. However, these previous systems consist of an array of incandescent lamps,

and have many problems especially

in

displaying colour pictures such as insufficient colour quality,

high power consumption and short operating

To overcome

The LET

is

life.

these problems, Mitsubishi has developed the high brightness light emitting tube (LET).

a small flood

beam CRT (28mm

in diameter)

having a single phosphor of red, green, or

LET

blue for each tube, and works for a single picture element in the screen. Brightness of the
bits for a

green tube (over 20 times brighter than the usual

SOURCE: 'AURORA VISION'. A

T Tomimatsu and H Kobayashi (In

TV

is

8000

picture tube).

large screen colour display system' by

Kurahashi,

Yagishita,

ofTVEng. (Japan) IPD49-3,

Japanese) Technical Report of Inst.

p 319 (1980)

SEE ALSO: 'An outdoor large screen colour display system' by K Kurahashi, K
H Kobayashi SID Symp, Digest of Technical Papers vol 12, 13, (p 132)

and

1980

MAT (MAGNETIC AVALANCHE TRANSISTOR)

A new

Yagishita,

Fukushima

(1981)

IBM (USA)
The device

is

basically a dual-collector open-base lateral bipolar transistor operating in the avalanche region, and

is

semiconductor device for sensing uniaxial magnetic

referred to as a magnetic Avalanche Transistor.

compared

to

traditional

has been realized.

fields

exhibits high magnetic transduction sensitivity

It

Hall-effect and conventional

nonlinear magnetoresistive devices.

Several

hundred experimental devices have been designed, fabricated, and tested over the past two years.

Many

structural

was found

to

for devices

and some process parameters were varied. The magnetic sensitivity of a typical device

be proportional

to substrate resistivity.

which used 5-ohm-cm p-type

is

differential

and responds linearly with

is

20000

tesla.

per

The bandwidth

field

known

is

substrates.

sensitivity of

The output

magnitude and

30 volts per

polarity.

extend well beyond 5

to

tesla

was measured

measured between collectors

signal

typical signal-to-noise ratio

MHz. The

sensitive area

is

calculated to be on the order of 5 amp. This communication describes the basic structure, fabrication,

and characteristics for the magnetic avalanche

SOURCE:

'A magnetic sensor utilizing an avalanching semiconductor device' by

Res. Dev. vol 25,

1980

256K

transistor.

No

3,

Vinal

IBM

J.

p 196 (May 1981)

DYNAMIC RAM

NEC-Toshiba Musashino

Electrical

Communication Labs. (Japan)

NEC-Toshiba Information Systems

Inc.

and NTT-Musashino Electrical Communication Laboratory,

both of Tokyo, each present 256-K-by-l-bit dynamic

nanosecond access time and

to

speed signal propagation, accesses

consumes 225
but only 15

milliwatts of active

mW

NEC-Toshiba uses two

levels of polysilicon,

processing to build

RAM. The

which meets the

mW

device

is

1.

The NEC-Toshiba chip has

NTT

100 ns and cycles

in just

power and 25

on standby. Both designs require

its

RAMs.

a 350-ns cycle time, while the

in

device, which uses

double

that.

160-

molybdenum

NEC-Toshiba's chip

on standby, while NTT's device uses 230

mW

a 256-cyc!e/4-millisecond refresh.

5 p.m direct-step-on wafer photolithography, and all-dry

already being

shown

in a

16-pin package, the pinout of

Joint Electron Device Engineering Council's standard with the eighth address line

on

A Concise
pin

1.

The oblong
two

split into

Description of Each Invention in Date Order

243

measuring 191 by 338 mils, contains two 128-K arrays. Each array

die,

further

is

28-by-5 12-bit sections, separated by 512 sense amplifiers that run the length of the chip.

mean time between

Various techniques including silicone coating, are used to keep the

due

failure

to

alpha radiation below 30 000 device hours.

NTT-Musashino's

RAM

electron-beam

with

built

is

molybdenum word

interconnection levels:

capacitor electrodes and gates of non-array devices.

writing,

direct

aluminum

lines,

NTT's

die

bit
is

with one interesting difference: each 128-K array has attached to

a

dummy

additional circuits take

SOURCE: iSSCC:

it

up no more than 10% of NTT's nearly square 230-by-232-mil

three

cells

(Japan)

Researchers

Nippon Telegraph

at

&

technique represents a significant step

advances

to

more

the

efficient

in

The main

be made

will also

signal

rf signal.

was aligned on

a photodetector

recently

opened by

laser,

emitting at 820nm, the drive current being directly

No

feed-back stabilisation system was used, The

and the resulting fm intermediate-frequency signal fed

am

output.

The spurious

signal depth

to

was very small

filtered out.

Digital (at lOOMbit/s) and analogue (at

300MHz)

signals were transmitted satisfactorily by the system,

The system

described in the 23 October issue of Electronics Letters.

is

window

of carrier frequencies will become possible.

This was matched to a local-oscillator signal from a similar laser

a frequency discriminator for conversion to an

and easily

The

in optical signal reception.

by temperature control and direct-current adjustment.

signal

and T Kimura

of optical communication systems,

use of the low-loss frequency

was supplied by an AlGaAs

frequency modulated by an

Y Yamamoto

an optical-fibre transmission system.

in the practical realisation

in optical-fibre technology, since finer separation

Improvements

The

die.

Telephone's Musashino Laboratories have demonstrated for the

time the use of classical superheterodyne detection

and could lead

and

two spare word

memories' Electronics p 138 (14 February 1980)

a gallery of gigantic

S Saito,

which

and

2-K block of redundant

extra cells, connected via four pairs of spare bit lines and

SUPERHETERODYNE

mixed

processing,

organized just like NEC-Toshiba's but

FIBRE-OPTIC LASER DRIVEN

first

dry

and polysilicon for storage

replaced by electrically programming on-chip poly-silicon resistors during wafer probing.

lines, are

1980

The

sense circuit.

lines,

many advantages over conventional amplitude-modulation

better signal/noise ratio,

and

is

expected to be improved

is

claimed to have

systems, such as low power, simplicity and

in the future

by the use of recently developed

frequency-stabilisation feedback systems.

SOURCE:

'Classical steps in optical fibres' Electronics

SEE ALSO:
1980

MCZ

and Power p 855 (November/December 1980)

'Fibre optics adopts superheterodyne principles' Electronics p 73 (20

(Magnetic Field Method of Silicon Crystal

November 1980)

Sony (Japan)

Growths)
Sony has developed

new method

for

producing very high-quality single crystals of silicon with greater

uniformity and lesser defect generation, which greatly reduces the wafer warpage and distortion, through
the application of a high magnetic field in the silicon pulling process.

The new
to

silicon crystal

growth method, called

'MCZ

(magnetic-field

CZ) method', has been developed

meet the requirements of the coming age of ultra-high-density semiconductor devices, including

CCDs

and super-LSIs, which integrate tens of hundreds of thousands of elements into several-millimetre-square
chips. Sony's

MCZ

method

is

the world's

first

of

its

kind,

which applies

a high

magnetic

field,

instead

of zero gravity, to mass produce very high-quality crystals of silicon for industrial applications.

SOURCE:

'Sony develops magnetic-field method for high-quality silicon crystals' Journal of the

Electronics Industry, Japan p 42 (August 1980)

A Concise

244
1980

Description of Each Invention

Date Order

in

FIBRE-OPTIC SUBMARINE CABLE

Standard Telephones and Cables

(UK)
"Tomorrow (14 February) weather
is

probably the

The

purpose-built fibre optic submarine cable in the world.

first

British Post Office cableship

cable

made by STC,

Results of the

permitting, Standard Telephones and Cables will start laying what

Monarch

Loch Fyne

in

at

STC which

be monitored by

trial will

the British Post Office.

It is

STC

need experience of a

foreign companies, especially those in the

The armoured cable

up

to take

The housing

about two inches

is

USA

in

at 'all

STC

is

possible parameters', and

major exporter of submarine

two regenerators

for these regenerators has already

competition from

realistic sea situation to face

and Japan.

diameter and has four fibres although

In about a year's time,

to eight.

be looking

will

considered vitally important since

cable and the Post Office and

armoured

will lay the trial system, a five nautical mile loop of

Inveraray, Scotland.

will

it

has been designed

be inserted by Cableship Monarch.

been incorporated and the cable

be

will

lifted

and the

regenerators placed within the housings."

SOURCE: 'PO
1981

first

with seabed optic link' by

Clark Electronics Weekly p

W Gates (USA)

MS-DOS
IBM

In 1981

asked Microsoft

(a small

company which has

MS-DOS

it is

irony of the story

the producers of

CP/M.

is

used by

it

MS-DOS

that Bill

SOURCE: The Book

(UK: Queen Anne

all

IBM

Gates

and delivered

it

to

to

who was

provide them with

Microsoft's young

16-bit operating

IBM (who

call

same

it

system

PC-DOS).

today the most widely used for professional

is

compatibles.

first

advised

IBM

to

go

to his competitor, Digital

Digital Research refused to sign the promise of secrecy required

losing the market and, at the

1981

he christened

has since been considerably improved and

microcomputers, since

The

it,

Bill Gates,

Computer Products' Tim Patterson's

the time, then bought Seattle

at

SCP-DOS. Having adapted

expanded greatly)

since

an operating system for their future microcomputer, the PC.

owner

(13 February 1980)

time, taking the

first

step

on

Research,

by IBM, thus

their path to decline.

of Inventions and Discoveries Associate Editor Valerie-Anne Giscard d'Estaing

Press,

&

Macdonald

Co.) p 117 (1990)

HYDROPLANE POLISHING OF
SEMICONDUCTORS

V Gormley

J Manfra,

Calawa (Massachusetts

A R

Institute of

Technology) (USA)

A new

polishing

technique

for

semiconductor materials promises very smooth surfaces free of

mechanical defects, faster polishing, and, by implication, improved yield and throughput.
hydroplane polishing by
in

its

developers

Lexington, Mass., the system

at the

may

beat today's mechanical and chemical polishing approaches.

So far used on gallium arsenide and indium phosphide,

nm

per minute, as much as 60 times

to within 0.3

pm

faster than other

and free of mechanical damage.

mechanically suspended about 125

Called

Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Lincoln Laboratory

pm

the technique removes material at

up

to

methods, and the surfaces produced are

In the

new

above the surface of

process, semiconductor wafers are

smooth, spinning disk coated with

continually replenished etchant solution; the wafers thus hydroplane just above the disk's surface.

new method was developed

30
flat

to satisfy the stringent surface-quality requirements of

The

molecular-beam

epitaxy.

SOURCE:

'Hydroplaning could yield smoother IC wafers' Electronics p 34 (15 December 1981)

SEE ALSO:
1981

'Spinning etchant polishes

flat, fast'

Electronics p

PLANE POLARIZED LIGHT OPTICAL FIBRE

The

big difference in the

the cladding

new

fibre is the

40 (13 January 1982)

T Suganuma

presence of an 80-by-26

and itself surrounded by the support.

pm

(Hitachi) (Japan)

elliptical jacket

surrounding

Boric oxide in the jacket material increases

its

A Concise

Description of Each Invention

Date Order

in

245

temperature coefficient of expansion far above that of the support. Thus as the fibre drawn from the

down from

four-part preform (core, cladding, jacket, and support) cools

which

2000C temperature

the

fabricated, differences in the thickness of the jacket material exert anisotropic forces

it is

core along the major and minor axes of the ellipse.

The

at

on the

direction with the higher compression, along

the short axis of the ellipse, has the higher index of refraction.

Because the index of refraction

highest along the shorter of the ellipse's perpendicular axes and

is

lowest along the longer one, a single-polarized

will

wave of

extinction ratio, will be better than 30 decibels

the orthogonal one

less than

is

probably not exceed 10 dB.

that

0.1%. For a standard

And

launched into the cable along either axis

light

be transmitted unchanged. Even after transmission over

km,

the polarisation, as

measured by the

the conversion of energy from one plane into

is,

under the best of conditions the

fibre

the slightest vibration of a standard fibre,

ratio

would

which causes anisotropic

mechanical pressure on the core, can reduce the ratio to about 3 dB.

SOURCE:

SEE ALSO:
1981

wave of

'Fibre transmits plane-polarized

Electronics p 77 (28 July 1981)

light'

'Elliptically cross-sectioned fibre' Electronics p

67 (30 August 1979)

HYDROGENATED AMORPHOUS SILICON FILMS

Grasso,

Mezzasalma and F

Neri (Italy)

The

preparation of hydrogenated amorphous silicon films was carried out by a

mixing evaporated silicon from an electron-beam source with

an Ion Tech low energy source. This source

is

new method

consisting in

stream of ionized hydrogen produced by

a cold cathode device

which operates

at

lower pressure

than conventional cold cathode sources.

SOURCE:

1982

new

'A

A M

Grasso,

evaporation method for preparing hydrogenated amorphous silicon films' by

Mezzasalma and F Neri Solid

Communications

State

TRACK AUTORADIOGRAPHY

FISSION
Since the

error'

'soft

was diagnosed

AERE

No

9, p

675 (1982)

(UK)

very-large-scale integrated (VLSI) circuit

1978,

in

vol 41,

memory

manufacturers have sought a method of detecting the minute amount of naturally-occurring radioactive
impurities which,

if

present in

VLSI

circuit materials,

can disrupt circuit performances.

Now, however, Harwell has developed an extremely

sensitive

technique

autoradiography (FTA) which can detect the presence of uranium

parts in 10

y
.

'soft error' effect is

part of the

VLSI

charge which

Because of

circuit

fission

track

of component

fissile

failure.

in

any

assembly. The energy possessed by an alpha-particle can produce an electric

may change

this,

risk

the content of a single

memory location, giving rise to computational errors.

now specifying alpha-particle emission rates of less

semiconductor manufacturers are

memory device

not possible to detect such emission levels directly.

235, the

as

produced by alpha-particle emissions from radioactive impurities present

than 0.001 particles/cm 2 /hour for their

It is

known

concentrations as small as 2

This provides manufacturers with a quality control enabling them to assess raw material,

and components, thereby reducing the

The

in

isotope present as

0.72% of

materials.

The Harwell FTA technique

natural uranium;

exploits uranium-

prepared specimens of semiconductor

material are coated with a polyimide film solid state nuclear track detector (s.s.n.t.d.) and irradiated with

thermal neutrons in Harwell's Materials Testing Reactor,

fission

and the resulting

polyimide film

is

fission

DIDO. On

particles are registered as tracks

irradiation, the

on the

s.s.n.t.d.

U-235 undergoes
Afterwards the

chemically etched to develop the fission tracks which can then be examined by

optical microscopy.

From

uranium present, down

the information gained

to 2 parts in

calculate alpha-emission rates of as

10

little

SOURCE: 'Fission track radiography

vol 52, No 5, p 200 (May 1982)

for

it

is

possible to determine precisely the

(or a surface distribution of 3

as

amount of

x 10" 6 tig/cm 2 ) and thus

to

0.0002 particles/cnr/hour.

checking V. L.S.I,

circuits'

The Radio and Electronic Engineer

A Concise

246
1982

Description of Each Invention in Date Order

RECRYSTALLIZATION SILICON PROCESS

Using

moving graphite heater

Texas Instruments

Inc., is

Texas Instruments (USA)

to create a thin layer

developing what

it

of single-crystal silicon atop an oxide insulator,

believes will be a practical alternative to expensive silicon-

on-sapphire substrates for high-density, high-speed complementary-MOS integrated circuits (see figure
11.33).

