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Vintage solid state - Transistors

The invention and development of solid-state semiconductors (transistors) has a long history of milestones:
The German physicist Julius Edgar Lilienfeld filed a patent for a field-effect transistor in Canada in 1925, intended as a solid state substitute for the electron tube (triode). However, as the production of high-quality semiconductor materials took decades to complete, Lilienfeld's idea was not put into practice in the 1920s and 1930s. In 1934, an other German inventor, Oskar Heil, had a similar component patented in Europe. In 1947, John Bardeen and Walter Brattain performed experiments in the Bell Labs of AT&T (USA) and observed an amplifying effect when two gold point contacts were applied to a germanium crystal. William Shockley recognized the potential in this and worked to significantly expand knowledge of semiconductors (in recognition of this achievement, Shockley, Bardeen and Brattain jointly received the 1956 Nobel Prize in Physics). In 1948, the point contact transistor was independently invented by the German physicists Herbert Matare and Heinrich Welker at the Compagnie des Freins et Signaux. The first bipolar transistors were patented by William Shockley of Bell Labs 1948. Bell Labs chemists Gordon Teal and Morgan Sparks 1950 successfully completed a functioning bipolar NPN junction. The first high-frequency transistor was the surface barrier germanium transistor developed by Philco (USA) in 1953, which could operate up to 60 MHz.
As an application of the reinforcing properties of the transistors, small portable Receiver without tubes (valves) could now be developed. The first pocket transistor radio (as a prototype) was presented by Intermetall (founded by Matare in 1952) at the Düsseldorf International Consumer Electronics Fair in 1953. The first commercial pocket transistor radio was the Regency TR-1 (Joint Venture of IDEA and Texas Instruments), which was launched 1954. Countless transistor radios followed.

As a young radio hobbyist in the 1970s, I was able to exploit not only tube sets but also transistor sets (the transistors in the trade at that time were still very expensive) and start my own experiments with the diodes and transistors. Some specimens of that time have survived and were refound in my various hobby scrap boxes. A small selection is shown below.

• Germanium PNP (1954 - 1959)
• Germanium PNP/NPN (1959 - 1964)
• References

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Germanium PNP Transistoren (1954-1959)

 

 

Germanium PNP / NPN Transistoren (1959-1964)

 

 

References

• The silicon engine - timeline
• Transistorized!
• Transistor History
• A brief history of early semiconductors (PDF)
• Electric current control mechanism (Patent)
• Improvements in or relating to electrical amplifiers and other control arrangements and devices (Patent)
• Crystal device for controlling electric currents by means of a solid semiconductor (Patent)
• Three-electrode circuit element utilizing semiconductive materials (Patent)
• Manufacture of Junction Transistors
• Mister Transistor's Historic Semiconductors
• Collection Semiconductor
• Transistor Museum
• Transistor Database
• Transistors in Vintage Radios
• Whisker
• Regency TR1 Schematic