[ARC5] transistors

[Dennis Monticelli]

In the 60's, solid state receivers were decidely inferior to tubes in
performance, not to mention EMP.  Part of the problem was the immaturity of
the transistors and part was circuit designers being low on the learning
curve with respect to getting the best out of these low impedance devices.
Simply trying to retrofit a bipolar transistor into a classical tube circuit
topology will guarantee inferior performance.  Once the designers climbed
the learning curve and once transistors improved via the migration to Si
from Ge along with the emergence of JFETs, dual-gate MOSFETs, and Schottky
diodes then solid state quickly overtook tubes except for higher power
stages.  IC's only served to accelerate this trend by introducing practical
frequency synthesis.

Not uniformly understood is the fact that military research funding leading
to military procurement was the principle driver for the young US
semiconductor industry.  The US had top universities and corp research labs
both fueled by government funding against the backdrop of the cold war.
Toss some innovative financing (i.e. venture capital) into the mix and out
pops Silicon Valley.

Dennis AE6C

On Fri, Oct 1, 2010 at 7:26 AM, gordon white <gewhite at crosslink.net> wrote:

>     One of the things the designers at Aircraft Radio Corp. told me in
> the 1960s was that building solid-state equipment was not necessarily
> BETTER than the tube stuff, though it was of course smaller, lighter,
> less power draw. And at one time they began to realize that tubes
> withstood EMP better than the "three-legged fuses."
>  - Gordon White
> ______________________________________________________________
> ARC5 mailing list
> Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/arc5
> Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm
> Post: mailto:ARC5 at mailman.qth.net
>
> This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net
> Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html
>