Birth of The Transistor: A video history of Japan's electronic industry. (Part 1)

the total amount of electronic codes currently exported by Japan yearly is approximately 10 trillion 50 billion yen that's the second largest income earner following automobile exports from daily necessities to systems for society vast quantities of semiconductor devices are used in all sorts of equipment half of the world's semiconductor production comes from Japan yet immediately after World War two Japan could not even manage to make its own light bulbs right after this war Japan was occupied by the Allied forces and its major cities lay in ruins the country's industries had been destroyed and food supplies were virtually non-existent stories from this period tell of 10 million people starving to death with so many people scrounging for food many factories turn their plant sites into vegetable patches this is Toshiba's kawasaki works immediately after the war many industrialists were questioned over their responsibility for providing materials for the war and were barred from their positions factory sites fell into the control of labor unions that were formed after the war even so step by step japan gradually began to rise from this postwar confusion at about this time in the United States an important event helped launch today's semiconductor industry the birth of the transistor what lay behind this new device was an earlier invention the telephone Alexander Graham Bell who invented the telephone at the beginning of this century established American telephone and telegraph company to convert voices into electrical signals and send these signals to distant places require the stringing of telephone lines all across America the endless demand of people who wanted to talk with those living far away spurred the rapid expansion of telephone networks the spread of the telephone created huge revenues providing abundant funds to develop other epoch-making technologies in the beginning humans linked parties that wish to talk with each other by hand in order to transmit voices to even more distant places a vacuum tube that amplified signals was invented and telephone networks achieved a higher degree of clarity the vacuum tubes drawback however was its short lifespan in 1936 at the Bell Laboratories research began on an amplification device to replace the vacuum tube at the end of 1947 researchers finally succeeded in amplifying a voice current using a solid-state device based on germanium it was the birth of the transistor the following year in June of 1948 Bell Laboratories publicized its discovery of the solid-state amplification phenomenon using germanium this announcement was of great interest to specialists in this field but the mass media paid little attention to this important discovery magazines like Time and Newsweek only provided a half page of coverage the article in time merely relates that when two needles are stood on germanium crystals amplification is achieved and at the name of this device is the transistor close to the Imperial Palace in Tokyo the building that was the general headquarters of the Allied forces after the war still stands the first Japanese to read about the transistor were two scientists they were professor yasushi Watson Ave of Tohoku University and Saku G Komagata a director of Japan's agency of industrial science and technology the to understanding the importance of this development decided to contact interested parties to start a transistor study circle in the center of Tokyo next to the Prime Minister's official residence is an abandoned complex completely covered with Ivy this is all that remains of the original electro technical laboratory under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of International Trade and Industry the transistor study circle began to hold regular meetings at this site in October 1948 the person in charge of preparing these meetings was Makoto Kikuchi a member of the electro technical laboratory at that time I repeat old I know once a professor from the University of Tokyo came and gave a lecture when we focused on a point and said please explain that a little more he told us well even I don't understand that yet the civil information and education section of the Allied forces which was close to the general headquarters building was the only source through which the Japanese could learn the latest developments in American culture fashion sports art and science he's got a bugle box I first looked at the table of contents in academic journals like Physical Review but there was nothing on semiconductor occasionally however I would see the word semiconductor and transistor and my chest would suddenly warm from excitement here's a reference I would say to myself I could the other day in the morning I would be the first to get to the office and I would keep the latest issue of Physical Review to myself I would spend the morning copying the articles down in writing there's one of the things I copied back then because paper was precious everything is written in small characters all together I must have copied a stack of papers like this about it soon leaders think in the beginning I copied only the important points but later I would run into things that I still couldn't understand without having the whole text as a result of that experience I decided to copy the entire text relying on scant data and insufficient material Japanese scientists and technicians began their own test of this American development by using homemade methods in a branch office of the electro technical laboratory on the outskirts of Tokyo physics section chief Michio Hatoyama and his colleagues began to test manufacture a transistor the people called the old wooden laboratory the stable renewal merciful we had mr. Hatoyama recreate his old experiment for us he and his colleagues knew that if you stand two needles on crystals the amplification phenomenon occurred but they had no concept of the theory of solid-state amplification only after witnessing this phenomenon with their own eyes could they begin to develop their own theories when these two