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The humble “trannie” turns
Happy 50th
Birthday!
By Kevin Poulter
T
ransistors revolutionised our
world immeasurably, galvanising
amazing advances in radios and
entertainment. Now every home, vehicle, business and hospital has equipment
relying on the equivalent of thousands if
not millions of semiconductors.
For example, the Apple PowerPC
G5 computer has more than 58 million transistors, a high-performance
silicon-on-insulator (SOI) process for
faster operation, and copper interconnects for improved conductivity. IBM
manufactures these processors in a
$3 billion, state-of-the-art facility in
New York.
The development of transistors
didn’t occur overnight. The crystal
diode was employed for reception
before 1920, while during WW2, solid
state rectifiers were used, especially
in radar.
Radio engineers and scientists contemplated that adding extra elements
to diodes could be the basis of a device
8 Silicon Chip
with significantly less power requirement than the thermonic valve.
Some saw longer term innovation.
Computers were not unknown but
were very expensive, space-hungry
and underpowered. The ENIAC in
1946 required 300,000 valves and a
large room to achieve a performance
immensely inferior to today’s PCs.
The first transistor
Early attempts to develop a ‘triode’
transistor resulted in notable failures
until scientists in the American Bell
Laboratories made a breakthrough.
In December 1947, John Bardeen
and Walter Brattain developed the
first point-contact transistor. They
intended it to be more like a junctioneffect transistor, but great excitement
ensued.
William Shockley, the theorist
leading the research, wanted better,
so he continued develop the junction
transistor. Later the trio shared the
1956 Nobel Prize in physics for their
discoveries.
Bell Labs nervously contacted the
military to clear their discovery for
public release. The concern was the
defence hierarchy might put it under
wraps but nothing was heard.
As the transistor was being refined,
Bell kept their discovery a secret until
June 1948. Recognition and sales were
essential to recover escalating development costs, so Bell invited the press
to view their transistor. Few realised
the possibilities and press was mainly
one or two lines. In July 1951, Bell
announced the junction type.
Eight days that changed
the world
Bell was now armed with a superior
reason to proceed. In September 1951,
Bell Labs staged their much-heralded
Transistor Symposium, a week of intensive education and the license to
reproduce both types of transistors.
siliconchip.com.au
50 years old this month...
Inside the very first mass-produced transistor radio , the Regency TR-1. It beat the Tokyo Tsushin Kogyo TR-55 by a mere
nine months. Don’t recognise the name? It later became the giant Sony Corporation.
The entry fee for this world-changing
technology club was twenty-five thousand dollars. Licensees had just eight
days to learn everything Bell knew
about transistors.
The first transistor was a pointcontact transistor, a
wafer of N-type germanium as the base
block. Two phosphorbronze wires were
pushed into the wafer, similar to the ‘cats
whisker’ of a radio
crystal set.
Brief high-current
pulses fused the wires
to the germanium,
a technique called
‘electrical forming’.
This caused some
phosphorus to diffuse from the wires
into the germaniWithin a year of
the first transistor radio, um, creating P-type
Sony released their first to the regions around the
Japanese market. This wooden- points. If forming was
cased TR-72 is a 50s example. done correctly, a PNP
siliconchip.com.au
structure with a narrow N region was
created.
Point-contact transistors were only
manufactured for a few years before
replacement by the junction transistor.
Point-contact transistors had a common-base current gain (‘alpha’) well in
excess of one and negative resistance,
useful in oscillators and switches.
In 1959, Robert Noyce proved more
than one transistor could be placed
on a single piece of semiconductor
material. Later resistors and other
components were integrated, making
the integrated circuit.
The first junction transistors were
the grown-junction type. A single
crystal of germanium was grown and
doped at the same time. The crystal
was pulled slowly from a melt containing N-type impurities. P-type
impurities were later added and left
for a short while, then more N-type
was added again. The result was an
N-doped crystal with a thin P-type
October 2004 9
Mullard (Philips) manufactured
transistors in Hendon (SA).
Transistors were supplied in
valve boxes. Valves were still
being manufactured, so there
was an ample supply of boxes.
The transistor leads were bent to
reduce rattling in the box.
Below, more OC71s, sleeved
in the Defence Research
Establishment colours.
layer in it. The crystal was then cut
into small blocks, each forming a single NPN transistor.
Early transistor semiconductor
production resembled the production
of quartz frequency-control crystals.
Mullard’s techniques included lapping (rotary grinding) the germanium
slices on their untreated side to reduce
roughness and thickness. The slices
were then cut into small circular wafers by an ultrasonic drill.
