Tom
Seidel
Brief
encounters with famous personalities of the 20th century are
described. Each encounter leaves one with learning and values commonly found in
very accomplished people.
The
author is a retired semiconductor technologist, with tenures at Bell
Laboratories and SEMATECH. His technical contributions were in Ion Implantation
and Atomic Layer Deposition. In
retirement, he has affiliations at MIT and U Florida.
Dallas
Green – 1953 (Major League Player and Manager)
Dallas
Green was a moderately successful major league baseball pitcher, but he
established fame as a Phillies manager when they won the 1980 World Series. In
high school he was considered the best athlete in the greater Wilmington DE
area. It was on the high school basketball court where I met him. He scored 21
points for his school. My school team-mate and I had 11 points each, so Dallas
alone scored about the same as our two high scorers that day. Yet, we won by 5
points using press and fast break tactics, taught to perfection by our
remarkable coach, John Birkenhauer. He had a lifetime winning percentage of
~85%. Coach once said, “You will rarely play better in competition than you do
in practice.” Dallas Green played sports at the University of Delaware, was
noticed by Phillies scouts and signed by them. Later, as a manager, he
demanded the most from his players, and although they often disliked his
demands, they were the first to admit that his system worked. In 1980, the
Phillies were blest with two Hall of Famers, third baseman MVP, Mike Schmidt
and a Cy Young pitcher, Steve Carlton. Any successful coach will tell you
winning is enabled by having great talent. Dallas had an up and down pitching
career, but he always kept at it, he never gave up.
I
learned that to achieve one’s highest goal, one must repeatedly persevere.
Ref:
https://en.wikipedia.org › wiki › Dallas Green_(baseball)
Giuseppe
Mario (“GM”) Bellanca - 1954 (Aviation Pioneer)
The phone rang and my high school friend, Leonard Bellanca said we had an invitation for dinner with his famous uncle. We drove to his retirement estate on the Chesapeake and were greeted by “GM” himself at a Georgean style home. There were no servants.
“GM”, an
Italian immigrant, was a notable early aviation pioneer. He was one of the
first to put a propeller on the front of a plane and among other things
patented the first retractable landing gear. His wing airfoil was leading-edge
used for airmail in the 1920’s.
Lindberg
wanted a Bellanca plane, but Bellanca would not sell him a plane unless there
was a co-pilot. Bellanca believed that the risk of falling asleep on a
cross-Atlantic flight was too high. Lindberg declined, then co-designed and
bought the famous Ryan monoplane and made history. The NY Times headlined
“Lindberg Lands in Paris,” and in the lower right-hand column an article reads,
“Bellanca Congratulates Lindberg.”
In the
month following Lindberg’s flight, a Bellanca plane, Miss Columbia with 2
pilots, flew nonstop across the Atlantic, landing beyond Paris in Germany. This
earned him his picture on the cover of Time Magazine. In 1931, a Bellanca plane
“Miss Veedol,” also with 2 pilots, was the first to fly non-stop across the
Pacific, in 41 hours. Not like Lindberg’s lone eagle flight, not forever
sensationally newsworthy. Today there are streets named “Bellanca” near the Los
Angeles and San Diego Airports and they set his permanence.
At dinner,
GM asked, “Would you young folks like to see my garden and barn?” The garden
was Italian style in design, not unlike a small version of Getty’s Roman estate
garden in LA. After fiddling with a
padlock on the barndoor, he rolled the doors back and there, hanging from the
ceiling, were three 1920 vintage Bellanca airplanes. He had his personal
airplane museum. Today, some Bellanca
airplanes are still in service, very much like antique cars, especially in the
Texas ranch country. The visit ended with a short cruise on his spotless Chris
Craft on the Chesapeake.
The visit
was not accompanied by any discussion of his accomplishments or wealth. The
experience was simply warm, “Italian hospitality” at its best. GM assumed we were familiar with what he had
done and he just wanted to have some time with his young nephew and friends.
When I am engaged with Italian friends, I share this story.
My classmate, Leonard Bellanca was an accomplished civil engineer,
specializing in bridge construction. His life experiences included a supersonic Concorde flight. We remained friends and travelled together in
retirement.
I
learned that no matter how famous one is, there is no need to review one’s
fame, but simply share some treasured things.
Refs:
Giuseppi Mario Bellanca – Wikipedia; US Patent 1,691,105
Gerald
Pearson- 1955 (Bell Labs Researcher and Consultant to Philco)
In the
summer of 1955, I was a engineering student at Philco Research in Philadelphia,
performing Hall measurements on InSb. Part of the study required thinning
samples, which in one case distorted it, and surprisingly the Hall mobility was
abnormally very high. When Pearson came to consult at Philco, he reviewed this
result and examined the sample. He noted that the sample appeared strained and
suggested that strain might explain the unexpectedly high mobility. He also
advised that using this effect would require a reproducible strain-controlled
process.
In 1993 I
was giving a seminar at Texas A&M and a question from the audience was
“What strategies could be used to increase the mobility of state-of-the-art
CMOS. I suggested that stress effects, if controlled, might be used.
in 2002,
Intel surprised the industry by announcing the use of "strained
silicon" for their 90nm process node. Ge was placed in the p+ contacts to
increase the boron concentration to lower the p+ contact resistance, which was
one solution to a known scaling limitation. However, in addition to lower
contact resistance, there was also a “Good Surprise.” A higher PMOS gain was observed that was not
predicted by simulation. Today controlled stress is a standard process for
advanced CMOS processes.