needles were put very close together they were paired like this this is a bit high isn't it the needles don't touch no they're touching all I have to do is extend them until the honey yeah Lois I know Makoto Kikuchi tested the experimental transistor if the tips of these two needles are too far apart the phenomenon doesn't occur anyway we had to put them close together what I did was to set up a microscope fix the needles and then connect an electric circuit if both meters moved almost in parallel then we could say we had achieved the phenomenon since that was what I was supposed to do my research from then on was to come here each morning I have a cup of tea and then sit over there and peek through the microscope first I would take the two needles like this and set them in the closest position it was difficult because we didn't have equipment for making fine adjustments and when I thought the needles were in the best place I would then send an electric current but although I did this repeatedly nothing happened I spent about two months doing this without success this we thought was a hair-raising discovery and since we wanted to see this van for ourselves we wanted to accomplish it somehow in fact it was impossible to achieve thank you the crystals proved useless as we learn later one of the main reasons Bell Laboratories was able to produce a transistor was that various specialists had already done the groundwork in supporting fields for the development of the transistor they were specialists in physics chemistry metallurgy and mechanical engineering as a result researchers were able to get their hands on highly pure crystals shortly after William phan developed his epoch-making germanium refining method the discovery of this method called zone refining is a memorable event in the history of semiconductors this is a zone refining device reproduced for us by Tohoku University we place low purity germanium in a receptacle made of very high purity carbon graphite seal it together with the receptacle inside a quartz tube and inject hydrogen gas a copper heating tube is wrapped around the quartz tube and water is circulated through it so that it won't melt from the heat this device is the same as a large microwave oven when the high frequency electric current sent from here flows into the coil the germanium inside melts and the impurities float to the top of the liquid surface in this state if we move the vessel slowly to the left the impurities move to the right when the heating coil forces the dirt to the surface it is swept to the right edge then if we chop off the right edge the high purity crystals are left behind thus through the development of zone refining technology it became possible for the first time to make germanium crystals with virtually no impurities this is Gordon teal Bell Laboratories specialist on crystals it was he who advocated that semiconductor material for transistors had to be single crystals here is an experiment of Gordon teal he made many trials and errors as it was impossible to maintain the furnace temperature in a fixed manner the crystals did not grow uniformly and resembled a succession of crooked carats the making of uniform single crystals finally came in 1948 we had the single crystal making process re-enacted at Tohoku University we placed germanium crystals with a raised degree of purity in a crucible which we then set inside a furnace we fit seed crystals for making them into single crystals to a rotating rod we then seal the furnace and inject an inert gas when we send a high-frequency electric current through the heating coil wrapped around the quartz tube the germanium inside melts once the germanium has completely melted we make the seed crystals contact the surface of the liquid while rotating them if we make an error in the temperature of the liquid surface the rotation speed of the seed crystals or the speed at which the rotating rod is raised the crystal drawing fails the crystals melt if the temperature is too high or if it is too low they end up forming a crust in 1954 the electronics department was established in the electro technical laboratory to spread semiconductor knowledge inside Japan through open research the task of the two young researchers was to first purify crystals and then try to draw them into single crystals we're gonna super bazzill okay this was something revolutionary what we were facing was the creation of a technology to make crystals with an unbelievable purity and it had to be done by extracting the impurities inside the germanium neither we nor anyone else in Japan had this experience the vacuum furnace for drawing crystals took a lot of trouble to make but if you failed to keep the error in the temperature of the melted germanium under plus or minus one degree the crystals don't rise properly if the temperature gets too high when you dip the seed crystals from a bug they melt away I don't and if the temperature is too low baking geo and harden that's also bad therefore controlling the temperature is extremely important another important point is that when the temperature has been raised to almost 1000 degrees centigrade if you let the temperature act naturally it rises and falls that also is wrong you have to keep the temperature fixed although I say fixed there still is slight fluctuation but this was kept at 0.1 degree centigrade in the American specifications at the time that's tremendous control when the temperature rose the needle of the gauge shook we were unable to buy advanced American equipment the temperature gauges at that time were rounder and bigger than this and had a large needle when we raise the temperature this needle shot right up to 600 degrees then 800 degrees passing the melting point of germanium until it arrived at approximately 1,000 degrees centigrade at that point we lowered the temperature slightly but as you can note this needle mainly measures units of one degree and 0.1 degree can't be seen for that reason no matter how many times you try you'll fail at making crystals at that point we attached a mirror to the base of the needle and when we shined a light on