Etching followed, to further reduce
the thickness, forming the base of the
transistor and worth more than their
weight in gold! The indium collector
and emitter pellets were alloyed to the
base germanium, which at this stage
might only have been around 0.1 millimetre thick.
The grown-junction process was
soon superseded by the alloy diffusion
technique, where two beads of the element indium, the ‘impurity’ used to
Left: Raytheon CK703 point-contact transistor, likely the first commercially
available, in 1948. Raytheon went on to make the first ever mass-produced
junction transistor, the CK722. Right: Bell Labs/Western Electric M1752. This
NPN grown-junction low-power AF transistor was the first junction type
obtainable outside a research lab, in 1951. Transistors were available for years
before the first radio was available to the public.
10 Silicon Chip
create P-type germanium, were fused
onto a thin N-type germanium block,
one on either side. Some indium diffused into the germanium, creating
a PNP structure. This process was
easier to control and reproduce than
the grown-junction approach, yielding
a thinner base layer and delivering
superior high-frequency response.
The field-effect transistor (FET) is
probably the closest device to the Bell
Lab team’s original dream of a solidstate equivalent to the vacuum tube.
Twelve years passed before the superior bipolar junction transistor (BJT)
was available for commercial use.
It was one step to have a laboratory
transistor, but a long way from the
production of reliable quantities with
practical applications.
The Raytheon CK703 point-contact
transistor was likely the first to be marketed. Raytheon’s claimed first release
in 1948 is just months after Bell Lab’s
announcement.
The Western Electric (Bell) M1752
was the first junction transistor available outside of the research lab, in
1951. It was an NPN
grown-junction low-power AF transistor but a fault
was soon apparent – the
plastic encapsulation was
not hermetic, so moisture
ruined the transistor.
It took time to discover
the acceptable characteristics and limitations
of transistors, so some
manufacturers tried to
make tetrode and even
pentode transistors.
Most started producing
point-contact transistors,
which at the time had
better high-frequency
behaviour than junction
types. The junction transistor soon was superior
in performance, simpler
and more consistent in
manufacture.
European companies
also applied for licenses.
Mullard/Philips especially affected Australia’s
Internal view of the
ubiquitous Mullard/
Philips OC71 – still being
used in do-it-yourself
projects into the 1970s
and 80s!
siliconchip.com.au
entry into transistor radio production,
establishing local component production here. Early European transistor
licensees included STC and GEC (UK).
Both English firms’ research labs were
not far behind the Americans. For
example, STC had a point-contact
transistor in 1949. GEC’s first transistor, the GET1, was in prototype at
this time.
The first commercial junction
transistors were primitive by modern
standards, with a maximum collectoremitter voltage of 6V and collector current of just a few milliamps. Particularly notable was the Raytheon’s first
mass-produced transistor, the CK722,
which made solid-state electronics
affordable to the amateur constructor.
Improved types were soon developed,
extending frequency response, lowering noise levels, and increasing power
dissipation.
The earliest transistors were made
from germanium, a metallic semiconductor. However it was known that
silicon offered advantages in terms
of breakdown voltage and power
handling ability. Silicon was more
difficult to refine because of its higher
melting point but by 1955, the first
silicon transistors were commercially
available. Texas Instruments played a
leading part in the early development
of this technology.
Texas Instruments 900 series were
the first silicon transistors on the mar-
Two of the world’s first Regency transistor radios (circa 1954-5) with a 1956
black Zenith Royal 500.
ket, in 1955. They included types 903,
904, and 905, NPN grown-junction
types, used as RF amplifiers. By 1956,
Texas Instruments manufactured the
2S series of transistors, using the
standard TO-5 metal case.
Six years after Bell’s initial announcement, on October 18, 1954,
the Regency division of I.D.E.A. announced the world’s first consumer
transistor radio, the TR-1.
Regency had finally overcome hurdles like a fifty percent board failure
rate.
Leading brand Transistor Radios like this Philips model 198 were manufactured
in valve radio plants. The factories and their design teams were geared to
old techniques including extensive use of metal. Most early transistor radios
therefore resembled their recent predecessors, with features like a metal
chassis. The outside case of this Philips was pressed cardboard, though many
early transistor radio cases were wood with a vinyl exterior.
siliconchip.com.au
The author’s experience suggests
that at the time major problems would
include mastering the dip-soldering,
ensuring all the components had a
secure solder joint after a single fast
dip in the solder bath. Inferior plating
on the component leads and circuit
board, air bubbles plus component
overheating were some of the early
dip-solder challenges.