MOVING STRIP HEATER

REGION OF
EPITAXIAL

REGROWTH

MOLTEN
SILICON

SILICON

SUBSTRATE

STATIONARY GRAPHITE HEATER

Hot pot. Stnp neater

that

Texas Instruments moves across deposited poiysilicon produces a

region ot epitaxial regrowth above the single-crystal substrate. Recrystallization continues

above the

insulator region,

making a device-quality

single-crystal layer.

Figure 11.33. Recrystallisation silicon process.

SOURCE:
1982

'Oxide insulator looks the equal of sapphire for

C-MOS

AMORPHOUS PHOTOSENSORS
Sanyo

Electric recently

material for the

the

first

succeeded

ICs' Electronics p 45 (2 June 1982)

Sanyo (Japan)
developing photosensors made of amorphous semiconductor

in

time in the world, and announced that they would be released in spring. Based upon

development of the amorphous photosensors, Sanyo also developed one-chip full-colour sensors and

intends to expand their application to line sensors. In the case of visible light total spectra photosensors,
the

new amorphous photosensors

cost only half of conventional silicon monocrystal photosensors.

The amorphous sensor developed by Sanyo

glass base, by forming

PIN amorphous

is

silicon

made by forming

on

using silicon carbide in the P layer, separating

it

into a resin

package

it

a transparent conductive layer

on

through the continuous separation forming method

into chips after attaching lead wires,

and molding

performing face-down-bonding/lead-frame bonding, The mono-colour and

after

made by providing

full-colour sensors are then

sensor,

it

appropriate

filters;

even

in the

case of the full-colour

can be made as a single chip, taking advantage of the large electric resistance between the

it

lead wires.

SOURCE:
1982

'Sanyo develops amorphous photosensors' J EI, Japan p 50 (April 1982)

BUBBLE-JET PRINTING
Canon has made
the printing

seconds

The new
the

name

major breakthrough

system of the

at least

future.

It

is

'bubble-jet' operates

suggests,

it

technology which,

it

is

claimed,

is

likely to

become

unique 'bubble-jet', which can produce a copy in just six

many new

on completely

ejects ink

different principles

from conventional

ink-jet systems.

As

by means of thermally generated bubbles, rather than piezo-electricity

printers.

processes, the 'bubble-jet' system

laboratories in Japan, a soldering iron

Canon

in ink-jet

120 times faster than any other International Standard facsimile ink-jet printers.

used with other ink-jet

Yet, like

Canon (Japan)

was

was discovered by

accident. In

Canon's research

placed, inadvertently, next to a full ink syringe

scientist noticed the heat forced out a droplet of ink.

Unlike earlier ink-jet

and

systems, which are

A Concise
restricted to using either a single nozzle, or

Description of Each Invention

from

2000 nozzles (covering A4

ink through nearly

in

Date Order

247

seven multi-nozzles, the new 'bubble

five to

size) to enable printing to

be completed

jet' ejects

spectacular

at

speeds.

The

1982

'bubble-jet' nozzles can also be increased to

be possible

SOURCE: Canon

Press Release, 23 February 1982

in the future,

CAMCORDER
Show

Electronic
3 h

in

the

first

Tokyo

camcorder: a video camera and recorder combined. Presented

October 1982 by Sony,

in

(UK: Queen Anne

&

Macdonald

1984 the French firm

ATG

read using a laser beam.

equivalent of

ATG
marketed

SOURCE: The Book

HARD

DISC

In 1985 the

its

The Gigadisc can

texts, photos,

up

store

to

two thousand million

Macdonald

&

is

the

American company Plus Development Corporation revolutionised mass memory technology

IBM PCs

equipped with an

hard discs (large capacity fixed magnetic media) were

called, is only 2.5

SOURCE: The Book

(UK: Queen Anne

cm, 0.985

Many

in, thick.

1985,

fragile.

of 10

MB.

The Hardcard,

of Inventions and Discoveries Associate Editor Valerie-Anne Giscard d'Estaing

Press,

at the

extra-flat hard disk

awkward and

other producers have followed the lead.

Macdonald

&

Co.) p 124 (1990)

DIGITAL VIDEO RECORDER

Sony (Japan)

Symposium of Montreux, Sony introduced

the

first

video recorder with a digital

This model was solely for professional use. Since then digital video recorders have

facility.

become commonplace. The

to

which

Plus Development Corp. (USA)

as

May

bytes,

Co.) p 125 (1990)

CARD

this,

recording

designed

of Inventions and Discoveries Associate Editor Valerie-Anne Giscard d'Estaing

Press,

Before

In

It is

sound, computer data. The information

text.

by launching an extension card designed for

it is

(France)

numerical optical disc system, called Gigadisc:

documents:

600000 pages of typed

(UK: Queen Anne

1985

Japan

Co.) p 239 (1990)

DIGITAL OPTICAL DISC

is

at the

uses normal Betamax cassettes allowing up to

of Inventions and Discoveries Associate Editor Valerie-Anne Giscard d'Estaing

Press,

for large scale storage of all sorts of

1985

it

35 min recording time.

SOURCE: The Book

In

expected that even

it is

Sony (Japan)

The Betamovie was

1984

cope with larger copies, and

simply by adding more printer modules.

faster speeds will

effects

which can be produced are very

varied. For instance,

superimpose a reduced secondary image on to a corner of the screen.

It

is

it is

possible

also possible to choose

the speed of the tape with faster and slower options, etc.

SOURCE:

The Book of Inventions and Discoveries Associate Editor Valerie-Anne Giscard d'Estaing

(UK: Queen Anne

1985

Press,

Macdonald

&

Co.) p 238 (1990)

CD-ROM

Philips (Holland)

The CD-ROM, invented by

Philips and

similar to those used in

systems, but adapted to computing uses.

a thousand times

hi-fi

more data than

data cannot be written onto

SOURCE:

it.

promoted throughout the World

a diskette.

Developed

Its

in

disadvantage

1985, the

is

It

in collaboration with

that the data

CD-ROM

Sony

is

has the advantage of containing

began

on

it

can be read, but new

to take off in 1988.

inventions and Discoveries 1993' edited by Valerie-Anne Giscard d'Estaing and Mark Young

Facts on File

New

York p 218

A Concise Description of Each

248
1985

WINDOWS

Microsoft (USA)

This was launched for the

first

years of work. In April 1987

(in

some conditions) and

for

it.

The Windows

like the

(UK: Queen Anne

November 1985 by

time in

was adopted

Microsoft.

as the standard integrator

will to a certain extent accept applications

may make

interface

possible for

it

IBM

Macdonald

&

multi-task

is

specifically designed

Co.) p 117 (1990)

Zenith (USA)

1985 Zenith (USA) presented the

command

is

even easier

first

tactile

screen system,

mouse or

to use than the

SOURCE: The Book

all

do

the user has to

to give a

of Inventions and Discoveries Associate Editor Valerie-Anne Giscard d'Estaing

Macdonald

Press,

&

Co.) p 124 (1990)

SCANNING TUNNELLING MICROSCOPE

microscopes

latest in

is

at the

It

was made by Noel MacDonald and

National Nanofabrication Facility

is

IBM (USA)

so small, you need a microscope to see

only 200 micrometres across.

The device

based on surface acoustic wave

light pen:

touch a section of the screen.

is

(UK: Queen Anne

Miller

modules not

of Inventions and Discoveries Associate Editor Valerie-Anne Giscard d'Estaing

Press,

technology, which

The

more than 50 man

required

It

by IBM. Windows

compatibles to become more user-friendly

TACTILE SCREEN
In

1986

it

Macintosh.

SOURCE: The Book

1985

Invention in Date Order

Built

it.

on a

his students

silicon chip,

which earned

basically a scaled-down version of the scanning tunnelling microscope,

which narrows

fine needle,

to a single

atom

at its point,

STMs

A
a

and

fro across the surface.

typical

human

lower

STMs

moves

can sense features as small as a single atom.

modem STM is roughly the size of a thumb, but MacDonald

Two tiny electrostatic motors move the silicon tip to and

says his version

hair.

fro,

is

the size of

while a third can raise or

it.

There might not be a

California not

somewhere

shown

1989

that

scanning probe

else with great precision.

a silicon surface.

Using

atoms

piles of

little

at IBM's Almaden site in

move them and deposit them

of use for such a diminutive device had scientists

lot

in

xenon deposited on

To prove

tips

can pick atoms up,

this they spelt out their

would run over the surface

to see

STM

where the

could build up the piles or

But the

piles are.

Because the motors

electronic engineer's purposes.

company's logo

in

35 atoms of

new kind of computer memory was

to represent bits of data in a

extension of the work. In write mode, an

it

rely

over the surface of a sample.

Electrons 'tunnel' between the needle and the surface to create a minute electric current as the tip
to

is

Cornell University.

at

Heinrich Rohner and Gerd Binnig of IBM's Research Division a Nobel Prize in 1986.

on running a

it

Yang Xu and Scott

that

move

are so tiny, the device experiences hardly any inertia, so

it

full-size

flatten

STM

them;

was

still

a logical

in read

mode,

too big for an

the tip around in the miniature version

can scan up to 10 000 times faster than a

full-scale probe.

'The bigger picture

The

little

in the

next 10 years

is

putting thousands of

them on

single chip,' says

microscopes could then move thousands of atoms around simultaneously.

control circuitry alongside the

the data handling capacity

moving

parts

on a

fully integrated silicon chip,

would be enormous. 'You would be able

to take

And

MacDonald
something

MacDonald.
with

all

the

believes that

like a

hundred

or a thousand of your normal computer disks and put them onto a chip the size of your fingernail,' he
says.

But MacDonald stresses

SOURCE:

that their

breakthrough

is

'Smallest microscope in the world' by

NOTE: Two

articles

just the

Pease

Private

New

step in a long process.

Scientist p 21 (20

May

1995)

(Van Nostrand Scientific Encyclopaedia, and Engineering Science and Educational

Journal) state that the Scanning Tunnelling Microscope

SOURCE:

first

was invented by Binning and Bohrer

communication from E Davies, London.

in 1982.

A Concise Description of Each

1987

DAB
DAB

the

is

of a standard devised and developed

result

and consumer electronics industries and

DAB

European communications and technologies

to provide a reliable, multi-service digital

that

BBC's Research

including the

collectively

is

known

as

Eureka 147

&

part of

Since 1987, Eureka 147 has developed

initiative.

sound broadcasting system for reception by mobile,

portable and fixed receivers, using a simple rod aerial.

sound and data broadcasting system

by a group of European broadcasters

their research institutes,

Development Department. The European project group

a wider

249

Eureka 147 (Europe)

Audio Broadcasting)

(Digital

Invention in Date Order

can be used

a rugged,

It is

and yet a highly spectrum

any usual broadcasting band and on

in

efficient

terrestrial

(land-based transmitters), satellite or cable networks.

SOURCE: BBC
SEE ALSO:
Electronics

modulation system: the heart of

Engineering Information

was

and developed

in

(i.e.

new development. The CDV,

They

picture.

is

40 minutes of

September 1995, were

(Digital

SOURCE:

compact disc video, was brought out by

produced simultaneously on

and sound for

compact

six

Audio Tape), an

stereo.

The

CDV

is

CDVs

New

which hold

all

a light

Matsushita (Japan)

pen and infra-red transmission.

at the

exact

Press,

moment

Macdonald

first fibre

programmes and

&

is

a
is

system of monthly advance

used to scan the bar codes

the video recorder

is

ready to record

Co.) p 238 (1990)

is

DGT, BT and AT&T

USA)

(AT&T), and

British

SOURCE: The Book

(UK: Queen Anne

Telecom

(France,

UK,

TAT-8, has linked the United States with Great Britain and

6620 km, 4114 miles, long and

processing signals. The partners in this venture are

International.

The

DGT

carries television, telephone

(France),

total cost is

and data

American Telegraph and Telephone

estimated to be

220

million.

of Inventions and Discoveries Associate Editor Valerie-Anne Giscard d'Estaing

Press,

Macdonald

&

Co.) p 244 (1990)

VIDEO WALKMAN
audio predecessor,

comprises a case weighing

mm

It

The pen

required.

optic transatlantic cable, the

France since 1988. The cable

an 8

CDVs

of two hours, and

one of the answers to the competition offered

FIBRE OPTIC TRANSATLANTIC CABLE

its

maximum

The Book of Inventions and Discoveries Associate Editor Valerie-Anne Giscard d'Estaing

(UK: Queen Anne

Like

of the same format

audio-digital cassette.

the information about television

on the specified date

SOURCE:

CDVs

York p 2 1

programming using

The

last for a

Panasonic invention (Japanese Matsushita group).

readers can reproduce both

minutes as well as 20 minutes of music, the 8-inch

ADVANCE PROGRAMME CONTROL OF VIDEO

RECORDERS
is

The new

Philips

a television screen

inventions and Discoveries 1993' edited by Valerie-Anne Giscard d'Estaing and Mark Young

Facts on File

This

shown on

discs, while the gold

pictures and sound and the 12-inch

give additional backing to films and operas.

DAT

the

enables video pictures to be

It

will read standard

5 inches) play pictures

offer

1988

in

Philips (Holland)

conjunction with Sony.

while laser quality sound

sound and

1988

commencing

state that their broadcasts,

COMPACT DISC VIDEO

by

audio broadcasting' by P Shelswell

Communication from E Davies, London

Private

In 1987 there

1987

digital

first.

SOURCE:
1987

COFDM

'The

IEE Conference, September 1995)

and Communication Engineering Journal p 127 (June 1995)

NOTE: BBC
the

Leaflet 1995 (at '100 Years of Radio',

Sony (Japan)
this is also a
1.1

Sony

invention.

Marketed

in

Japan since August 1988,

it

kg, 2 lb 7 oz, containing a televusion receiver with liquid crystals and

format video recorder.

A Concise

250

Description of Each Invention in Date Order

SOURCE: The Book

(UK: Queen Anne
1991

of Inventions and Discoveries Associate Editor Valerie-Anne Giscard d'Estaing

Press,

Macdonald

&

Co.) p 238 (1990)

VERY HIGH DENSITY DISKETTE

Developed by the American company
megabytes on standard 3.5-inch

Insite

Peripherals the Floptical

Moreover,

diskettes.

kilobytes and 1.44 megabytes. This achievement

is

due

use optical recording techniques.

to the

New

York p 2 1
Philips (Holland)

While the electronics industry

strives to

make cheaper throw-away

laboratory in Eindhoven has adopted the opposite approach.

it

like a silicon chip. Ultimately this

sits in

The

March 1991.

PLASTIC ELECTRONICS

behave

Disk Drive can store 20.8

compatible with earlier formats: 720

fully

inventions and Discoveries 1993' edited by Valerie-Anne Giscard d'Estaing and Mark Young

Facts on File

1991

is

it

Floptical has been available in the United States since

SOURCE:

(USA)

Insite Peripheals

It

silicon microchips, Philips research

is

making disposable materials

might mean shop assistants can

total

that

up your shopping while

the trolley.

De Leeuw

has developed plastic coatings that could be incorporated into smart packaging that would,

for example,

tell

supermarket checkout point what goods were

in a shoplifter's pocket.