it the reflected light went all the way over and reflected on that wall if we control the place reflected on the wall if the width of the light expanded the accuracy had increased in any event as it seemed to have become much larger we tried experimenting with it this really went very well at first the reflected light hit the corner of the ceiling over there since I was in charge of drawing the crystals I was fumbling with all sorts of things while peeking inside mr. zdenda was squatting here in this vicinity that's because the resistor knob that changed the temperature was there he was talking with me while looking at the image of the light then mr. zdenda would look at the ceiling and when the point of light he'd here he would say mr. Kikuchi the temperature has dropped we would then adjust the temperature until the light wouldn't come any further than here by doing this we made single crystals in 1955 when the research institute of electrical communications was founded at Tohoku University a room was provided for dr. Junichi Nishizawa who was an assistant professor however because it was too small the room was split into two levels this is the laboratory which mr. Nishizawa recorded with an 8 millimeter camera researchers were often knocked unconscious after hitting their heads on beams people called the Nishizawa laboratory the submarine a giant transformer from which three thick cables extended dominated the room in front of the cables ordinary broadcast station equipment was set this is a giant oscillator made by the laboratory staff built entirely with discarded items they gathered unable to get their hands on resistors that could withstand a large current they used hot plates instead as for large volume capacitors that could withstand high voltage they made them by packing oil into empty cans snakin but the amount of money we would use over the course of a year was usually three hundred thousand yen with that three hundred thousand yen we bought parts and wilt the oscillator after that what we did was for free since it was our own effort but there were some unpleasant things like suddenly getting electrical shock and being knocked unconscious when I think about it now I'm surprised no one was killed they were occasions when I lost consciousness fell to the floor and later woke up mister Shingo yah say who is enthusiastically recreating an experiment from the days of his youth is 72 years old mr. yu hua say who entered the National Research Institute of electrical communication after graduating from college in 1950 was ordered to do research on transistors he began by making crystals a quartz tube is fixed to a wooden frame the inside of it is made into a vacuum by connecting a vacuum pump to remove the air a copper heating coil through which a strong high frequency current is sent is wrapped around the quartz tube at the time the zone refining method had yet to appear mystery wasps they believed that if the germanium was melted slowly from the bottom up then the impurities inside would gradually elevate and at the clean portion remaining at the bottom would be usable the problem was to raise the coil at a slow speed of several centimeters per hour at that point he hit on this device when the water is slowly released from the bucket this device lets the coil proportionately move slowly upward things were different then there was no golf to distract us I worked almost around the clock but since this was all new it was exciting and I was completely absorbed in my work mystery was--a was the first in Japan to succeed in making the point contact transistor seen here this is the pocket radio which incorporated that first Japanese transistor after much trial and error Japan finally had caught up to the level of making a point contact transistor but by this time the next-generation transistor had already been developed in the United States that was because the point-contact transistor had a major drawback this is the 2n 104 eh point-contact transistor made by RCA of america which actually went into mass production however production was stopped shortly afterwards because it couldn't stand up to practical use the needles easily slipped out of position they then tried firming the needles with resin this is a test manufactured product sealed in plastic through the transparent resin two needles contacting the small germanium crystals can be seen however due to changes in whether the resin repeatedly expanded and contracted and the needles finally slipped out of position in the end RCA abandoned mass production of the point-contact transistor the one who overcame this defect by proposing a needleless transistor the junction transistor was Bell Laboratories William Shockley he received the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1956 along with two colleagues for the theory of this Junction transistor the invention of this Junction type opened the way for the development of the semiconductor industry this is a junction transistor made early on at Bell Laboratories germanium crystals are in the middle of this mass that looks like a piece of toffee three layers with different electrical properties have been built into it many technicians put their hearts into trying to realize Shockley's theory but the ones who first succeeded were the crystal researchers Gordon teal then conceived of the grown transistor a method of fabricating transistors while drawing single crystals here's how grown transistors are made during seed crystal production p-type impurities in other words electrical elements with positive properties such as gallium are dropped in the gallium then forms a melted in layer in the growing crystals which become a p-type layer after about 10 seconds n-type impurities such as antimony are then dropped in so that another n-type layer is grown below the p-type a crystals thus form an NPN sandwich these are seed crystals that were actually drawn after they cool off the crystals are extracted in the middle of this mass a p-type layer has formed this is finally cut into slices when we plate one of these slices a white line appears that's the p-type layer