The Regency TR-1 pocket radio
was announced for sale on November
1 1954, at US$49.95, just in time for
Christmas. I.D.E.A. stated before the
Regency’s release: “the success of the
Regency is due, in large measure, to
a high-performance, low-cost transistor developed by Texas Instruments...
wherein power gains of 34 decibels
and 40 decibels are achieved in intermediate frequency and audio stages
respectively. Only four transistors are
used in the entire radio...one transistor as a combination mixer-oscillator,
two as intermediate frequency amplifier and one as an audio amplifier. A
germanium diode is employed as a
detector.”
Texas Instruments enthusiastically
described the Regency: “The ‘pocket
size’ is a significant achievement, since
it includes a high fidelity, high volume
speaker and a single battery supply as
well as all associated receiver circuit
components...Audio volume fidelity
and reception range are the equal of or
superior to that of the small vacuum
tube-equipped portable radios.”
Many component manufacturers
contributed to the Regency’s compact
design with semiautomatic production of the final assembly, including
October 2004 11
Two AWA radios (left and centre)
with an Elvis record of the era.
The gold radio (centre) was designed for ladies. This
model was identical with the brown leather finished
model, but had a slimmer profile. This was easily
achieved, as there was plenty of free space inside.
Why the other men’s/family model was not as
slim is a mystery. The transistor radio on the right
is an AWA too, re-badged as Westinghouse.
Re-badging was fairly common then and now, for
example, K-Mart brand transistors.
dip-soldering of the printed circuit
board assembly.
The Regency’s performance was not
startling. The momentous advantages
were the first entry into solid-state,
the size, plus a minuscule 4mA drain
on the easily obtained 22.5V hearing
aid battery, which delivered 20 to 30
hours of use.
The Regency was also one of the
first radios since the twenties to reintroduce personal listening through an
earpiece – great for listening in bed.
They certainly were popular, with
around 100,000 sold in the first year.
For their commitment, Texas Instruments produced nearly half a million
transistors, constrained three million
dollars of plant, lost over a million
dollars, but laid the foundations as a
leader in semiconductors.
TI’s gamble paid off, recovering to
make net sales of US $200 million in
1960. Much of TI’s production was
supplied to IBM, after the computer
giant saw the benefits of solid state.
While the new solid-state components were called transistors, the
public soon rather erroneously called
their solid-state radios by the same
name – “transistors” and later on,
“trannies”.
Mullard, an English tube manufacturer, became a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Dutch Philips company.
They planned to convert Mullard into
12 Silicon Chip
a semiconductor manufacturing plant.
Their goal was to capture 95% of the
European market and they did this
within a few years. Mullard’s OC series
of transistors and OA family of diodes
dominated Europe for about 20 years
and were extensively used in Australia
for decades.
Mullard developed a unique glass
encapsulation, releasing three new
alloy-junction transistors, the OC70,
OC71 and OC72 in 1954. The OC71
glass case was painted black to avoid
photoelectric effect. In fact, hobbyists
in the 60s scratched off the paint to
make it photosensitive for applications
like a flash slave.
Mullard added an aluminium can
over the OC71 glass tube, to make the
higher power OC72. This transistor
was rated at 100mw power total, when
an external fin was pushed on to make
an extra heatsink. Matched pairs of
OC72 transistors were sold for pushpull audio, typically offering 200mW
audio output.
Millions of the OC series of transistors were used in Europe for a period
of almost 20 years. Mullard issued
many other germanium and silicon
diodes and junction transistors of all
types in this encapsulation.
Philips produced technically superior transistor radios, however their
primary interest was transistor and
component research and production.
As a consequence, Philips led in the
supply of components and research,
strongly supported by numerous books
and technical leaflets they created on
their latest products. This information flow included complete circuits
for manufacturers to adapt, so they
would use more Philips/Mullard
components.
Japan had well-developed research,
establishing them as leaders in the
development of transistor radios, however the Soviet Union appears to have
lagged until the 1960s. Valves held on
In the 70s, some of the last Astor radios were pocket size.
siliconchip.com.au
Novelty Radios became popular
in the 70s. National bought out a 70s zany radio,
the Toot-a-loop (left), but named it the Wrist Twist here.
The right rear unit (with balancing balls) is a JVC brand.
