On 2025-10-25 2:01 p.m., Paul Koning via cctalk wrote:
On Oct 25, 2025, at 3:34 PM, Paul Koning via cctalk <[email protected]>
wrote:
On Oct 24, 2025, at 10:37 PM, ben via cctalk <[email protected]> wrote:
On 2025-10-24 6:29 p.m., Murray McCullough via cctalk wrote:
I had forgotten that 75 years ago, Oct. 3, 1950, the transistor was
invented leading to integrated circuits making possible personal computers
and the interest of our love of computing. Where would we be without
Bardeen's, Brattain's and Shockley's invention?
I HAVE NO idea.
When did the point contact diode come out? Radar was the big tech then
so any use of solid state diodes would be Secret Information.
According to "200 Meters and down" by Clinton B. DeSoto, the silicon and carborundum
"detector" were both invented in 1906, ...
"carborundum" is better known as silicon carbide. It has been a niche
semiconductor material for quite a while; I remember reading about its use for blue light
lasers, back around 1980. Nowadays it's mainstream for certain application areas, like
high power devices or high temperature operation.
There are also silicon carbide resistors, very nice for high power non-inductive
applications. Ham Radio people know of these for "dummy loads". I have one
that happily takes 100 watts for minutes on end, and if I were to dunk it into
transformer oil for cooling it could take a kilowatt.
paul
I think too that the same diodes are used as high voltage rectifiers in
the better hi-fi audio using valves.
Ben.
