ge first transistors

[Paul Koning]

> On Nov 14, 2019, at 10:00 AM, Chuck Guzis via cctalk <cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
> 
> On 11/14/19 6:22 AM, Paul Koning via cctalk wrote:
> 
>> Neat.  Speaking of old semiconductor history, I'd love to see again the description (data sheet or magazine article, I'm no longer sure) that my father had, about FETs made from copper oxide.  Possibly before the 1940s, I don't remember.  I've had no luck tracking any of this down.
>> 
> 
> Julius Edgar Lilienfeld filed a patent in 1925 (US 1745175)

Nice.  Thank you!

> Also US 1900018 and an interesting derivative US US1877140.
> 
> Also, Lilienfeld was the inventor of the electrolytic capacitor.
> 
> I'm not sure about the exact copper-oxide FET article, it's not a dead
> topic; see: https://aip.scitation.org/doi/10.1063/1.3589374
> 
> I'm surprised that Brattain, Shockley et al. are regarded in higher
> regard by the history writers, particularly because they were aware of
> Lilienfeld's early work and worded their patent to avoid prior art issues.
> 
> I'd ask one of today's historians which transistor type occurs in the
> greatest numbers today--I suspect it's FET by a long shot over BJT.

By a mile, for sure, given that LSI integrated circuits are mostly CMOS FET transistors.  Then again, for the first several decades bipolar transistors were pretty much all you'd see.

There's a familiar pattern here.  X does something first, but that discovery doesn't make a real impact on history.  Y does it some time later, and that one does start a new historic trend.  So Y gets most of the credit and X is either a footnote or is generallly forgotten.

Some examples: 
X = Leif Erikson, Y = Columbus (travel to America).
X = Hanso Idzerda, Y = Edwin Armstrong (FM radio).

	paul