National made many novel types, like the three in the
right foreground. Bright colours, especially oranges and
reds, were in vogue at the time.
tenaciously. In 1957 a Japanese tiny
three-valve unit sold in US stores for
just ten dollars. To minimise current
drain, there was no audio stage, just
an earpiece.
A Japanese tape recorder and home
appliance manufacturer called Tokyo
Tsushin Kogyo saw the possibilities,
but had difficulty with the $25,000
licence rights, due to their government’s foreign exchange limitations.
Approaches to the government authority were eventually successful and
they joined the solid state fraternity.
The company planned to release the
world’s first transistor radio, until the
Regency beat them to the post.
Their first transistor radio, the TR-
55, entered the Japanese market in
August 1955, nine months after the
Regency. When the TR-63 was ready
to enter the US market in 1957, they
realised their name was unpronounceable by Americans.
A new name was needed. The
latin word ‘sonus’ meaning sound
was promising and at the time bright
young Japanese men were referred to
as ‘sonny boys’, so the name SONY was
established as their logo. In January
1957, the overall company name was
changed to Sony.
The Sony TR-63 was slightly smaller
than the Regency, but didn’t fit the
even smaller Japanese shirt pockets,
so Sony had a batch of shirts made for
their local sales team to demonstrate
the pocketability.
Transistor radios were made in all shapes, from spray cans to Vegemite, Big M and
promotional items. ‘Linda’ dolls were made by a number of companies in Asia.
The tuning and volume controls were not conventional.
siliconchip.com.au
October 2004 13
The ’70s HMV
Capri, as new
in box.
Two features stood out – an ultraminiature tuning capacitor and a 9V
battery that would become the standard for mini transistor radios.
By 1958/9, over 30 Japanese brands
were sold in USA. A staggering six
million were sold in the US during
1959, becoming Japan’s second largest source of US dollars, at $US62
million!
By the 60s, Japan’s world-wide electronics revolution was in full swing.
While they offered cheap compacts,
their top shelf transistor radios boasted
fine build quality, excellent performance, lavish use of chrome on the
exterior case and superb fine-grain,
gloss leather outer cases.
Japanese radios were extensively
sold on the international market, with
National and Sony dominating duty-
Kriesler transistor radios, 1960s.
14 Silicon Chip
free stores in every exotic tourist port
of the globe.
Europe and other manufacturing
countries also commenced producing
transistor radios. The British protectorate of Hong Kong soon manufacturing budget quality, small radios. Like
many products from this duty-free
country, early designs were British.
The quality did not compare to the
world’s best, but the price was right.
Few could have predicted the
transistor radio’s dramatic changes to
our culture. When valve radios were
the only choice, every home had a
mantel or radiogram to bring news
and older entertainers into lounge
rooms and kitchens.
Parents placed high value on the
family radio and its programming,
so children often had restricted
access. As a consequence, they
mainly heard the old time music
their parents liked.
Once affordable transistor
radios became available, nearly every
teenager wanted one. Soon they were
able to play their style of music anywhere they liked, from the bedroom
to the beach.
It opened a whole new world of independence for the young and motivated
the success of rising stars like Elvis
Presley, Bill Haley, Lesley Gore, the
Beach Boys, Little Eva, Fats Domino,
Roy Orbison and many more.
Most Australian and overseas
manufacturers could see transistor
radios were inevitably destined to
replace power ravenous valves, but
had considerable difficulty with the
transition.
The dilemma – for decades they
produced large heavy radios with excellent reception but now an upstart
was on the scene.
Picture massive Australian manufacturing plants geared to produce
valve radios. Each had ageing valve
designers, hundreds of employees and
giant metal presses to stamp chassis.
Early transistors did not perform well,
so it’s therefore easy to understand
Australian manufacturers’ reluctance
to dive into this newfangled invention.
Possible outcomes included losing
loyal customers dissatisfied with the
performance of transistor radios. Perhaps the greatest problems were that
the designers had to revise most of
their electronic theory. Also significant
sections of their plant and production
lines were totally unsuited to transistor radio assembly.
There was a human element too –
it was becoming obvious the simpler
automated construction of small
transistor radios and outsourcing of
plastic mouldings would lead to the
sacking of hundreds of people. Many
had developed strong friendships in
the organisations and had recently
survived a war.
All these factors led to many Australian radio brands producing valve
equipment into the early 70s, especially television sets.
Australian car radio manufacturers
especially could see the lower current
drain benefits, so until transistors approached the quality of valves, they
released hybrids – radios with a mix
of valves and transistors. PYE even
produced a radiogram called the ‘Transista’ but few consumers realised only
the tuner was solid-state!