sandwich again from above and below are the n-type layers when this is cut into strips they become many fine bars one of these has formed into a small crystal bar with a p-type layer right in the middle by connecting electrodes to each layer of the NPN sandwich a process is finished this is a grown transistor with today's semiconductor technology cutting crystal bars finally is no trouble at all diamond cutters at high speed can slice through thiking it's accurately however shortly after the war NEC corporation researcher hito a Asif Unni was unable to purchase tools for cutting germanium since he lacked research funds seeking a method to cut germanium he attached a cutter to a grinder that had been discarded from the factory it was an easily breakable substitute that had been hardened with whetstone using a bonding agent when pressing the germanium to the revolving cutter a cutter would shatter into pieces in order to protect themselves from the sharp edges of the shattering fragments researchers wrapped their bodies with cloth before challenging the cutter all they had to do was increase the revolutions per minute to about 3300 but mr. Asif Unni is a rough sort and since he's not a machinist he just thought all he had to do was spin the cutter and slice because he paid no attention or concern whatsoever to something like the number of revolutions per minute it broke apart and flew into pieces BAM at first we made germanium fragments with a thickness of about 5 millimeters and then rub them until we reduced each fragment to 0.5 millimeters initially we polished them with sandpaper by hand when you do that your fingers come to hurt so bad that it can lead to bleeding so we'd say you take over now since there were eight people moreover we didn't work by the minute one person polished for about two hours this can be done if you use one finger at a time we took turns all day long changing as we got tired it took four or five days of polishing to reduce the thickness to 0.5 millimeters there was no other way since we were doing it on a budget of zero at about the same time another technology the alloy transistor appeared both sides of the n-type germanium are sandwiched between particles of the p-type material indium and then inserted in a furnace the indium melts into the inside from both sides of the germanium forming an alloy and creating a p-type layer since the body portion remaining in the very center is n-type the crystals form a PNP sandwich to make an alloy transistor indium particles are set in a vessel made a very high purity carbon graphite on top we place a three millimeter by three millimeter piece of germanium with a thickness of 0.5 millimeters finally we put down a cover with a hole in it and then we draw particles of indium from the hole onto the germanium we repeat the delicate work for as many transistors as there are in this state we gently slip it into the furnace transistors are made for the number of holes exposed on the graphite plate with variations occurring in the characteristics of each we heat for 20 minutes at a temperature of 800 degrees centigrade this finishes into an indium alloy that sandwiches the germanium Gold wires are finally connected to the alloy portions to make electrodes at the time in Japan this was the main job of female factory workers called transistor girls the job of connecting gold wires one by one while peeking through a microscope was work that required patience and dexterous fingertips in May 1952 Bell Laboratories held a symposium and made transistor technology public this was because they thought that sole possession of the important technology might fall under antitrust laws Japanese researchers rushed to the United States soon after this new transistor technology was made public however when this laboratory era ended and the age of mass production began Japanese researchers were again confronted with various difficulties since they didn't have the required know how this is an AT&T Western Electric Factory at the time Western Electric existed as a manufacturer aligned with Bell lab in those days American factories everywhere cordially welcomed the Japanese researchers who had rushed over to the United States since the industry was just starting they readily took the Japanese on tours of their factories no one in those days even dreamed of Japan someday would become a strong rival in the semiconductor industry Japanese firms soon were looking for partners to gain technical know-how Hitachi concluded a contract with RCA this is old confidential data the person who resided in America made some very skillful sketches in those days we couldn't take pictures because it was forbidden to carry cameras also such details are not given in rca's publications various things are described like more detailed know-how the reasons for making the product and things like that the reason we haven't discarded this is because they were once considered precious and could not be thrown away documents sent from America were treated as confidential at the factories any sees OSA Funi always kept one of these memo books in his pocket for recording all that he saw heard and thought which he sent to the head office there are still many more in addition to this one memo is on industrial know-how were always kept his scribbles and sketches were turned into detailed explanations and drawings in his hotel room when he returned to Japan they would be turned into devices into time machines made from what mr. OSA Funi and others like him had seen in the United States at that time are still being used in Japanese factories today the age of electronics then arrived in Japan transistors however were not just for military use but were incorporated into civilian products as well the age of mass production in Japan had begun with an eye on the future possibilities of transistors Texas Instruments a company specializing in oil exploration equipment in Dallas Texas scouted Gordon teal from Bell Laboratories teal succeeded in developing the silicon grown transistor for Texas Instruments this gave them the opportunity to set out in the semiconductor