The

plastic paint could also be

in a

passing shopping trolley

or even

used to make other disposable devices such as

telephone payment cards.

Conventional plastic polymers, for example polyethylene, polypropylene, and polyvinyl chloride, are

They

insulators.

all

De Leeuw

are built from long chain molecules surrounded by side branches.

heated

these materials in a furnace to just below their burning point and then added organic solvent to the
residue.

This process knocked off the side branches leaving the long central molecules.
are used as a printing ink the molecules line

an electric current when a voltage

plastic electronics,

showing

is

up and

applied. Last

When

these materials

the coating behaves like a semiconductor, passing

week de Leeuw gave

the

first

demonstration of his

could generate a signal that could be displayed on an

that the coating

LCD

screen.

To make smart packaging,

a layer of semiconductor ink

would be printed on

the top surface of ordinary

card or plastic. This two-layer structure would behave like a field-effect transistor, where the current
flows through the coating
If the

coating

is

when

a control or switching voltage

domino

applied.

applied in a pattern of connected areas, the plastic acts as a string of

segment switches on the next FETs

this

is

effect sets

Depending on

in line.

up a characteristic

oscillating flow of electricity

around the FETs.

characteristic oscillation that will enable a supermarket checkout to discriminate

of, say, a carton

packaging

in

De Leeuw
cards.

estimates that the

SOURCE:

is

this

field.

minimum

much cheaper

alternative to silicon for telephone

cost of implanting a card with a silicon chip

'Check out the electronic

paint'

New

Scientist p 18

PHOTONIC CRYSTAL
the

first

to

slab of a
sets

mace

photonic crystal.

(1

is

payment

30 cents, while

July 1995)

Eli

In 1991, Eli Yablonovitch of Bellcore, the

is

It

between the packaging

technology would cost 'nearly nothing'.

his

1991

each

of milk and a packet of cheese. The oscillations would be triggered by bathing the

an electromagnetic

says the plastic coatings could be a

He

FETs

the shape and size of the printed pattern,

He

Yablonovitch (USA)

telecommunications research company

did

it

in the

simplest

way imaginable.

New

in

Jersey,

became

Starting with a solid

commercial material called Stycast-12, he used an ordinary workshop

drill

to bore three

of long, slanted holes through the top surface of the block, Yablonovitch chose Stycast-12, which

manufactured by the Massachusetts company Emerson and Cumming, because

it

is

transparent to

A Concise

Description of Each Invention

Date Order

in

microwaves. The holes he drilled intersected below the surface to produce an

dimensional pattern, which

what forms the photonic

is

to a perfect mirror to reflect the

used

In the future, photonic crystals could be

would be much quicker

power

in

super-powerful computers based entirely on

to build

components

There

is

SOURCE:

made from photonic

Tricks of the

LASERCOM Laser

efficient, they will require

New

light'

Scientist p

TV

satellites

Lasercom

will rely

on a

The

satellites.

bits per

California, calls

satellite-to-satellite

modules known

all

optical chips,

ThermoTrex, Motorola (USA)

beam bouncing

a billion

systems on board todays

fastest radio-based

second.
its

new system Lasercom.

down

transmit information by bouncing radio waves off satellites and

orbiting relay

is

different signals

26 (25 August 1995)

handle just over 20 million

ThermoTrex Corporation of San Diego,

But

like the electronic transistor.

Bridge Across the World

of information per second between

digital

many

could eventually provide one.

crystals,

Information 'bridges' could be built in space using infrared lasers, with each
bits

light.

But processing

decreasing the size of the circuits

Furthermore, optical circuits can carry

optical systems.

no multipurpose optical component

containing devices

1995

And whereas

the work.

so they can process a large amount of information very quickly.

line,

as yet

do most of

and hence the waste heat they generate, there

in electronic devices tends to increase the resistance,

on a single

still

Because optical devices are

an optical system.

to operate than their electronic counterparts.

no such problem with

intricate, periodic, three-

crystal. Just drilling the holes turns the material

microwaves.

In today's optoelectronic circuits, electronic

less

251

Traditional systems

again to receiving stations.

approach, passing laser signals around the planet between

The

as transceivers.

signals will only

come down

to Earth at their

destination.

The
its

idea of passing information between satellites

Iridium constellation of satellites

But the Iridium

satellites will

which

not unique. For example. Motorola plans to have

is

will carry

mobile phone conversations

communicate using microwaves, which cannot carry

in place

as

by 2000.

much

data as

lasers.

As

well as carrying

The

secure.

more information than radio or microwaves,

laser transmissions are

more

difficult for

unauthorised receivers to intercept.

engineering on the transceivers to the point where

passed,' says Scott

Bloom,

the

Lasercom

In order to pass information reliably

for the

beacon of the

sunlight,

satellite

next in

satellite in

According

While the

to

Bloom,

feel

all

satellites, the

more

radio signals, so

'We have improved

the

the technical hurdles have been

on-board transceivers must be able

with the help of beacons.

line.

ThermoTrex has developed an

of the beacons.

To

cut

down

The

to track

transmitting satellite will look

interference from ambient light, principally

optical filter that only admits light at the precise wavelength

allow the transmitting

this will

satellite to track the receiving

broad daylight.
lasers should transmit clearly in space, their

cover as the signal passes

to

on radio

satellites

Bloom

this

we now

like

project manager.

between

each other. Lasercom aims to achieve

infrared lasers should be

beam, rather than scattering

signal travels in a tightly focused

links

between the

and from the Earth

at

beams may not be able

each end of

its

journey.

to penetrate thick

One

option

is

cloud

to rely

and the ground. Although they would be slower than laser

links.

says that the system can be configured to prevent the radio links from becoming information

'bottlenecks'.

Each

satellite will

simultaneously.

have as many as four laser transceivers, enabling

If a satellite

or a transceiver

is

it

to

communicate with

several others

disabled, the network could be rapidly reconfigured to

keep the information flowing.

Earlier this year,

ThermoTrex conducted an Earth-based

test

of Lasercom

when

it

broadcast several

video teleconferences simultaneously by laser between the Naval Research and Development Laboratory

on Point Loma

in the

San Diego Bay and

the

San Diego Convention Center 10 kilometres away.

A Concise

252

ThermoTrex

is

Description of Each Invention in Date Order

now

negotiating with Teledesic, a

company founded by

launching the transceivers aboard Teledesic's

satellites.

The next planned

in

Lasercom

test for

be

will

Bill

1997 when transceivers

Gates of Microsoft, about

will

US

be launched aboard

military satellites.

SOURCE:
1995

New

'Laser bridge across the world'

Scientist p 25 (17 June 1995)

INTER-SATELLITE COMMUNICATION
Two US

satellites

US

Air Force (USA)

have passed a message to each other without the aid of a ground station

the

first

time this has been done. Direct satellite-to-satellite communication could reduce the military's reliance

on ground

which are vulnerable

stations,

heralds the technology that will

The

test

make

to

jamming during

US

message was transmitted from Virginia by the

'crosslink'

a war.

between two Milstar communication

satellites.

Since the end of the Cold War, Milstar has

criticism, the Air Force

officials say.

Air Force and arrived

The Milstar

codes for launching nuclear weapons operating

to relay secret

Pentagon

come under

fire

after

satellites

Hawaii via a

in

were originally designed

an all-out nuclear war had begun.

as an unnecessary extravagance.

promoting Milstar as a way of providing communications

is

also

It

global satellite cellphone services possible.

in a

To meet

this

conventional

war.

Other

from

satellites

can only talk to each other through ground stations, so any message has to be broadcast

a satellite to a

makes ground

who

ground station and then back up again

stations a

to the next satellite in the chain.

That

prime target for enemy bombing, says Leonard Kwiatkowski, the general

Normal transmissions

heads the Milstar programme.

are also vulnerable

eavesdropping.

to

But crosslinked communications several thousand kilometres above the Earth are out of reach to
eavesdroppers.

'Someone would have

satellites, to intercept

SOURCE:
1995

it,'

'Satellites talk

pathway of the beam,

to get right in the

In

among

themselves'

New

Scientist p 7 (6 Jan 1996)

since

The

RCA,

bit

in the

Hitachi and others introduced the analog

first bit

stream recording of the

receiver.

The standard

VHS

US

is

cassette used by

is

in

VCR

VHS

bit

stream recorder

receiver.

first

VHS

expected

to

be

in

US

bit

stream recorder that provides

and USSB SM to an

DIRECTV

stores by mid- 1996.

most consumers, as well as the countless software

new

technology

in 1977.

currently being transmitted by

The new product

format, are fully compatible with the

major development

VHS VCR

was demonstrated using

signal

Thomson (USA)

and Hitachi, Ltd successfully demonstrated

first

Hitachi are producing the

quality video and audio as

RCA DSS

DSS

RCA's DSS

As co-developers, Thomson and

same

Inc.

stream recorder that heralds the

prototype and a version of

the

Hitachi (Japan),

March, Thomson Consumer Electronics

VHS

between the

he says.

VHS BIT STREAM RECORDER

a prototype of a

right

VHS

bit

titles

on

VHS

stream recorder. Owners of digital broadcast system

receivers with digital interface will be able to time-shift record superior quality digital picture and sound
in addition to regular

Thomson and

analog broadcasts.

Hitachi are designing the

transmitted signals besides the

DSS

new

recorder for possible future applications with other digitally

signal such as the Digital

Video Broadcast (DVB) systems

in

Europe, and digital cable and telco delivery systems.

Digital broadcast recording will

spawn

new

generation of consumer products that contain a digital

interface especially for recording digital video, audio and data.

SOURCE:

'Age of tomorrow 136' Hitachi Ltd, Tokyo, p 19

A Concise
1995

MEMORY

BIOLOGICAL

Description of Each Invention in Date Order

CHIP

253

Mitsubishi Electric and Suntory

(Japan)

One

may be

day, 'biological' computer chips

much

able to store and process ten thousand times as

information as today's silicon chips, which are approaching the limits of miniaturisation. This dream
has

moved

that

behaves

a step closer to reality with the creation

Diodes are useful

The

because they only conduct current

in electronics

Two

rectification.

and storage

by a Japanese research team of a protein molecule

like a diode.

conventional diodes sandwiched back-to-back

one direction:

in

make

process called

a transistor, the basic processing

unit in microchips.

biological diode

was

by

built

scientists at Mitsubishi Electric

Japanese Ministry of International Trade and Industry, which

is

and Suntory using funding from the

eager to put Japan

at the forefront

of

biocomputing.

team led by senior researcher Satoshi Ueyama

in

Hyogo

called

flavocytochrome. Although the

it

so Mitsubishi says

To

test

at Mitsubishi's

R&D

Advanced Technology

Centre

synthesised the protein from cytochrome c552, a natural protein, and flavin, a vitamin, and

it

can

still

new device

synthetic, both

is

its

components occur

in nature,

be regarded as biological.

whether flavocytochrome would behave

protein molecules on a thin gold film,

Ueyama's team deposited

like a diode,

which had been grown on

mica

several of the

They then probed

substrate.

individual molecules with a scanning tunnelling electron microscope, applying various voltages between

When

make

the microscope

no current flowed through the molecule.

But when the

the microscope's probe tip and the gold electrode.

tip positively

charged compared

voltage was reversed, and

when

to the gold,
it

mimics

cytochrome on the other

in the

lower energy level

in the flavin to a

to

of an electronic diode.

that

says electrons were found to be flowing from the flavin side of the molecule to the iron-rich

haem group

place,'

was applied

reached 900 millivolts, a current of 70 picoamperes flowed through

the molecule. This behaviour closely

Ueyama

a voltage

in the

'The electrons only transfer from a high energy level

side.

haem

just like water flowing

from

a higher place to a

lower

he says.

flavocytochrome molecule

is

2.5 nanometres long, and as a

memory

chip component could be used

to create devices that are

around 10000 times the density of today's semiconductor

several terabits of data.

The biggest microchips

RAM

chips, storing

currently under development at Mitsubishi hold only

256 megabits of data using 0.25-micrometre components.

But

like other bioelectronics

biological diode in a circuit.

researchers, Mitsubishi

is

still

way from being

a long

able to use a

Connecting the molecule to another component, for example, presents

huge challenges.
Creating a useful circuit

also a major goal at Israel's

Weizmann

Abraham Shanzer

and 'off

Jacqueline Libman, senior staff scientist

settings.

development as

SOURCE:
1995

is

researchers led by

move

'a

are looking at different

in

efficient laser is also

micrometre across

500 times thinner than

tens of thousands times

most

to give 'on'

more

one of the smallest.

a

efficient than

human
normal

hair.

It is

Its

made of

output

is

Ho

et al

(USA)

a glass fibre less than half a

measured

in microwatts, but

lasers, for

medium, more photons join

it

lasers.

generated by a cascade of photons passing in phase in a single direction. As the

travels through the

in

Rehovot, where

Scientist (27 January 1996)

Song-Tiong

The world's most

is

in

Shanzer's team, described Mitsubishi's

New

'Bio-diode could lead to superchip' by P Marks

All laser light

Science

in the right direction'.

GLASS LASER

is

Institute of

ways of switching molecules

the cascade and the

beam becomes more

beam

intense.

But

every photon that becomes part of the laser beam, tens of thousands radiate uselessly

in other directions.

254

The

Concise Description of Each Invention

trick has

suppressed in
at

been
all

is

Illinois, is far

its

silica

wire, developed by Seng-Tiong

narrower than the wavelength of the

down

only one direction for photons of light to travel:

present form, the laser

In

of

of 'photonics', and use photonic wire, where radiation

art

The photonic

directions but one.

Northwestern University,

there

on the new

to build

Date Order

in

is

of the photons. The laser

beam would remain

light

it

Inside,

carries.

4 micrometres. The photonic wire

a loop with a diameter of

is

and his colleagues

the axis.

Embedded

with a high refractive index, standing proud of a silicon wafer.

made of indium gallium

three 'quantum wells' 0.01 micrometres deep

Ho

made

These are the source

arsenide.

trapped inside the tiny ring laser were

photonic wire, wrapped in a U-shape around the edge of the laser ring.

is

wire are

in the

it

quantum

not for a second

known

effect

as

tunnelling allows a small fraction of the photons to bleed out of the source laser into the second wire.

This way, 70 per cent of available photons are forced into the laser beam. The high efficiency means

As

energy gets wasted as heat.

that less

microelectronic manufacturers try to get more components

onto their chips, and look to optical as well as electronic processing of data, they need to minimise
heat generation.

SOURCE:

'Tiny glass laser sheds

more

by

light than heat'

Pease

New

Scientist p 23 (23

October

1995)

1995

DVD DIGITAL VERSATILE DISC

DVD

The

format

is

(International)

The competing groups combined

will play both existing

innovations, can store about 14 times

which the

first-generation

9X CD-ROM

fast

DVD

CDs and DVDs

player, setting a

new benchmark

And

DVD

although a

CD

DVD

is

the

same

CD's

achieve a finer focus than a

size as a

CD,

CD

wavelength of 635

to

player's does.

additional efficiencies of the

1995

and

DVD

In addition, the rate at

DVD

DVD

matches

that of a

upward of

do

In contrast,

players

CD

DVD

discs. First, the smallest

pits

twice as large, or 0.83 micron wide.

DVD

the smaller pits, a

650 nanometres.