The levers that finally forced local
manufacturers to make the full transition were competition from imported
all-transistor radios, the tiny power
drain and the fear of being the last cab
off the rank.
To avoid customer rejection and to
utilise existing production facilities,
many of Australia’s first transistor
radios looked remarkably similar to
their last valve version. Not only were
the cases very similar, but there was
a metal chassis! Naturally most were
quite heavy.
An example is the HMV J4-17
Rangemaster, released in 1961 priced
at 30 pounds, nine shillings. They
have great similarity to the valve HMV
65-54 and the size and weight made
them a portable mantel. The sound was
acceptable, though servicing can be
difficult, as the five-inch loudspeaker
siliconchip.com.au
The Zenith Transoceanic
RD7000 multiband was the
king of receivers for many
years. Features included
an array of huge
antennas, log
platform, map light
and international
time calculators.
was mounted first, then layers of parts
added on top.
Another problem with most transistor radios was the battery cost up to
thirteen shillings and there was no
provision for a mains power supply.
Remarkably, there is little evidence
of the first fully Australian-built alltransistor radio. Local magazines proclaimed overseas advances, but little
was said of local progress, perhaps as
Australia was behind overseas developments. Further, the availability of fully
imported plus locally sub-assembled
radios blurred the event.
In radio circles, the general opinion
is a number of Australia’s leading
brands released all-transistor radios
about the same time, around 1958.
John Sheard, who was a radio retailer
in Mt Gambier from 1954 to 1989,
recalls the first fully Australian-made
transistor radio he saw was PYE. Another early arrival at his store was the
American designed Admiral, though
it had many US parts.
Around 1960, John also recalls testing a Stromberg Carlson model with
optional solar cells on the top. He
found it played perfectly with good
volume in the sun without batteries.
Philips manufactured solid-state
components at Hendon, South Australia, with transistor types like OC71
sold in valve boxes (see photo). Philips
siliconchip.com.au
had plants around Australia. One exemployee laments: “Even though they
made resistors and capacitors at Hendon with the radio/TV manufacturing
line in the adjacent building, we could
not access components until they
had been shipped to the Sydney (or
Melb.) warehouse. That’s why many
chassis didn’t have a single Philips
component”.
Other Australian component manufacturers designed new components
for transistors as well. Companies
like Rola, EMI and MSP, accepted
the challenge of developing compact
loudspeakers with high efficiency and
acceptable frequency range.
In addition, all other components
like tuning gangs, capacitors and
resistors were miniaturised. Nearly
every component was available from
Australian production, unlike today.
Choice magazine saw the growing
popularity of these new portables, so
they reviewed transistor radios available in 1961 and again in 1972. Their
tests were authoritative, as technicians were engaged to properly test
performance.
Choice noted in 1961 that their initial survey revealed over 80 different
models, but later that year they found
only about 30 were still available, due
to a contraction or recession in the
retail market.
ACA’s tests in 1961 resulted in
recommending the Philips model 200
and the Westinghouse model W812P.
They concluded the Westinghouse was
probably a rebadged AWA 208P, which
they had not included in the tests, so
it’s likely the AWA would have shared
the winners dais too.
Tests made in 1972 showed radios
in the $25 to $31 range were winners,
including the HMV Capri, Kriesler and
Thorn Graduate.
As test bench results are more discriminating than actual listening tests,
Choice rightly suggested the buyer
could test transistor radios themselves
in a store, to make their own decision.
Nearly all transistor radios received
local stations reasonably well, so people often chose attractive models. As
a consequence, models like the AWA
Transistor Seven sold for many years
in large numbers.
Australia’s transistor radio production had begun, leading to local production of nearly every type of entertainment unit and instigating immense
changes in culture, employment and
SC
industry for decades to come.
More reading, sources
and credits:
Kevin Poulter, (03) 9558 3652,
email<at>radioworld.info
Web references are displayed at:
www.radioworld.info, click on
‘first transistor’
HRSA, Radio Waves, (03) 9539 1117,
www.hrsa.asn.au
Chris Rogers, John Sheard, Tony
Maher, Andrew Wylie (UK)
Foundations of Wireless 1958
Mullard Reference Manual of Transistor Circuits 1961
Choice Magazine 1961 and 1972
Radio and Television 1963
Mullard Data Book 1964-5
Philips Pocketbook 1969
Introduction to Electronics, Devices
and Circuits 1982
Introductory DC/AC Electronics
1989
The Portable Radio in American Life
1991
October 2004 15
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