industry using this transistor region si developed a pocket radio the selling price was $49.95 when it was first marketed in 1954 sales took off with the popularity of the rock and roll sound of those days explosive sales of 100,000 units were recorded this was unprecedented in the US commercial market Texas Instruments place in the semiconductor industry was assured this is the present headquarters of Sony that soars above the Gotanda section of Tokyo at the time the company's name was Tokyo telecommunications engineering corporation it put the first transistor radio on the market in Japan a year after Texas Instruments the selling price was approximately 52 dollars and 45 cents it used a grown type germanium transistor the company began manufacturing this transistor after buying the basic patent and manufacturing patent rights from Western Electric although Western Electric sold patent rights it decided not to sell manufacturing know-how Sony thus had to develop its own technology with so little time Sony entered mass production without making any distinction between test manufacturing and production in 1955 Mambo music was very popular in Japan thus the transistor radio was enthusiastically received among the young intoxicated by Latin rhythms but the essential manufacturing technology produced only 5 usable transistors for every 100 Mei reinforcing the belief among Western Electric technicians but grown transistors could not be used in radios here's another look at how grown transistors are made when gallium is entered during the seed crystal drawing a thin p-type layer forms into crystals when antimony is added n-type crystals form creating a p-type layer in the middle but there was a problem the antimony Don's will the drawback with antimony occurs during the drawing it breaks apart and the p-type layer right in the middle disappears or becomes dead the p-type layer here has been invaded by the antimony and is about to disappear but if it is made thicker in order to protect it then its characteristics become poor and unsuitable for use in a radio phosphorous was tried but in Bell Laboratories data it's invasive nature was listed as being the same as that of antimony academics looking at this data will conclude that using phosphorus is the same they'll say it's useless to pursue further attempts but the calculations were off by a dismal point the decision to make was whether we should believe this data since I never believe anything other than reality I went ahead and tried to find out for myself when phosphorus was alloyed with tin and dropped in the invasion suddenly stopped and a p-type layer of conspicuous thickness appear later when the timing for the dropping of the alloy was speeded up the layer became thin mass production was begun immediately with everyone expecting success the phosphorus and tin alloy was dropped in it was thought without a doubt that this would work however this failed and the result was a total collapse of the production line right in the middle of the Mambo boom radio production came to a complete halt Sony now faced the worst crisis since its founding the production line collapsed it was impossible to precisely control the amount of phosphorous dropped in this failure was a case of pain with no gain the situation was terrible there was already talk about wouldn't it be better to use an RCA patent but I said give me a little time and then I began to experiment with the India and phosphorus with the phosphorus and tin alloy the density of tin was too great and the amount of phosphorous dropped in wasn't fixed Sony researchers then wondered what would happen if indium of the same density was alloyed with the phosphorous the breakthrough came at the 11th hour a conspicuous thin p-type layer appeared the transistor characteristics went up by one place and radio performance improved marketly an unprecedented experiment at reversed failure in a single stroke the yield was close to 90% I think and as things turned out we didn't even have to pay a patent leaving aside the basic patent that's because the process itself became a patent we solved in a single stroke this problem with a sony transistor radio 3 lightning but since they didn't fear you figures I felt they were just being bold like that so I figured there was no need to fear low-yield but by removing defects yields are raised I can only know when he looks a lot that again I could and tremendous profits were made in a single stroke almost won't get another we haven't abandoned on that type of thinking for the karappa step a month in their Mambo rock-and-roll and rockabilly these new sounds that appeared one after the other created an explosive demand for transistor radios that didn't let up radio sold like hotcakes as soon as they were made through this success Sony was able to realize further progress when the transistor radio boom occurred electrical makers followed quickly in sony's footsteps before long the market entered an age of incredibly fierce competition this endless competition pushed the cost of transistors down dramatically and their quality improved markedly the competition was sustained by the dexterous fingertips of the female factory workers the transistor girls before long Japan would become the world's leading producer of germanium transistors you

Channel: RC286

Views: 874,791

Keywords: Transistor (Invention), Electronics (Field Of Study), Industry (Organization Sector), Documentary, History, Culture, Heritage, Project, Historical, Japan (Country), Technology (Professional Field), Invention (Award Discipline), electricity, electrical, vintage, physics, science, Computer, Math, Gadget

Id: ihkRwArnc1k

Length: 40min 42sec (2442 seconds)

Published: Thu Nov 14 2013

Reddit Comments

[u/Geoff_PR]

At about 6:25 into the video, is that George Takai (Star Trek's Sulu) doing the translation?

[u/va3db]

I was curious where the video came from as well:

Published by RC286 on Youtube. Presented by Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Japan. Produced by NHK International Inc..

https://andersonnnunes.org/en/a-video-history-of-japans-electronic-industry/