DVD

is

In order to

having a higher numerical aperture than the lens in a

SOURCE:

can.

million bits per second

pits are nearly

data spiral

To read

data spiral.

CD

its

longer wavelength of 780 nanometres. Also,

of each

1 1

data tracks are only 0.74 micron apart, whereas 1.6 microns separate

twice the length of a

that has a

optical-disk reader prescribed

discs that, thanks to a variety of design

for performance.

There are two essential physical differences between

are only 0.4 micron in diameter; the equivalent

groups

more information than current CDs

player plays back data

rival

the best features of their individual

The new breed of

approaches, which had been developed separately.

by the agreement

among

the result of an unprecedented agreement reached in late 1995

of international companies.

this,

it

CD

CD

data tracks.

kilometres long

So

more than

player's readout

beam must

uses a red semiconductor laser

players use infrared lasers with a

more powerful focusing

one

employ

player.

These differences, together with

lens

the

format described below, account for the huge 4.7-gigabyte capacity

information layer.

'Next-generation compact discs' by

A E

Bell Scientific

ATOMIC BEAM LITHOGRAPHY

American p 28

(July 1996)

Harvard University, US National

Bureau of Standards (USA)

Computer chips
the

far

more

intricate

and powerful than those available today may be on the cards with

development of a new technique

for 'printing' integrated circuits.

Integrated circuits are usually manufactured by photolithography, in which the circuit pattern

onto the chip

in a

process similar to creating stencil designs.

protects certain regions of the underlying layers

are

made by

cutting

away

print

'stencil'

is

polymer

is

printed

resist that

from etching, coating or implanting operations. Resists

areas of the protective layer using ultraviolet light, which limits the smallest

size of any feature to about 100 nanometres, or half the

To

The

wavelength of the

light.

smaller features, manufacturers could turn to X-rays, which have a shorter wavelength.

Unfortunately, compact, high-energy X-ray sources are not yet available and polymer resists for use with

X-rays are

still

being developed. So

until

now, the only alternative has been electron-beam lithography.

A Concise
which a

in

approach

Now

tightly focused electron

beam

Description of Each Invention in Date Order

researchers at Harvard University and the

shown

beam

that a

is

US

40 nanometres and hope

when

But

this

not suitable for high-volume manufacturing.

National Institute of Standards and Technology have

of atoms can be controlled by lasers to create tiny patterns on a

cut features as small as

Atoms

onto the surface like a pen.

'writes' the pattern

expensive and time-consuming and

is

255

They have

resist.

nanometre mark.

to reach the 10

In

atoms known as

neutral metastable atoms, however, electrons can get trapped in higher energy states,

from which they

are normally stable

cannot decay.

developed a

The

the

such an atom lands on a surface

made of

resist

When

atoms.

When

their electrons are in the lowest

a material that is

damaged segments

deposits

it

damaged by

its

energy

state.

spare energy.

the energy

The

researchers have

from neutral metastable argon

are etched away, a pattern remains.

of alkanethiolate only one molecule thick applied over a thin gold

resist is a layer

atoms are energised

into a metastable state

by an

film.

The argon

and directed by an interference

electrical discharge

pattern produced by laser beams.

Beams of

light interfere with

When

of energy.
regions.

The

each other

in the

same way

the light meets the argon atoms,

magnetic

light's

as water waves, creating peaks

quenches

it

1996

'Atomic beams etch the

finest chips'

by

Lewotski

ATOMIC HOLOGRAPHY
Three

and troughs

in the brightest

on the atoms, pushing some into the minimum

field also exerts a force

energy regions. The atoms then create a corresponding pattern

SOURCE:

energy

their internal

in the resist.

New Scientist

NEC

tiny letters, just half a millimetre high, spell out a

breakthrough

p 21 (25

November 1995)

Tsukuba (Japan)
in the art

of printing. Scientists

at

NEC's Fundamental Research Laboratories in Tsukuba, Japan, have written their company's name using
a beam of neon atoms. The resulting logo is the atomic equivalent of a hologram, and the technique
that created

According

it

could one day be used to improve the resolution of microelectronic

quantum mechanics,

to

all particles,

including atoms, have wavelike properties. This idea

already exploited in electron microscopes, which use

higher resolution than

the looking glass',

In conventional

New

beams of electrons

possible with light microscopes.

is

attention to atoms, bending and diffracting

Scientist,

20

circuits.

More

beams of atoms

to

is

produce images with a much

recently, physicists have turned their

just like

beams of

light

('Atoms through

April, p 30).

holograms, such as the security image on credit cards, light waves pass through the

transparent areas between patterns of dark lines. This arrangement acts as a diffraction grating, causing
the

waves

create

To

to interfere with

more intense

light.

The

'NEC when

they

all,

the printed letters

slightly blurred, spread

nanometres

mask,

six

it

and Shinji Matsui of NEC, working

Fujita

pattern

was calculated

hit a surface.

to diffract the

neon atoms so

In principle, the holes could

Review Letters (vol 77, p 802). The edges of the

over about 65 micrometres.

would write

But with a

finer pattern

letters

were

of holes cut into the

should be possible to produce atomic holograms with a resolution of just 10

thousand times sharper.

David Pritchard of the Massachusetts

now

that they

be punched to create any pattern.

were made of just 52000 atoms, accumulated over two hours, the researchers

Institute

of Technology, a leading expert in atom optics, says that

atomic holography could one day be used to create microelectronic

techniques

others add together to

image.

beams of atoms, Junichi

report in the 29 July issue of Physical

silicon nitride

some cancel each other out and

University of Tokyo, punched a computer-generated pattern of holes in a thin

at the

sheet of silicon nitride.

the letters

that

result is a recognisable

create a diffraction grating for

with researchers

In

one another so

The

circuits.

The

optical lithography

used to etch circuits are limited by the wavelength of light to a resolution of around

150 nanometres.

SOURCE: 'Quantum hologram

says

it

with atoms'

New

Scientist p 19 (17

August 1996)

A Concise

256
1996

Description of Each Invention

Date Order

in

ELECTRON-BEAM PROJECTION SYSTEM

Labs (USA)

Bell

Thousands more components could be packed onto chips much sooner than chipmakers expected, thanks

beam

to an electron

projection system from Bell Labs in

New

Jersey.

Its

developers reckon the system

be working within two years.

will

Lloyd Harriott, head of the research team, says

components

fabricate

micrometres wide are the norm

in today's

SCALPEL,

that

micrometres wide

just 0.08

semiconductor

silicon

SCALPEL

beam

system works

in a similar

way

atoms across.

plants,' says Harriott.

the next steps to be 0.18 micrometres, then 0.13 micrometres, so this

The

have named the technique, can

as they

roughly 250

is

four generations ahead.

now

to the light-based lithography

in use:

mask which contains

shines high-energy (100 kiloelectronvolts) electrons onto a

must be created on the chip. But instead of blocking the beam with opaque materials

some

create the pattern,

areas of the

unscathed. 'We use a high atomic

mask

the

number

The unscattered

in diameter.

were scattered miss the

some

scatter the electrons while others let

places to

them through

magnetic

unaltered,' he says.
lens,

which focuses

it

on an aperture

just

160 micrometres

electrons pass through the aperture, but the vast majority of those that

hole.

second lens then focuses the beam onto the chip substrate below. Just as

bombard

the energetic electrons

in

an electron

the pattern that

material that scatters the beam, while in the 'open' areas of

e-beam simply passes through

the

The e-beam then passes through

SCALPEL mask

'Features 0.35

'Everyone had expected

the substrate and

remove materials

in

conventional lithography,

to create patterns.

The second

lens

can focus the electrons into an image one quarter the size of the original mask. This means that the

mask can be

which makes

relatively large,

The high energy of

the electrons

it

was one stumbling block

them, but that material quickly heats up as a

alternative approach is to use a

'This works, but

'It's

it

is

like

circuits next year.

Funding

and then becomes

narrow electron beam

like a pencil,

and write patterns onto the chip.

handwriting versus the printing-press speeds of lithography,' says Harriott.

its first

0.08 micrometre features this summer, and expects to be etching

was provided by

'Chip pioneers tame power of E-beams' by

Beard

set for

15

August 1996)

seconds).

The

fastest of today's silicon-based

computers

rely

a million times slower, registering information in nanoseconds.

experimental systems have switches that operate

by Michael Wasielewski and his colleagues

thousand times as
of laser

company

another upward surge, by storing data in single molecules that can

transmit signals in femtoseconds (10~

Some

Scientist p 18 (3

a sister

Projects Agency.

Argonne Nat. Lab. (USA)

Computing power could be

on switches

Advanced Research

New

full

years,' says Harriott.

company Lucent Technologies,

Bell's parent

also provided funding, and by the government's

SUPERFAST SWITCH

built

chips with

by absorbing

distorted,' he says.

'Commercial use of the machines could come within two

for the project

AT&T, which

SOURCE:
1996

result,

make

that will stop electrons

too slow to be practical.'

The laboratory produced

of

previous attempts to

in

'You can make a mask from material

e-beams, says Harriott.

An

easier to manufacture.

light.

fast.

It

operates by

at

pumping an

'To the best of our knowledge,

in trillionths

the

(10~

12
)

of a second, but the system

Argonne National Laboratory

in Illinois is a

electron through a single molecule with two pulses

it's

the

first

time anyone has developed femtosecond

control of a charge shift device,' says Wasielewski.

Each

bit

of information could potentially be stored in the molecule by a single electron. This

from zone

to

zone with separate laser pulses.

The

first

laser pulse,

which has

is

moved

wavelength of 416

nanometres, pushes the electron from the storage zone to the central, priming zone. The second pulse,
with a wavelength of 480 nanometres, shunts the electron within just 400 femtoseconds into the

zone of the molecule, where

it

could be read.

final

A Concise
For

this to

action

back

Description of Each Invention in Date Order

be possible, the electron would have to be siphoned off into an electrical

257

to the original storage zone,

which returns the molecule

to

its

maximum

Wasielewski likens the laser pulses to 'pushing an electron up a cliff

in

cliff.

two separate

miniature electronic devices.

which would feed electrons

One

make

possibility is to

the top

at

arrays of the molecules that could serve as

anchor the molecules to metal or glass surfaces,

into electrical circuits.

David Vass, leader of the applied optics group

the University of Edinburgh, describes the

at

But he does not expect practical applications

experiment as 'extremely elegant'.

it requires parallel developments in laser technology', he says.

several years,

be fast-acting enough

to

keep up with the speed of the electrons.

'You are

handling the positions of microscopic, femtosecond-long spots of laser

research

SOURCE:

To make

stages.

This would allow more time for the electron's position to be detected.

In practical terms, Wasielewski is attempting to

The

flips

stability.

reading easier, he hopes to add a further zone that captures the electron in an energy 'well'

of the

Such an

circuit.

impossible with the existing molecule, because within 600 femtoseconds, the electron

is

is

The

light sources

must

he says.

light,'

18,

New

Coghian

Argonne

be possible for

with the problem of

left

reported in the Journal of the American Chemical Society (vol

'Hopping electron promises superfast switch' by

to

p 8174)

Scientist

p 24 (28

September 1996)

1996

IBM (USA)

SURFACE FLAT CHIPS

Silicon wafers

may

way

to

look smooth to the naked eye, but under the microscope, they reveal terraces like

Researchers

ancient rice fields.

burn off the

at

IBM

and

at

irregularities, creating

New

Cornell University in Ithaca,

an

ultraflat surface suitable for

York, have devised

manufacturing the next

generation of semiconductors.

The

surface of a silicon wafer consists of a

terraces of

atoms about

1.5

base of crystalline silicon, from which rise irregular

flat

nanometres high. Semiconductors are manufactured by depositing layers of

various materials on top of this silicon base.

For the current generation of semiconductors, the substrate does not have

compared

the layers are thick

to the imperfections

future generations of devices will rely

be

crucial,

imagine

be absolutely

that you're trying to put a carpet

on

at

Cornell. 'You

Watson Research Center

would want

process practical.

contamination from

At

final,

The squares

Creating a level surface within each square

single level across the entire wafer.

The

to get those

in

Yorktown Heights,

its

Next, the wafer

is

is

are needed to

much

make

New

First they use

lithography to create a criss-cross pattern of ridges on a silicon wafer, dividing

small squares with sides about 10 micrometres long.

But
will

here.'

York, describe their levelling technique in Applied Physics Letters (vol 69, p 1235).

beam

because

a floor that has ripples a foot high,' says

you put down the carpet. That's what we're doing

Blakely's team and researchers from IBM's

electron

flat

on thinner layers of material, so levelling the imperfections

Jack Blakely, professor of materials science and engineering

ripples out before

to

and so are not seriously affected by them.

the

it

into

smoothing

faster than trying to create a

heated rapidly to 1250 C to drive off oxide

surface.

key stage involves keeping the wafer

that temperature, silicon

at

between 1020C and

150

atoms gradually evaporate from the edges of the

not as strongly held by the crystal lattice as atoms that are surrounded on

for about

terraces,
all

sides.

30 minutes.

where they are

As

the

atoms

evaporate one by one, the terraces gradually retreat towards the sides of each square, leaving a totally

smooth surface behind. Blakely says the temperature

is

not high enough to drive off atoms from this

surface, and evaporation stops at the ridge created by the lithography.

SOURCE:
1996)

'Flat is beautiful for future chips'

by Vincent Kiernan

New

Scientist p

24

(21

September

A Concise Description of Each

258
1996

Invention in Date Order

DIRECT LASER WRITING

Mikroelektronik Centre, Lyngby

(Denmark)

Danish group has etched structures

The

by direct laser writing.

in polysilicon

and amorphous silicon deposited on silicon oxide

patterns can be written with high resolution and transferred to the

underlying material by reactive ion etching (RIE). Three-dimensional structures can be obtained by
multiple exposure of the silicon mask.

The

fast

turnaround times of the direct writing process enable

the technique to be used for the rapid prototyping of large scale structures.

For deep structures and via holes,

Universitet,
a

Millenborn et al of the Mikroelektronik Centre, Danmarks Tekniske

Lyngby, Denmkar, deposited a 2

/urn thick polysilicon layer

10 fim thick oxide deposited by plasma-enhanced

/xm thick boron-doped amorphous

silicon layer

CVD

polysilicon layer

Laser direct writing

polysilicon or
chlorine.

was

by low-pressure

a silicon substrate.

was deposited by dc magnetron

polysilicon. For structures with a subitem resolution, a thin

CVD

on

(MOO nm)

CVD

onto

Alternatively, a 2

sputtering instead of

phosphorous-doped low-pressure

was deposited on 20 nm of thermal oxide.

1.5

(i.e.

amorphous

of 488

silicon layer.

nm

light

focused to an 8 /jm spot) was used to pattern the

Direct etching

was used, based on

local melting of silicon in

Solid silicon, oxides and nitrides are not etched, even at high temperatures.

translated at speeds of

up

to

100 mm/s during etching

to

The sample

produce continuous trenches

can

that

be interrupted by on-the-fly beam switching. There was no time for reflow or diffusion of materials
during the fast etching scan. The silicon layer could be locally removed in a single scan to expose the

underlying oxide that acts as an etch stop.

The

much

Alternatively a

oxide

CF4/CHF3 plasma

of the polysiclion or amorphous silicon mask and transferred by RIE (figure

3-D

structure can be etched directly into the silicon layer

in a single step.

