William Shockley (1910-1989)
William Bradford Shockley was born in London, England, on February 13, 1910 where his father, a mining engineer, and mother, a mineral surveyor, were on a business assignment. Home-schooled in Palo Alto, Calif., prior to attending Palo Alto Military Academy and Hollywood High School, he developed an interest in physics through a neighbor who taught the subject at Stanford University. Shockley earned a Bachelor's degree from Caltech, and a Ph.D. from M.I.T. for a thesis entitled "Calculations of Wave Functions for Electrons in Sodium Chloride Crystals." Shockley first went to work for Bell Labs in 1938 but took leave at the start of the war in 1942.
During World War II he was Research Director of the Anti-submarine Warfare Operations Research Group and he later functioned as Expert Consultant in the office of the Secretary for War. For one year (1954-1955) he was Deputy Director and Research Director of the Weapons System Evaluation Group in the Defense Department.
Shockley rejoined Bell Labs at the close of the war in 1945. Mervin Kelly, then Bell Labs' research director, thought a better solid-state device could be developed. He promoted research on semiconductors, which he believed might supply the solution. After World War II Kelley put together a team of Bell Lab scientists to formulate a solid-state semiconductor switch to replace vacuum tubes. Shockley was appointed the team leader. The team also included the experimentalist Walter Brattain and theorist John Bardeen. In 1945 Shockley configured a semiconductor amplifier established on the field effect. Shockley's field-effect mechanism, however, was unsuccessful in amplifying electrical currents. Along with John Bardeen and Walter Houser Brattain, Shockley co-invented the transistor, for which all three were presented the 1956 Nobel Prize in Physics.
Not satisfied with his deal at Bell Labs, Shockley set forth to capitalize on his invention. In doing this, he played a key part in the industrial growth of the region at the base of the San Francisco Peninsula. It was Shockley who added the silicon to Silicon Valley. In February 1956, with funding from Beckman Instruments Inc., he launched Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory with the goal of producing and creating a silicon transistor. He decided to build this start-up near Palo Alto, where he had grown up and where his mother still resided. He arranged operations in a storefront and employed a group of young scientists to formulate the necessary technology. By the spring of 1956 he had a small staff in position and was starting to tackle research and development.
For the next few decades gains in transistor technology drove the industry. Fresh ways to produce Shockley's "sandwich" were devised, and transistors in an immense assortment of sizes and shapes deluged the market. Shockley's innovation had created a new industry, one that underlies all of modern-day electronics, from supercomputers to talking greeting cards. Presently, the world makes about as many transistors as it does printed characters in all the newspapers, books, magazines and computer and electronic-copier pages combined.
We also provide reviews of High Speed Internet service, tests of your Internet speed, and articles on how to improved your computer's performance.