TRANSISTOR MUSEUM™

Historic Transistor Photo Gallery

Photo Essay – Shockley 4 Layer Diodes

References and Links

[1] Shockley Transistor Corporation, A Subsidiary of Beckman Instruments, PL-4, Nov 15, 1959 Price List.

[2] Semiconductor Products Magazine, Sept/Oct 1958. Shockley Transistor ad on page 58. This ad appeared in other publications as well, including the 1959 IRE directory.

[3] Introduction to the Shockley 4-Layer Diode, March 1961, published by Shockley Transistor, Unit of Clevite Transistor.

[4] http://www.elecdesign.com/Articles/ArticleID/3979/3979.html This website includes a reprint of a May 1961 column in Electronic Design magazine describing Shockley’s talk in Cleveland about the audio amp. Steve Scrupski wrote the original article and has provided some recent comments as well.

Additional Reference Material

[5] Gene Weckler Transistor Museum Oral History.

You can read (and hear) a first hand account of working at Shockley Semiconductor from Gene Weckler, who started work there as a young applications engineer in 1958.

[6] Queisser, Hans., 1988. The Conquest of the Microchip. Cambridge, London: Harvard University Press. This excellent book also contains a first hand account, by Professor Queisser, of working as a young physicist at Shockley’s company.

Photo Essay Commentary

The Shockley 4 layer diode is truly a unique and historic device. The technology (multilayered silicon device intended to replace the transistor), the company (Shockley Semiconductor Labs, the first silicon Valley startup) and the history (Shockley’s company failed, but his stellar group of scientists and engineers went on to establish many of the world’s premier semiconductor companies) all combine to create a tremendous story and worthy subject for this Photo-Essay.

Copyright © 2005 by Jack Ward. All Rights Reserved. http://www.transistormuseum.com/

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