RIE of bulk

by RIE using

transferred to the oxide layer

that

higher etch rates for oxides than for silicon. Stepped oxide structures are produced by

iterative patterning

the

was then

silicon pattern

provides

The

resulting oxide structure has been applied as a

silicon using a

and then transferred

.34).

to the

3-D eroding etch mask

for

SF6 /0 2 plasma.

High-Resolution Patterning Process

a)

b)Truly 3-D
structures

Stepped structures

/Poly-Si ora-Siv
Deposition

-Si0 2

-^

Laser
patterning

Reactive
ion etching

The process sequence for prototyping of large high-aspect3-D structures in bulk silicon. ^Iterative laser and reactive
ion etching, b) single-step pattern generation and transfer.
J.

ratio

Figure 11.34. High resolution patterning process.

SOURCE: 'Etch techniques achieves

No 10, p 60 (September 1996)

rapid prototyping' by

B Dance Semiconductor International

vol 19,

Chapter 12
Electronics

Acronyms and Abbreviations

Because of very lengthy descriptive technical words necessary

(Trapped plasma avalanche

transit

electronics language. Arising from the preparation of this

the following

list

covering a wide

in

modern

field

N.B. In cases where the same acronym

book and from

become

diode

part of today's

a perusal of current technical literature,

has been prepared in the hope that

is

TRAPPAT

electronics, e.g.

time diode), acronyms and abbreviations have

it

will

be useful for reference.

used for different interpretations, both are included.

a-d

Analogue

a-Si

Amorphous

ACIA

Asynchronous Communication Interface Adapter

ADA
ADC

Computer Language (named

ADS
ADP

Address Data Strobe

AGC

Automatic Gain Control

to Digital

Silicon

after

Ada Augusta)

Analogue-to-Digital Converter

Automatic Data Processing

AIM

Avalanche-Induced Migration

ALGOL
ALU

ALG-Orithmic, Computer Language

AM

Amplitude Modulation

ANSI
AOI
AOI

American National Standards

APL

AQL
ASCH

Acceptance Quality Level

ASIC

Application Specific Integrated Circuits

ASPR

Automatic

ASTM
ASQC

American Society

Arithmetic/Logic Unit

AND/OR

Institute

Invert

Automated Optical Inspection

Programming Language developed by Iverson

American Standard Code

for Information

Satellite Position

Exchange

Reporting System

for Testing

and Materials

American Society of Quality Control

ATAB
ATC
ATE

Address Translation Cache

ATM

Asymchronous Transfer Mode

Area-Array Tape Automated Bonding

Automatic Test Equipment

ATS

Automatic Test System

AVC
AWACS

Automatic Volume Control

BARRITT

Barrier controlled Injection and Transit

Airborne Warning and Control System

Time

(diode)

259

260

Electronics

Acronyms and Abbreviations

BASIC

Beginners All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code

BBD
BCD
BCD
BGA

Bucket-Brigade Device

BIFET
BITE
BIT
BIOS
BJT

Bipolar Field Effect Transistor

BORAM

Block-Oriented Random-Access

b/s

Bits per

Binary-Coded Decimal

Bipolar-CMOS-DMOS
Ball Grid Array

Built-in Test

Equipment

Built-in-Test (Bit-unit of binary data)

Basic Input/Output System

Bipolar Junction Transistor

Memory

Second

BTAB

Bumped Tape Automated Bonding

BW

Band Width

BYTE

8 bits

CAAP
CAD
CAL

Coprocessor Architecture and Protocols

CAM
CAM

Content-Addressable

CATT
CAT
CB

Controlled Avalanche Transit Time (diode)

CCD

Charge-Coupled Device

CCIR
CCITT

Computer-Aided Design
Computer-Assisted Learning

Memory

Computer-Aided Manufacturing

Computer Aided Testing

Band

Citizens

(radio)

Int.

Radio Consultative Committee

Int.

Telegraph

&

Telephone Consultative Committee

CCTT
CCTV

Cold Cathode Trigger Tube

CD

Compact Disc

Closed Circuit Television

CDI

Collector Diffusion Isolation

CDMA

Code-Division Multiple Access

CEEFAX

Teletext

CERDIP
CFC

Ceramic Dual-In-Line Package

CGI
CIRC
CISC

Common Gateway

CML

Current-Mode Logic

C-MOS

Complementary-Metal-Oxide Semiconductor

CMRR
COBOL

Common-Mode

CPU

Central Processing Unit

CRO

Cathode Ray Oscilloscope

CROM

Control Read-Only

CRT
CRC

Cathode-Ray Tube

CVD

Chemical-Vapour Deposition

CVT

Constant- Voltage Transformer

d-a

Digital to

DAC
DAP

Digital-to-Analogue Converter

(BBC)

Chloro-Fluoro-Carbon
Interface

Cross-Interleaved Reed-Soloman

Complex

Common

Code

(for

CDs)

Instruction Set

Rejection Ratio

Business Oriented Language

Memory

Cyclic Redundancy Check

Analogue

Distributed Array Processor

Electronics

DART
DAS
DAT

Dual Asynchronous Receiver/Transmitter

DBS

Direct Broadcasting Satellite

DCE
DCE

Data Circuit Termination Equipment

Acronyms and Abbreviations

Data-Acquisition System
Digital

Audio Tape

Data Communications Equipment

DCS

Digital Cellular Service

DDD

Direct Distance Dialling

DECT

Digital

DFA

Digital Fault Analysis

DI

Dielectric Isolation

European Cordless Communications

DIP

Dual-In-line Package

DIL

Dual In Line

DMA
DMAC

Direct-Memory-Access Control

Direct

Memory Access

DMM

Digital Multimeter

D-MOS

Double-diffused Metal-Oxide Semiconductor

DMS

Dynamic Mapping System

DMUX

Demultiplexer

DOS
DPDT

Double Pole Double Throw (switch)

Disc Operating System

DPM

Digital Panel

DPSK
DSSC
DSP
DSTC
DTE
DTL

Differential Phase Shift

DRAM

Dynamic Random Access Memory

DVB
DVD
DVD

Digital

Video Broadcasting

Digital

Video Disc

DVM

Digital Voltmeter

DX

Duplex

EAROM

Electrically Alterable

EBCDIC
EBL
ECL

Extended Binary-Coded-Decimal Interchange Code

ECM

Electronic Counter Measures

EDP

Electronic Data Processing (or Processor)

EFL

Emitter-Follower Logic

EIA

Electronic Industries Association

EMI

Electromagnetic Interference

EMC

Electromagnetic Capability

EOC

End Of Conversion

ES

Electrical Overstress

EPROM
ERDA

Erasable Programmable Read-Only

ESREF

European Symposium on Reliability of Electronic Devices, Failure Physics and

Meter

Keying

Double-Sideband Suppressed Carrier

Digital Signal Processing

Double-Sideband Transmitted Carrier

Data Terminal Equipment
Diode-Transistor Logic

Digital Versatile Disc

Electron

Beam

Read-Only Memory

Lithography

Emitter-Coupled Logic

Memory

Elastic Recoil Detection Analysis

Analysis

EROM

Erasable Read-Only

ESA

European Space Agency

Memory

261

262

ESD

Electronics

Acronyms and Abbreviations

Electrostatic Discharge

ESS

Electronic Switching System

EST
ETC

Echo Suppressor Terminal

ETSI

European Telecommunications Standards

EXTND

Extended Data Transfer

FAMOS

Floating-gate Avalanche-rejection

FAX
FCC

Facsimile

FCFS
FDDI

First

FDM
FDMA

Frequency-Division Multiplex

FET
FFT

Field-Effect Transistor

FIFO

First In, First

FIT

Failure Rate, one in 10

FORTRAN
PGA

Formula Translator (programming language)

Field

Programmable Gate Array

FPLA

Field

Programmable Logic Array

FPMOM
FMEA

Field

Programmable Multi-Chip Module

FTP

File Transfer Protocol

FM

Frequency Modulation

F-PROM
FSK

Field

European Telecommunications Standards

First

MOS

Commission

Federal Communications

Come

Institute

Served

Fibre-Distributed Data Interface

Frequency-Division Multiple Access

Fast Fourier Transform

Failure

Mode

Out
9

hours

Effects Analysis

Programmable Read-Only Memory

Frequency Shift Keying

FTMIS

Floating Gate Tunnel Metal-Insulator Semiconductor

FX

Foreign Exchange

GaAs
GaAlAs
GDI

Gallium Arsenide

GDS

Graphic Data System

GIF

Graphic Image File

GIGO

Garbage

GSM

Global System for Mobile Communications

GUI

Graphic User Interface

HAST
HALT

Highly Accelerated Stress Testing

HCMOS
HDL
HEMT

Scaled High Speed

HF

High Frequency

HIC
HiNIL

Hybrid Integrated Circuit

HITFET

Highly Integrated Temperature Protected

HLL
H-MOS

High Level Logic

HTML

Hyper-Text Markup Language

HTL

High-Threshold Logic

Gallium Aluminium Arsenide

Graphics Device Interface

In,

Garbage Out

Highly Accelerated Life Testing

MOS

Hardware Description Language

High-Electron Mobility Transistor

High-Noise Immunity Logic

High-MOS

FET

Electronics

Assigned Numbers Authority

IANA
IARU

Internet

IBE

Ion

IC

Integrated Circuit

ICE

In-Circuit Emulator

International

Beam

Amateur Radio Union

Etching

IDS

Input-Data Strobe

IEC

Infused Emitter Coupling

IEC

International Electrotechnical

IEEE

Institute

IGFET
2
I

Acronyms and Abbreviations

Commission

of Electrical and Electronics Engineers

Insulated Gate Field Effect Transistor

Integrated Injection Logic

ILB

Inner Lead Bonding

IMPATT

Impact Avalanche Transit Time (diode)

InP

Indium Phosphide

I/O

Input/Output

IP

Internet Protocol

IR

Infra

ISDN

Integrated Services Digital

ISO

International Standards Organisation

ITU

International

JEDEC

Joint Electron Device Engineering Council

J-FET

Junction Field-Effect Transistor

JTI

Junction Isolation

KBIT

Kilobit

LAPUT
LAN

Light- Activated

LARAM

Line Addressable

LASCR
LASER
LCA
LCC
LCCC
LCD
LED
LEED

Light-Activated Silicon Controlled Rectifier

Red
Network

Telecommunications Union

Programmable Unijunction Transistor

Local Area Network

Random Access Memory

Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation

Life Cycle Analysis

Leadless Chip Carrier

Leadless Ceramic Chip Carrier
Liquid-Crystal Display

Light-Emitting Diode

Low

Energy Electron Diffraction

LIC

Linear Integrated Circuit

LIFO

Last

In, First

LF

Low

Freqency

Out

LLCC

Leadless Chip Carrier

LNA
LOCMOS
LORAN
LPCVD

Low-Noise Amplifier

LPTTL

Low-power

LRU

Least Recently Used

LSB

Least Significant Bit

LSI

Large-Scale Integration

MAC

Multiply- Accumulate

Locally Oxidised

C-MOS

Long Range Air Navigation

Low

Pressure Chemical Vapour Deposition

Transistor-Transistor Logic

263

264

Electronics

Acronyms and Abbreviations

MASER

Microwave Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation

MBE

Molecular

MCM

Multi-Chip Module

MCM-C
MCM-D
MCM-L

Multi-Chip Module

Dielectric

Multi-Chip Module

Dielectric

MCT
MDS

Mobile Communications Terminal

Microprocessor-Development System

MESFET

Metalised Semiconductor Field-Effect Transistor

MF

Medium Frequency

MFLOPS

Millions of Floating-Point Instructions Per Second

MHL
MIMD

Multiple Instruction Multiple Data

MIME

Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions

MIPS
MIS

Millions of Instructions Per Second

MISD

Multiple Instruction Single Data

MLA
MLB
MLE

Microprocessor Language Assembler

MLS
MMIC

Microwave Landing Scheme

MMU

Memory Management

MNCS
MNOS

Multipoint Network Control System

MODEM

Modulator/Demodulator

MODHIC
MOS
MOSFET
MOST

Modular Hybrid Integrated Circuit

H?

Microprocessor

MPEG
MPU
MSB

Moving

MSI

Medium-Scale Integration

MSIN

Multi-Stage Interconnection Network

MST
MTBF

Multiservice Terminal

MTD

Mass Tape

MTTF
MTTR

Mean Time To Failure

Mean Time To Repair

MUSA

Multiple Unit Steerable Antenna

MUX

Multiplexer

Beam

Epitaxy

Ceramic
Organic
Laminate
Module
Multi-Chip

Microprocessor Host Loader

Metal Insulator Silicon

Multilayer Board

Microprocessor Language Editor

Monolithic Microwave Intergrated Circuit

Unit

Metal-Nitride-Oxide Semiconductor

Metal-Oxide Semiconductor

Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor Field-Effect Transistor

Metal Oxide Semiconductor Transistor

Pictures Expert

Group

Microprocessor Unit

Most

Significant Bit

Mean Time Between

Failures

Duplicator/verifier

AND

NAND

Inverted

NASA

National Aeronautics

NDRO

Nondestructive Readout

NF
n-MOS

n-Channel Metal-Oxide Semiconductor

gate

&

Space Administration

Noise Figure

OR

NOR
NRZ

Inverted

Non-Return

to

Zero

NRZI

Non-Return

to

Zero Inverted

NTSC

National Television System Committee

gate

Electronics

OAM

Operation

OBL
OCR
ODS

One Block Lookahead

OEM

Original-Equipment Manufacturer

OLB
OPAL
OP/AMP
ORACLE
OTA

Outer Lead Bonding

And Maintenance

Optical Character Recognition

Output Data Strobe

(in

TAB)

Operational Performance-Analysis Language

Operational Amplifier
Teletext

Operational Transconductance Amplifier

PABX
PACE

Plasma Assisted Chemical Etching

PAL

Phase Alternation Line (TV)

PAM

Pulse-Amplitude Modulation

PAR
PASCAL
PAR
PBX
PC
PC

PCA
PCB
PCC
PCMCIA

Exchange

Private Automatic Branch

Precision Approach Radar

Computer Language
Programme-Aid Routine
Private Branch

Exchange

Personal Computer
Printed Circuit
Principal

Components Analysis

Printed-Circuit Board
Plastic

Chip Carrier

Personal Computer

Memory Card

PCM

Pulse

PCN
PDP
PGA

Personal Communication Network

Code Modulation

Plasma Display Panel

Pin Grid Array (Package)

PIA

Peripheral Interface Adapter

PIND

Particle

PLA
PLC

Programmable Logic Array

PLL

Phase-Locked Loop

PM
PMG

Phase Modulation

p-MOS

p-channel Metal-Oxide Semiconductor

PPI

Plan-Position Indicator

PPI

Programmable Peripheral

PPM

Parts Per Million

Impact Noise Detection

Programmable Logic Controller

Permanent-Magnet Generator

Interface

PQFP

Plastic

PRACL

Page-Replacement Algorithm and Control Logic

Quad

Flat

Package

(BBC)

PRESTEL

Teletext

PROM

Programmable Read-Only Memory

PSPDN
PSTN

Packet-Switched Public Data Network

PTFE
PTH

Polytetrafluoroethylene (plastic)

PUT

Programmable Unijunction Transistor

QA

Quality Assurance

QAM

Quadrature Amplitude Modulation

QC

Quality Control

Public-Switched Telephone Network

Plated-Through Holes

Acronyms and Abbreviations

265

Acronyms and Abbreviations

266

Electronics

QFP

Quad

QMB

Quick Make and Break (switch)

RACE

Flat

Pack

Research and Technology Development

in

RADAR

Radio Detection And Ranging

RDF
RAS
RALU

Radio Direction Finding

Row

Advanced Communication Technologies

Address Select

Register and Arithmetic/Logic Unit

RAM

Random-Access Memory

RDP

Reliable Data Protocol

RFI

Radio-Frequency Interference

RIGRET
RIM

Resistive-Insulated Gate

RISC

Reduced

RMM

Mode
Read-Only Memory

ROM

in

Europe

Read-In

FET

Mode
Instruction Set

Computer

Read-Mostly

RTB
RTC
RTL
R/W

Read/Write

SAM

Scanning Auger Microscopy

SAR

Synthetic Aperture Radar

SAW

Surface Acoustic

SBS
SC

Silicon Bilateral Switch

SCA
SCAT
SCR
SDH
SDLC

Sub-Channel Adaptor

Silicon Controlled Rectifier

SDMA

Space-Division Multiple Access

SECAM
SEM

Scanning Electron Microscope

S/H

Sample and Hold

Si

Silicon

SIL

Single In Line

SIMD

Single Instruction Multiple Data

SIO
Si02 2

Serial Input/Output

SIP

Single In-line Package

SISD

Single Instruction Single Data

SMA
SMD
SMART

Surface

Mount Assembly

Surface

Mount Device

SMPS

Switched

SMT
SMTP

Surface

SOIC

Small Outline Integrated Circuit Package

SOS

Silicon-On-Sapphire

SPICE
SSB

Single Sideband Broadcasting

Reverse Translation Buffer

Realtime Clock
Resistor-Transistor Logic

Wave

Semiconductor
Scanning Acoustic Tomography

Synchronous Digital Hierarchy

Synchronous Data-Link Control

Sequential Couleur a

Memoire (TV System)

Silicon dioxide

Stress Marginality and Accelerated Reliability

Mode Power Supply

Mount Technology

Simple Message Transfer Protocol

Simulated Programme with Intregrated Circuit Emphasis

Electronics

SSI

Small Scale Integration

SSIN

Single Stage Interconnection Network

SSSC
SSTC
SUS

Single-Sideband Suppressed Carrier

Sx

Simplex

Single Sideband Transmitted Carrier

Silicon Unilateral Switch

TAB

Tape Automated Bonding

TBMT
TDD
TDM
TDMA
TEM

Transmitter Buffer

TFT

Thin Film Transistor

Empty

Time Division Duplex

Time-Division Multiplexing
Time-Division Multiple Access
Transmission Electron Microscope

TLB

Translation Lookaside Buffer

TMR

Triple

TOS
TRAPATT
TTL
T2 l
TTTN
TTY

Top Of Stack

Modular Redundancy

Trapped Plasma Avalanche Transit Time (diode)

Transistor-Transistor Logic

Transistor-Transistor Logic

Tandem

Tie Trunk Network

Teletypewriter

TWT

Travelling- Wave

UART

Universal Asynchronous Receiver/Transmitter

Tube

UJT

Unijunction Transistor

ULA

Uncommitted Logic Array

ULSI

Ultra Large Scale Integration

UMTS
UNCOL

Universal Computer-Orientated Language

Universal Mobile Telecommunication System

UNI

User-Network

URCLK
USART

Universal Receiver Clock

Interface

Universal Synchronous/Asynchronous Receiver/Transmitter

USRT

Universal Synchronous Receiver/Transmitter

UTCLK

Universal Transmitter Clock

UTP

Ultra-Thin Package

UUT

Unit Under Test

VCO
VCT
VDU
VHF

Voltage-Controlled Oscillator
Voltage-to-Current Transactor
Visual Display Unit

Very High Frequency

VHSIC

Very High Speed Integrated Circuit

VIL

Vertical Injection Logic

VLF

Very

VLSI

Very Large-Scale Integration

VMA

Valid

VMM

Acronyms and Abbreviations

Low

Frequency

Memory Address

Virtual

Machine Moniter

MOS

V-MOS
VSOP

VSP

Video Signal Processing

VTR

Video-Tape Recorder

groove

Very Small Outline Package

267

268

Electronics

Acronyms and Abbreviations

WARC

World Advisory Radio Conference

WATS
WIMPS

Wide-Area Telephone Service

WORM

Write

Windows,

Icons,

Once

Menus and Pulldowns

Read Many Times

WS

Working Set

WWW

World Wide

XOR

Exclusive-OR gate

YIG

Yetrium-Iron-Garnet (magnetic properties)

Web

Chapter 13
List of

selection of books

Books on Inventions

on the history of electronics and general history of technology and science

is

given for

interest.

13.1

History of Inventions

'A History of Invention' (London:

Dent

&

'Dictionary of Inventions and Discoveries' by

Sons and

E F

New

York:

Roy

Publishers) (1971)

Carter (London: Fdk Muller) (1966)

'Discoveries and Inventions of the 20th Century' by

Crowther (London: Routledge

&

Regan Paul Ltd)

(1966)
'Inventions and Discoveries' by Valerie-Anne Giscard d'Estaing

'Science

&

Technology

in History'

'The Sources of Invention' by

by Ian Inkster, Distribution Ltd,

Jawkes,

'The History of Invention' by Trevor

'The Progress of Invention

York: Facts-on-File) (1993)

UK

Sawers and R Stillerman (London: MacMillan) (1958)

Williams

(New

York: Facts-on-File) (1987)

Nineteenth Century' by

in the

(New

Bryn (New York: Munn) (1920)

'The Economics of Invention and Innovation' by F S Johnson (Martin Robinson) (1975)

13.2

History of Technology

'An Encyclopaedia of the History of Technology' edited by Ian McNeil (London: Routledge) (1989)
'Children of Prometheus: a History of Science and Technology' by James MacLachlan, Collegiate edn (Toronto,
Ontario: Wall

&

Emerson) (1989)

'Encyclopaedia of Modern Technology' (London: Hutchinson) (1987)

'Fontana History of Technology' by Donald Cardwell (Harper-Collins)
'History of Technology' by

'Technological

Change

G M

Short (Hollizter Publishing Ltd)

Methods and Themes

in the

History of Technology' edited by Robert Fox (Amsterdam:

Harwood Academic) (1996)

'Timetable of Technology' Michael Joseph (London) (1983)

269

270

of Books on Inventions

List

History of Science

13.3

'A Biographical Dictionary of Scientists' by

Williams (Bath: Pitman Press) (1976)

'A Short History of Science to the Nineteenth Century' by

'A History of Science' by

W Waltham (Cambridge:

'British Scientists of the 19th Century'

by

'Masters of Science and Invention' by F

'Men of Science

in

Singer (Clarendon Press) (1941)

Cambridge University

Crowther (London: MacMillan)

L Darrow (New

York: Harcourt Brace) (1923)

America' by Jaffe Bernard (New York: Simon

'Science Since 1500' by

H T

Pledge

Press) (1929)

(HMSO)

&

Schuster) (1944)

(1946)

History of Telegraphy

13.4

'From Machine Shop

1830-1920' by Paul

to Industrial Laboratory

Israel (Baltimore:

Telegraphy and the Changing Context of American Invention,

Johns Hopkins University Press) (1992)

'History of Wireless Telegraphy' by J J Fahie (Edinburgh

&

London:

Wm

'History of Electric Telegraphy to the Year 1837' by J J Fahie (London:

'The Telegraph
(Jefferson,

a History of Morse's Invention and

its

Blackwood) (1899)

Skoon) (1884)

Predecessors in the United States' by Lewis

Coe

NC: McFarland) (1993)

History of Telephony

13.5

'100 Years of Telephone Switching (1878-1978)' Pt

Robert

Manual Electromechanical Switching (1878-1960s) by

1:

Chapuis (Amsterdam: North-Holland Publishing) (1982)

L Rhodes (New

'The Beginning of Telephony' by F

'The Telephone and

'Who Invented

its

York: Harper) (1929)

Several Inventors: a History' by Lewis

the Telephone?'

by

W Aitken

Coe

(Jefferson,

NC: McFarland) (1995)

(London: Blackie) (1939)

History of Electricity and Electronics

13.6

'A History of the World Semiconductory Industry' by P

Morris (Peter Peregrinus) (1990)

'Bibliographical History of Electricity and Magnetism' by Motteley (London: Griffin) (1922)

'Bibliography of the History of Electronics' by

'Early Electrodynamics' by
'Fifty

R A R

Years of Electricity' by

'Electronics

Shiers (Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press)

Tricker (Oxford: Pergamon Press) (1965)

Fleming (Wireless Press) (1921)

a Bibliographical Guide' by

'Electronic Inventions and Discoveries' by

'My

C K Moore

WA

and

Dummer

Spencer (London: MacDonald) (1965)

(Bristol:

Institute of

Physics Publishing) (1997)

Life with the Printed Circuit' by Paul Eisler (Cranbury, NJ: Associated University Press) (1989)

'The Conquest of the Microchip' by

Queisser (Harvard University Press) (1985)

'The History of Science and Technology' by

Rider (London: Library Association of London) (1967)

History of Radio and Communications

271

History of Radio and Communications

13.7

'A History of Broadcasting

in the

United States' by

'A History of the Marconi Company' by

'Behind the Tube

E Barnouw (Oxford: Oxford

Baker (London: Methner

&

Co) (1970)

Andrew F

History of Broadcasting Technology and Business' by

University Press) (1968)

Focal

Inglis (Boston:

Press) (1990)

'Broadcasting Technology

and Radio Engineers Vol

'Communications Miracle

Major Landmarks' by

the

56, p

P Leggatt The Journal of the

Telecommunications Pioneers from Morse

Institution

of Electronic

303-310 (1986)
to the

Information Superhighway' by

John Bray (New York: Plenum) (1995)

'History of International Broadcasting' by

Museum)
'Invention

&

Innovation in the Radio Industry' by

'Pioneers of Wireless' by

in association with the

Science

in the

MacLaurin (New York: MacMillan) (1949)

R Appleyard

E Hawks (London: Methuen

'The History of Broadcasting

to

(London: Peregrinus

1994)

'Pioneers of Electrical Communications' by

Wood

James

&

(London: MacMillan) (1930)

Co) (1927)

United Kingdom' by Asa Briggs (London: Oxford University Press) Vols.

6 (1961 to 1995)

The

13.8

Beginning of

Communications' by

Satellite

Pierce (San Francisco: San Francisco Press) (1968)

History of Radar

'Beginnings of Radar' by S S Swords (London: Peregrinus) (1986)

'One Story of Radar' by

'Radar Days' by

P Rowe (Cambridge: Cambridge University

E G Bowen

R A

'Three Steps to Victory' by

13.9

Adam

Hilger) (1987)

Watson- Watt (London: Odhams Press Limited) (1957)

History of Television

'Digital Television'

'Birth of the

13.10

(Bristol:

Press) (1948)

by

C P Sandbank

(John Wiley

Box: the Story of Television' by Ian

&
R

Sons) (1990)
Sinclair (Wilmslow:

Sigma

Press) (1995)

History of computers

'A History of Computing Technology' by Michael

'Computers and Computing:

W Greenia (Sacramento:

R Williams (Englewood

Chronology of the People and Machines

that

Cliffs:

Prentice-Hall) (1985)

Made Computer

History' by

Mark

(New

York:

Lexikon Services Publications) (1992)

'Computer: a History of the Information Machine' by Martin Campbell-Kelly and William Aspray
Basic Books) (1996)

'Computer Pioneers' by Laura Greene (New York: Watts) (1985)

'Engines of the Mind: a History of the Computer' by Joel Shurkin, 1st ed.
'Japan's

Computer

and

Communications

Industry:

the

Evolution

(New
of

York: Norton) (1984)

Industrial

Competitiveness' by Martin Fransman (Oxford: Oxford University Press) (1995)

Giants

and

Global

272

List

'Landmarks

in

of Books on Inventions

Computing' by Peggy

Digital

Kidwell and Paul

Ceruzzi (Washington:

Smithsonian

Institution Press) (1994)

'The Computer

(Cambridge,

Comes

MA: MIT

of Age: the People, Hardware, and the Software' by

R Moreau,

translated by

Howlett

Press) (1984)

'The Making of the Micro: a History of the Computer' by Christopher Evans, foreword by

Tom

Stonier (London:

Gollancz) (1981)

'The Computer from Pascal to von Neuman' by

H H

'The Early History of Data Networks' by Gerard

Computer Society

Goldstine (Princeton University Press) (1972)

Holzmann and Bjorn Pehrson (Los Alamitos, CA: IEEE

Press) (1995)

'Transforming Computer Technology:

Information Processing for the Pentagon,

Norberg and Judy E O'Neill; with contributions by Kerry

1962-1986' by Arthur L

Freedman (Baltimore, OH: Johns Hopkins University

Press) (1986)

'Understanding Computers

Illustrated

Chronology and Index' (Alexandria, VA: Time-Life Books)

Chapter 14
List of

selection of books

Books on Inventors

on inventors primarily

in the field of electronics is

given for

interest.

AMPERE
'Andre-Marie Ampere and his English Acquaintances' by

and

D L

Gardiner British Journal for the History

of Science Vol 2 (July 1965) p 235

'Andre-Marie Ampere' by James

R Holmann

(Oxford: Blackwell) (1995)

BA1RD
'Baird of Television

'John Baird:

the

the Life Story of John Logie Baird' by

Romance and Tragedy of

R F

Tiltman (London: Selley Service) (1933)

the Pioneer of Television'

by Sydney Moseley (London: Odhams

Press) (1952)

BELL
'Alexander

Graham

Bell:

the

Man who

Contracted Space' by Catherine

Mackenzie (Houghton

Mifflin)

1928)
'Bell,

Alexander Graham Bell and the Conquest of Solitude' by

'Genius

at

Work: Images of Alexander Graham

Bell'

R V

Bruce (Victor Gollanz) (1973)

by Dorothy Harley, Eber.

(New

York:

Viking Press)

(1982)

BERLINER
'Grevile Berliner,

Maker of

the

Microphone' by F

Wile (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill) (1926)

BRAUN
'Ferdinand Braun

(Heinz

Moos

Leben und Wirken oes Erfinders der Brauchen Roehre, Nobel-Preistraeger' by F Kurylo

Verlag) (1965)

CROOKES
'The Life of Sir Williams Crookes' by

E E Fourner D'Albe (London:

Fisher

Unwin London) (1923)

EDISON
'My Friend Edison' by H Ford
'Edison' by

(Ernest

Benn Limited)

Josephson (New York: McCraw-Hill) (1959)

'Edison: Inventing the Century' by Neil Baldwin

(New

York: Hyperion) (1995)

273

274

List

of Books on Inventors

FAHIE
Work of John Joseph

'The Life and

Fahie' by

S Whitehead (Liverpool: University Press of Liverpool) (1939)

FARADAY
'Faraday' by

R & R

'Michael Faraday
'Faraday,

Maxwell

Clark

his Life

&

Allied Mnfrs. Assoc.) (1931)

and Work' by S P Thompson (Cassel) (1901)

Kelvin' by

'Michael Faraday and the

&

Elec

(Brit.

MacDonald (New York: Doubleday) (1964)

Modern World' by Brian Bowers

EPA) (1991)

(Saffron Walden:

FESSENDEN
'Fessenden

Builder of Tomorrow' by H M Fessenden (Coward-McCann) (1940)

FITZGERALD
'The Scientific Writings of the

late

George Francis Fitzgerald' edited by

Lamor

(Dublin: Dublin University

Press) (1902)

FLEMING
'Memories of a

Scientific Life'

by Alexander Fleming (Marshal)

HEAVISIDE
'Oliver Heaviside' by

Lee (London: Longmans Green) (1947)

'Oliver Heaviside: a Biography' by

Josephs (1963)

HENRY
'Joseph Henry

His

Life and Work' by

Coulson (Princeton University Press) (1950)

HERTZ
'Gesammelte Werke' by P E
translations (London:

Lenard Ambrosius Borth (Leipzig) (1895) (Papers

in three

volumes) English

MacMillan)

'The Creation of Scientific Effects: Heinrich Hertz and Electric Waves' by Jed

Z Buchwald

(Chicago: University

of Chicago Press) (1994)

LODGE

Past Years, an Autobiography' by Scribner (New York) (1932)

'Oliver

Lodge

'Oliver

Lodge and

the Liverpool Physical Society'

by Peter Rowlands (Liverpool: Published

of History, University of Liverpool by Liverpool University Press) (1990)

iv.

310p.

for the
ill,

(Liverpool historical studies; No. 4)

MARCONI
'Marconi, the

Man

and

his Wireless'

'Marconi, Master of Space' by

B L

by

Jacot

E Dumlap (MacMillan) (1937)

&DM

Collier (Hutchinson) (1935)

'Guglielmo Marconi, 1874-1937" by Keith Geddes (London:

'My

Father, Marconi' by

P Marconi (New York: McGraw

'Marconi, Pioneer of Radio' by

D Coe

(Julian

HMSO)

(1974)

Hill) (1962)

Messner) (1935)

MAXWELL
'The Life of James Clark Maxwell' by

'James Clark Maxwell

L Campbell

&W

Garnett (London: MacMillan) (1882)

FRS 1831-1879' by R L Smith-Rose (London: Longmans Green)

(1948)

Department

ports;

21cm

of Books on Inventors

List

'James Clark Maxwell

275

Biography' by Ivan Tolstoy (Edinburgh: Canongate) (1981)

MORSE
'The Life of Samuel F
York:

B Morse,
(New

Appleton) (1875),

Inventor of the Electro-Magnetic Recording Telegraph' by S

Prime (New

York: Arno Press) (1974)

REIS
'Philipp Reis'

Deutche Bundespost Archiv. fur Deutche Postgeschicht No.

(1963)

RONTGEN
'Wilhelm Conrad Rontgen and the Early History of the Rontgen Rays' by

C Thomas)

Glasser (Springfield, IL: Charles

(1934)

'Rontgen Rays Centennial: Exhibition on the Occasion of the Discovery of X-rays

in

Wurtzburg on 8 November

1895 (Wurtzburg University) (1995)

RUTHERFORD
'Rutherford

Being

the Life and Letters of the Right

Cambridge University
'Lord Rutherford' by

Honourable Lord Rutherford' by

S Eve (Cambridge:

Press) (1939)

Norman

Feather; foreword by Sir Harrie

Massey (New ed) (London: Priory Press) (1973)

TESLA
'The Inventions, Researches and Writings of Nikola Tesla' by

TC

Martin

(New

York: The Electrical Engineer)

(1894)

THOMSON J J
'The Life of Sir

Thomson

O M

Sometime Master of

Trinity College,

Cambridge' by Lord Rayleigh

(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press) (1942)

'J

Thomson and

'Joseph John

the Cavendish Laboratory of His Day' by

Thomson

P Thomson (London: Nelson) (1964)

an Unfinished Social and Intellectual Biography' by Paul Georg Spitzer (Ann Arbor,

MI: University Microfilms International) (1995)

THOMSON W
'The Life of William Thomson' by S P

Thompson (London: MacMillan) (1910)

VARIOUS
'Ten Founding Fathers of the Electrical Science' by B Dibner (Norwalk, CT: Bundy Library Publications) (1954)
(GILBERT GEURICKE, FRANKLIN, VOLTA, AMPERE, OHM, GAUSS, FARADAY, HENRY and MAXWELL)

Index

AA

gun

Atomic

radar, 142

theory, 76, 106, 108

ACE, computer, 156

Atomic transmutation, 113

Accumulator, 75

Atoms, trans-uranium, 135

Acoustic mine, 109

ATS-1

satellite,

Acronyms, 259

Audio

history, 18,

APL, 167

Automatic assembly systems, 172

Aerials

Automatic control of crystal growth, 224

206
22

Automobile electronics, 52

diversity, 128

ground wave prop.,

Autoradiography, 245

13

Hertz, 95

AVC

ionospheric prop., 100

Avionics, 27

125

circuit,

Maxwell, 87
radio

wave

Babbage, 76, 80

95

prop.,

Banking electronics, 56

Yagi, 126
Aerial matching unit,
Aerial

satellite,

Bar codes, 228

214

BARRITT

192

diode, 211

Batteries

Alexanderson

alternator, 112

Clark

237

All-electric clock face,

cell.

fuel cell,

Amateurs

89

82

(short wave), 118

nickel-cadmium, 100

Amorphous

liquid crystals,

240
nickel-iron, 100

Amorphous semiconductor

switch, 209

Leclanche, 88

Amorphous

silicon solar cell,

232
magnetohydrodynamic, 82

Amplifier, high quality, 156

zinc-mercury-oxide, 93
Angels, 36
Plants,

Anisotropic magnet, 223

Arc lamp (mercury), 87

solar,

Army

radars,

34

Arrays, photodiodes, 204

49

ASDIC, 109

Weston standard

Beam

cell,

recorder, 231

Betatron, 148

automatic, 172

Biological

58

memory

Biosatellite-1,

micromodules, 182
printed circuits, 154

chip,

Boolean algebra, 85
Bubble-jet printing, 253

Bubbles (magnetic), 214

Sargrove, 158

Bubbles (memory), 238

Tinkertoy, 168
(radio),

Bucket-brigade delay

134

Atomic beam lithography, 254

Bumped

276

Cable

circuit,

216

tape automatic bonding,

Burst (radio), 129

Atomic change (spontaneous), 101

Atomic holography, 255

253

205

potted circuits, 155

Astronomy

97

leads, 201

Betamax video

Assembly systems

list,

175

Volta, 75

Artificial intelligence,

date

87

secondary, 87

246

Index

244

fibre optic,

squegger

76

insulation,

119

circuit,

tone control, 170

sheathing, 84

transitron oscillator, 126

velodyne, 147

transatlantic, 84, 88, 177

Circuits (potted), 155

Calculator (electronic), 196

Capacitors

Circuits (printed), 151

ceramic, 99

Clock

(electronic), 191

glass tubular, 102

Clock

face,

Ley den

237

Cloud chamber, 107

74

jar,

Cockroft-Walton accelerator, 132

mica, 89

Coherer, 96

89

rolled paper,

semiconductor diode, 177

Cold cathode discharge

solid electrolyte, 176

Cold cathode stepping tube, 163

Cold cathode

Camcorder, 247

Carbon composition

resistor,

94

tube,

trigger tube, 140

Collector diffusion isolation, 216

Carbon filament lamp, 92

COLOSSUS,

Carbon

Colour video recorder, 184

99

film resistor,

153

Carbon microphone, 90, 120

Compact

disc, 238, 241

Cardiograph, 131

Compact

disc video,

Carrier-domain magnetrometer, 220

Communications

Cathode

rays, 91

date

list,

249

61

Cathode ray oscillograph, 98

frequency modulation, 134

CATT, 227
CCD, A/D converter, 223
CCD, colour TV camera, 239

information theory, 161

packet switching, 199

Ceramic capacitors, 99

satellite,

CD-ROM,

shortwave,

247

Charge coupled devices, 218

86

microwave, 129

155
1

18

single sideband,

10

Chirp radar, 157

Components

Circuitry

Computer aided design, 185

history, 6, 16

auto volume control, 125

Computer aided manufacture, 48

bucket-brigade delay, 216

Computers

constant

RC

stand-off, 137

ACE, 156

Darlington pairs, 170

APL, 167

dynatron,

Babbage, 76, 80

13

echo cancelling, 140

Bell 'complex', 145

energy conserving scanning, 132

COLOSSUS,

flip-flop,

CDC

116

153

1604, 187

hard valve time base, 131

CRT

heterodyne and superheterodyne, 108

date

lists,

high quality amplifier, 156

diff.

analyser, 131

Kirchoff, 84

digital

long-tailad pair, 139

EDS AC,
EDVAC,

Miller time base,

multivibrator,

17

storage, 156

63

ASCC,
158

EN1AC, 152

14

mutator circuit network, 212

graphics,

negative feedback, 127

history, 44,

neutrodyne,

Hollerith,

14

PHANTASTRON,

150

regenerative, 107
rotator network,

SANATRON,'

145

160

208

150

64
47

96

Honeywell 800, 187

IBM
IBM
IBM

650, 165
701,

166

704, 709 and 7090. 171

saw-tooth time base, 121

information theory, 143

superregenerative, 119

Leibniz, 73

277

278

Index

Double-beam oscillograph, 144

Leprachaun, 178

microcomputer, 222

Dual-in-line pack (DIL), 202

microprogramming, 168

Dry

minicomputer, 192

Dry etching technique, 225

one board, 232

DSCS-1

Pascal, 73

DVD

RAM
RAM
RAM
RAM

1024

bit,

224

4090

bit,

230

16 384

256

SAGE,

bit,

bit,

73

battery,

Dynatron,

Echo-1

circuit,

satellite,

ECME,

171

254

13

Echo cancelling

232

242

221

satellite,

(digital versatile disc),

240

188

158

Scheutz, 86

Educational electronics, 55

SEAC, 159

Electron-beam projection system, 256

theory, 45, 154

Electron

46

types,

beam

lithography, 227

Electrocardiograph, 95

UNI VAC, 159

UNI VAC 80/90,
UNIX, 217

Electrostatics,

Electron microscope, 126

188

making equipment, 158

Electronic circuit

Whirlwind, 155

Electronic clock, 191

Conductor, sodium, 102

Electronic digital watch, 220

Consumer

Electronic organ, 104

56

electronics,

Electronic typewriter, 205

Counter (Geiger), 105

Courier

satellite,

Copper oxide

rectifier,

Cracked carbon

Electronic watch, 194

189

Electromagnetic induction, 79

125

resistor,

Electromagnetism, 78

182

Electron, 98

Cryotron, 128, 175

Crystal control of frequency,

Electron miscroscope, 126

Crystal detector (carborundum), 103

Electrolysis, 81

Crystal detector (perikon), 104

Electrostatic loudspeaker, 122, 178

Crystal growth (automatic control),

224

Epitaxial crystal growth, 189

Crystals (liquid), 135

Epitaxy (liquid phase), 190

Crystal microphone, 116

Epitaxy (vapour phase), 189

Crystal pulling technique, 112

Explorer

satellite,

181

Cybernetics, 146

Facsimile reproduction, 84

Cyclotron, 128

FAMOS integrated
Digital audio broadcasting,

240

Darlington pair circuit, 170

Ferreed switch, 167

DECCA

Ferrites,

navigation system, 154

circuit,

230

Femitron, 186

105

Delay circuit (bucket-brigade), 216

Ferroelectricity, 118

Diaphragm microphone, 87

Fibre optic transatlantic cable, 249

Diffusion technique, 176

Digital optical disc,

247

Digital video recorder,

247

Digital voltmeter, 170

Diode

(tunnel), 181

Filter (electromagnetic),

110

Fission, nuclear, 144

Diode detector, 92
Diodes

Fibre optic superheterodyne, 243

Field effect transistor, 180

Fission track autoradiography, 245

FLAD, 234

history, 188

Flat-pack, 194

Dip soldering, 162

Flip-flop circuit,

Direct laser writing, 258

Floppy disc recorder, 219

Discette

(VHD), 250

Discoverer

satellite,

16

Floppy discs, 164, 219

185

FLOTOX,

241

Diversity reception, 128

Flow soldering

Dolby noise reduction system, 207

Fluorescent lamp. 101

(printed circuits), 176

Index

Fourier analysis, 78

CDI, 216

Frequency modulation, 134

chip carrier, 221

Frequency standard (atomic), 135

concept, 169

Frequency standards (caesium beam), 146

C-MOS, 210

Frequency standards (quartz), 128

Fuel

cell,

DIL

packs, 201

epitaxial crystal growth, 189

82

FAM0X, 220
Galvanic action, 75

Galvanometer

flat-pack, 194

79

(astatic),

Galvanometer (moving

207

flip-chips,

coil),

79

history, 6, 17

'GEE' navigation, 33, 143

H-MOS, 235

Geiger counter, 105

integrated optical circuits, 239

Gemini

linear circuits, 188

satellite,

199

Glass capacitor (tubular), 102

Glass

laser,

liquid phase epitaxy, 190

LOCMOS,

253

Global positioning system, 163

Glow

MOS,

discharge, 87

Goniometer, 104

oxide masking process, 180

oscillator,

GYROTRON,

193

oxide defect study, 221

Gramophone, 94

Gunn diode

229

logic circuits, 189

195

planar process, 185

228

patent, 185
silicon anodisation,

H2S

navigation system, 149

229

silicon

growth (MCZ), 243

Hall effect, 92

silicon

on sapphire, 198

HAMMING

code, 165

submicrometre

lines,

247

superfast chips,

257

Hard disc

card,

Heating (induction), 112

thick film, 149

Heaviside/Kenelly layer, 100

thin film,

Heterodyne

versatile arrays,

108

circuit,

High definition TV, 42

High

field

239

86

233

V-MOS, 223

superconductivity, 130

Integrated injection logic,

224

History of components, 6

Integrated optoelectronics, 229, 239

Hologram matrix

Integrated Schottky logic, 235

radar,

219

Holography, 160

Housekeeper

seal,

Hydrogenated

communications, 252

Inter-satellite
1

16

Ion implantation, 163

silicon films,

245

Ion plating, 197

Hydroplane polishing semiconductors, 244

Inter-communication

Iconoscope, 120

Johnson noise, 124

Induction heating, 112

Josephson

(satellite),

193

effect,

Induction motor, 95
Industrial electronics, 51

Kirchoff's law, 84

Ignitron, 124

Klystron, 144

Image animation, 169

Infra-red radiation, 75

Lamp
Lamp
Lamp
Lamp

Inkjet printing, 195, 241

LANDSAT

Information technology (IT),

5,

226

Information theory, 161

Infra-red emission from

Intelsat

Internet,

satellite,

GaSb, 175

20

(carbon filament), 92
(fluorescent), 101

(mercury oxide), 87
(neon), 105

LASER,

212

Integrated circuits

satellite,

Large screen

TV

222

projector, 146

183

Laser annealed polysilicon, 235

aluminium

metallisation, 211

Laser cold processing, 238

beam

201

Lasercom, 251

lead,

252

279

280

Index

Laser deep proton-isolated, 225

Microfilming, 82

Laser enhanced plating, 240

Micromodule assembly system, 182

Laser, glass, 253

Microphone (carbon), 90, 120

Laser printer, 230

Microphone

Laser processing of semiconductors, 238

Microphone (condenser),

Laser recording system, 238

Microphone

Laser trimming of thick films, 207

Microphone (diaphragm), 87

Leclanche battery, 88

Microphone

LED

(light emitting diode),

Leyden

granule, 92

116

crystal,

Reisz, 87

Microprocessor, 222

188

94

jar capacitor,

carbon

Microprocessor (single chip), 227

Light bubbles, 236

Microscope (acoustic), 225

Lightwave powered telephone, 236

Microscope

Liquid crystals, 135

Microscope (scanning electron), 136

Liquid crystal display, 240

Microscope (transmission), 133

(electron), 133

Liquid crystal study of oxide defects, 221

Microwave communication, 129

LOCMOS

Microwire, 162

229

integrated circuit,

226

Logic-state analyser,

Minicomputer, 192

Logic-timing analyser, 226

MODEM,

Long-tailed pair circuit, 139

Molecular beam epitaxy, 159

LOR AN,

Morse-code, 81

151

Loudspeaker

(electrostatic),

Loudspeaker (moving

Lunar orbiter

LUNIK

coil),

Mossbauer

22

Motor

91

206

satellite,

satellite,

Motor

233

Magnetic avalanche

transistor,

Magnet

233

242

(induction), 95. 101

Magnetic bubbles, 214

plastic,

coil loudspeaker, 91

MS/DOS, 244
Multilayer PC

boards, 187

Multiplier phototubes, 138

Multivibrator circuit, 114

Magnetic film recording, 161

Magnetic tape,

83

Mouse, 203

Magnetic amplifier, 153

anisotropic,

electric, 81

Motor (synchronous), 101

185

anisotropic,

effect,

Moving
Magnet

166

Mutator

circuit,

212

117

Magnetic recording, 99

NATO

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), 233

Negative feedback

Magnetic

Negative feedback tone control, 170

tape, plastic,

Magnetism,

17

battery,

82

Neuristor, 186

Magnetron, 145

Neutrodyne

M AGISTOR,

Neutron, 132

MARS

216
194

satellite,

satellite,

Nimbus

14

battery, 100

satellite,

199

Nitride-over-oxide process, 206

Mechatronics, 49

Noise (Johnson), 124

Medical electronics, 53

Magnetic avalanche

Noise (shot

transistor,

242

Nuclear

effect),

fission,

15

144

growth, 243

Mercury arc lamp, 87

Mercury-Atlas

satelite,

Mercury (plated

'Oboe' navigation, 147

191, 194

scatter (burst) systems,

Microcomputer, 222

Office electronics, 56

Ohm's law, 79
OMIST, 237

wire), 179

Mercury-zinc oxide battery, 93

Meteor

Nickel-iron battery, 100

173

MCZ crystal

circuit,

Nickel-cadmium

233

192

satellite,

MASER,

127

Neon lamp, 105

Magnetorestriction, 85

MARISAT

circuit,

Negative resistance oscillator, 119

Magnetohydrodynamic

Mariner

219

satellite,

129

Optical circuits, 229

Optical fibres, 205

Index
Optical fibres-plane polishing, 244

Radar

(civil),

Optophone, 76

Radar

history, 31,

ORACLE,

Radar (RAF), 31

41

Organ

(electronic),

Oscar-

104

191

satellite,

35

37

Radar (meterological), 36
Radar (navy), 35

Oscillograph (double beam), 144

Radio

Oscillograph (polar co-ordinate), 141

Radio, amateurs,

OSO-1

Radio astronomy, 134

satellite,

Overlay

192

transistor,

200

144

altimeter,

18

Radio broadcasting, 103

Radio (diversity reception), 128

Pacemaker, 184

Radio (ground wave),

Packet switching, 199

Radio (Heaviside

PARCOR

speech synthesis, 214

Pedestal pulling, 180

Paging (radio), 178

13

100

23

history,

Radio imaging, 38
Radio ionospheric propagation, 107, 123

Paper capacitor, 89

Radio meteor

Pentode valve, 127

PIN

Radio

layer),

129

scatter,

Radio paging, 178

diode, 165

Radio shortwave communication, 123

Phonograph, 90, 94

Radio (single sideband), 110

Photoconductive detector, 186

Photoconductors, 184

Photodiode arrays, 204

Photonic crystals, 250

Radio wave propagation, 87

Radiophonic sound and music, 130

RADUGA
Random

satellite,

access

193

memory (1024

bit),

Phototube (multiplier), 138

Rectifier (copper oxide), 125

Photosensors, 246
Rectifier (ignitron), 134

Photovoltaic effect, 82
Rectifier (tungar), 106

Piezo electricity, 92

Recording (magnetic), 161

Pioneer

satellite,

183

Plan position indicator (PPI), 146

Recording (sound-on-film), 127

Planar process, 185

Plante" battery,

Recording (video

87

Plastic electronics,

250

Plated-through holes, 203

Plated wire

memory, 179

PLUMBICON, 179
Pocket TV receiver
Polar co-ordinate oscillograph, 141

Polythylene insulation, 134

Potted circuits, 155

tape), 181

246

Recrystallised silicon,
Relativity theory, 103

Relays, 81
Reliability

control,

DUANE

rel.

growth, 193

quality control charts, 131

sampling inspection

tables, 153

sequential analysis, 151

227

Prestel,

Recording (sound-on-disc), 125

Printed wiring, 151

Printed wiring (dip-soldering), 162

standards, 108

Resistors

Printed wiring (etch-back), 202

carbon composition, 94

Printed wiring ('flow-soldering'), 176

carbon

Printed wiring (multilayer), 187

cracked carbon, 122

Proton

satellite,

204

Proximity fuse, 148

Pulse code modulation, 142

film,

99

laser trimming,

207

metal film, 109, 117, 126

nickel-chromium, 179
oxide film, 130

Quality control, 167

Quantum

theory, 100

varistor, 181

Retarded

field oscillator.

Rheotome (waveform

15

plotter),

Radar (army), 34, 142

Robotics, 48

Radar (chirp technique), 157

Rotator circuit network, 208

88

224

281

282

SAGE
Salyut

Index
Security electronics, 57

computer, 171
satellite,

Self-induction, 80

221

Semiconductor

Satellites

Ariel- 1,

194

laser,

Semiconductor memory system, 217

192

Semiconductor data

ATS-1, 206
Biosatellite-1,

Shadow mask

205

list,

70

tube, 142

229

Communication System, 155

Silicon anodisation,

Courier-IB, 189

Silicon-on-sapphire technology, 198

Discoverer- 1, 185

Single crystal fabrication (germanium), 161

DSCS-1, 221

Single crystal fabrication (silicon), 171

Echo-1, 188

Single sideband communication, 110

Echo-cancelling circuit, 240

Short

Explorer- 1, 181

Shot effect noise,

Gemini- 1, 199

Skiatron, 148

IntelsatIris

204

1,

(ESRO

209

I),

Landsat-1, 222

Lunar Orbiter

wave (commercial), 118

15

Skylab

satellite,

226

Skynet

satellite,

214

Solar battery, 175

I,

SONAR history,

206

31, 38, 110

Lunik-1, 185

Sound reproduction,

Marisat-1, 233

Sound-on-disc recording, 125

Mars-1, 192

Sound-on-film recording, 125, 161

Mariner-2, 194

Soyuz

Mercury- Atlas-4, 191

Speech synthesis, 207

Mercury-Atlas-6, 192

Spread-spectrum techniques, 231

NATO-1, 219

Sputnik

Nimbus- 1, 194

Sputtering process, 86

satellite,

18,

22

207

180

satellite,

Oscar- 1, 191

'Squegger' circuit, 119

Oso-1, 192

Static induction thyristor,

Pioneer- 1, 183

Stepping tube, 163

Proton- 1, 204

Stereo record, 133

Raduga-1, 193

Stereo sound reproduction, 131

Salyut-

STROWGER

221

1,

230

telephone exchange, 96

76

Score, 183

Submarine cable

Skylab- 1,226

Superconductivity, 106

Skynet-A, 214

Superconductivity (Highfield), 130

Soyuz-1, 207

Superconducting switch, 135

Sputnik-1, 180

Surface acoustic

Sputnik-2, 180

Surface

Surveyor- 1, 207

Superfast switch, 256

Syncom-1, 195

Surveyor

Tel star- 1, 192

Switch (QMB), 95

Tiros-

188,206

1,

flat

insulation,

wave

devices, 197

257

chips,

207

satellite,

Switch superconducting, 135

Transit- IB, 189

Syncom

Tung-Fang-Hung, 217

Synthesizer, 202

satellite,

195

Vanguard- 1, 181
Venus-

1,

Viking-

1,

191

Tactile screen,

248

229

Tape

190

cassette,

80

Voskhod-1, 199

Technetron (FET),

Vostok-1, 191

Tamed frequency modulation, 238

Westar-

Telegraph system (5-unit), 80

227

SAWS Surface

acoustic

wave

devices, 197

Telemedicine, 80

Scanning acoustic microscope, 226

Telephone, 90

Scanning tunnelling microscope, 248

Telephone (automatic exchange), 196

Score

Telephone (crossbar exchange),

satellite,

183

1 1

Index

Telephone

(dial),

planar process, 185

97

Telephone (electronic switching), 189

point contact, 160

Telephone (relay exchange), 107

radio set, 175

Teletext,

single crystal fabrication, 161

Television (Baird), 124

Television (cable), 126

Television (colour), 128
Television (date

69

list),

surface barrier, 171

unijunction, 171
Transit

189

satellite,

Transitron oscillator, 126

Television (digital), 41

Transuranian atoms, 135

Television (Farns worth), 115

TRAPATT

diode, 206

Television (high definition), 42, 212

Travelling

wave

Television (history), 40, 43

TRIMOS, 234

Television (large screen), 146, 242

Tubes

tube, 136, 151

(also called valves)

Television (Nipkow), 93

date

Television (pocket), 234

cold cathode, 86

Television (Zworykin), 115

glow discharge, 87

Telstar-1 satellite, 192

housekeeper

Theory

low pressure discharge, 86

relativity,

103

list,

seal,

16

Thermo-compression bonding, 166

microwave-retarded

Thermister, 85

multiplier, 138

Thermoelectricity, 78

pentode, 127

Thermography, 83

plumbicon, 179

Thick film

circuits,

149

screened grid, 124

Thin film (tantalum), 184

stepping, 163

Three electrode tube, 104

three electrode, 104

Thyratron, 109

trigger,

'Tinkertoy', 168

tungar

206

Tomography, 223

shadow mask, 142

Thin film (direct-bonded copper), 230

Tiros- 1 satellite, 188,

field,

two

140
106

rectifier,

electrode, 102

vapour cooling, 176

Transatlantic telegraph cable, 84, 88

Tunnel diode, 181

Transatlantic telephone cable, 177

Typewriter (electronic), 205

Transferred electron device, 190

Transferred electron effect, 190

UNIX, 217

Transformer (distribution), 94

Ultra-micrometer, 117

Transformer (Faraday), 79

Ultrasonic radar

Transformer (power), 94

Ultrasonics

Transistors

Ultrasound imaging, 164

alloyed, 169

date

list,

152

31

Ultra-violet radiation, 75

Valves (see Tubes)

phase, 190
epitaxy vapour phase, 189
liquid

field effect, 138,

floating

trainer,

70

diffusion, 176

epitaxy

H2 S

(SONAR),

180

zone melting, 174

Van de Graaf
Vanguard

accelerator, 129

satellite, 181

Varistor (field effect), 181

Velodyne, 147

history, 6, 17, 160

Venus-

interdigitated, 175

Very high density diskette, 250

ion implantation, 163

modelling, 200

VHS
VHS

MOSFET,

Video (advance programming), 249

129

nitride-over-oxide,

206

oxide masking, 180

overlay,

200

pedestal pulling, 180

bit

satellite,

191

stream recorder, 252

recorder,

230

Video cassette recorders, 2

Video (compact
Video

discs,

disc),

225

Video games, 222

249

283

284

Index

Video recorder (colour), 184

Wimshurst machine,

Video tape recorder, 181

WINDOWS,

Video Walkman, 249

Wire conductor, 23

VIDICON,

Wire drawing, 203

Viking

165

satellite,

Virtual reality,

V-MOS,

1,

93

248

Wireless (Marconi), 96

229

Wire wrapped

205

Word

223

joints, 171

processor, 202

Vocoder, 140
Voltmeter

Vosksod

(digital),

satellite,

Xerography, 140

170

X-rays, 97

199

X-rays lithography, 218

Vostok-1 satellite, 191

X-ray scanner, 223

Watch

(electronic), 194,

Waveguides, 140

Waveguides
Westar

(theory),

satellite,

220
Yagi

97

aerial,

126

Yttrium iron garnet (YIG), 178

227

Wheatstone Bridge, 83

Zinc-mercuric-oxide battery, 93

Wiegand

Zone melting technique, 170

wire, 203

Siull

>

a remarkably short time, electronics has penetrated almost every aspect of modern
The pace of development of the field shows no sign of slackening.
In

life.

and unique book traces the development of electronics from its earliest beginnings to the
present day. Spanning a period of two and a half centuries, the book represents a mini-encyclopaedia full of
valuable information on practically all inventions in electronics from 1745 to 1996. Published data extracted

This fascinating

from a wide variety of sources have been collected over many years by Geoffrey Dummer and collated to form
an up-to-date systematic review of the major developments in electronics and the pattern of advances in
electronic techniques. It is the only book in the world covering electronic inventions in depth and as such
forms an essential source of reference to practising engineers wishing to broaden their knowledge. Teachers
and students who require a sound background and understanding of electronics in its broadest sense will
find the

book invaluable. Written

an easily understood

in

of great interest to electronic hobbyists

largely non-technical language, the

book

will

be

and general science readers.

About the author

Geoffrey

Dummer was

born

in

After nine years experience

in

1909

in

Yorkshire, England

and educated

at

Manchester College of Technology.

the radio industry, he joined the British Air Ministry Research Establishment

1939 where he worked on the development of radar during the Second World War, becoming head
RadarTrainer Group, making an important contribution to the war
the

MBE

in

1946 and

later

the

USA Medal

effort. For this

Freedom. From 1946

in

of the

work he was awarded

in 1966 he was
Superintendent of Applied Physics and Technical Services at the Royal Signals and Radar Establishment,
Malvern. He continued to work on radar, concentrating on the reliability of components and systems.

His work on reliability

The integrated
revolution

in

and components

circuit or 'chip'

as

it

is

led

of

him

to

until his

propose and pioneer the

now known was

later

developed

in

the

retirement

'solid circuit' in

USA and

1952.

led to the present

electronics.

He retired in 1966 to become a full-time author and consultant. For thirty years he has been associated with
the international journal 'Microelectronics and Reliability' as Editor-in-Chief and now Founding Editor. During

27 years with the Radar Establishment he published over 100 articles on his Division's work, gave over 50
and a further 21 books with co-authors. He now devotes some time to the
history of electronic components and electronic inventions and writes widely on electronics.
his

lectures worldwide, wrote 9 books,

ISBN 0-7503-0376-X

Institute of Physics Publishing

Rric.tr>!

and PhilaHnlnhia

780750"ZQ3767 >
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