What I learned from Pearson
was stress can change semiconductor mobilities, and that “Lifelong Learning” is
useful.
Refs: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerald_Pearson, “A 90nm High Volume Manufacturing
Logic Technology Featuring Novel Strained Silicon Transistors” T. Ghani, M.
Armstrong, C. Auth, M. Bohr, et al., IEDM, 2002
Benjamin
Abeles -1960 (Material Science Researcher)
In 1939,
Abeles arrived in the UK, at age 12yrs from Prague with a number tattooed on
his arm. He was one of a lucky ~600 youngsters brought to the UK who survived
the holocaust. I occasionally had lunch with Ben and our team manager George
Cody at RCA Labs in Princeton NJ and once asked, “Ben, how did you get that
number on your arm?” He dismissively said, ‘I got that when I was a kid in
Prague,’ and it was not discussed further.
Much later, in 2011, I learned of his early story from the streamed film
“Nicki’s Family.” It is a WWII survival
story, complementary to Schindler’s list.
Ben
certainly loved the USA, once saying “What a country this is, going to the moon
and fighting to save democracy at the same time!”
In wartime
England Ben serviced RAF airplanes. After WWII, he moved to Israel for a PhD in
physics. In the early 60’s at RCA
Laboratories he developed a measurement system for the Seebeck Coefficient
(Voltage from a Thermocouple Material) that enabled the development of
thermoelectrics for “remote” power generation. He was key on a team that
developed SiGe alloys for thermoelectric power generation. SiGe is used because
it’s high thermal resistance enables a higher temperature difference and higher
voltage output. The lasting superiority of SiGe is unusual. A first developed material system is usually
replaced by an improved system. After 7 decades of research on other materials,
there is no better thermocouple material for remote power generation than SiGe
alloys.
SiGe alloys
are used for thermoelectric power generation in the Voyager spacecrafts. Heat
is generated by radioactive plutonium-238 and power is generated from the
heated SiGe thermocouple junction. After 40 years, the Pl-238/SiGe power source
is still running.
In 2026 it
takes about 2 days for a round-trip radio signal from earth to Voyager-I to be
sent and received. For interplanetary
travel, there will be no better power source than Radioactive Thermoelectric
power generation. Although there may be a different radioactive heat source,
SiGe will be the power conversion material of choice.
In 2011, I
met with George Cody at lunch to review our careers, since mine started in his
group at RCA. In the early 60’s, at that time, I worked on an alternate
thermoelectric, InGaAs and separately also on the Nb3Sn
superconductor. Cody said Ben remembered me. When I think of the human and
technical achievement ongoing in Voyager, I think of Ben, his “escape” and his
thermoelectric characterization equipment. Ben’s life contribution is an
illustration of what one can do. Ben passed December 2020.
I
learned that one’s technical contributions can extend beyond any boundary.
Ref:
https://en.wikipedia.org › wiki › Benjamin Abeles; Abeles, et.al. “Thermal
Conductivity of Ge-Si Alloys at High Temperatures”, Phys Rev. 125, 44, 1 Jan
1962.
Leon N.
Cooper and John Bardeen circa 1962-64 (Nobelists, Superconductivity)
Leon Cooper
was an American physicist and co-author of the “BCS” (Bardeen,
Cooper-Schrieffer) theory of superconductivity, published in 1956. He received
a Noble Prize in Physics in 1972 for his contribution centered on the idea that
a superconducting state is accompanied by “paired electrons” famously referred
to as “Cooper Pairs,” having a binding energy or “Energy Gap”.
While every
superconductor researcher in the period generally aligned with the BCS theory,
there was the interesting question: “Could there be a superconducting state
(zero resistance) without an energy gap, could there be “Gapless
Superconductivity?”
Around
1963, I wanted to ask this question after Cooper gave an American Physical
Society talk in New York but did not have the courage to ask in the public
forum. Following him out of the auditorium, I asked the question in a
one-on-one environment, to which he succinctly responded, “Not in my theory”
and walked off. He was obviously not interested. But I still considered it a
useful question.
I wrote to
John Bardeen at University of Illinois with the same question, and he responded
with a personally signed letter, saying he had “prepared something” but had
seen a preprint on gapless superconductors by Maki from Japan so he would not
be publishing. The topic was widely pursued both experimentally and
theoretically.
It is now
known that magnetic impurities can reduce the superconducting energy gap, while
still maintaining a zero-resistance superconducting state. One possible
application might be devices that are “gap engineered” using different magnetic
atomic concentrations for different gaps and possibly different communication
wavelengths.
I
learned that Cooper may have been finished with the superconducting theory and
not interested in its possible variations. Indeed, he went on to make other
contributions. From my communication
with Bardeen - the only person ever to win two Noble Prizes - he was available
to communicate even with a student who was not his.
Refs:
wikipedia.org/wiki/Leon Cooper, and wikipedia.org/wiki/John Bardeen, and
Bardeen, J., Cooper, L. N., & Schrieffer, J. R. (1957). Theory of
superconductivity. Phys, Rev.,108(5),
1175–1204.
Bill
Boyle -1965 (Nobelist)
Bill Boyle
was a Director at Bell Labs, where with George Smith, he co-invented the Charge
Couple Device (CCD) which was an early version of a solid-state device to make
an electronic picture. They immediately understood that this would change the
photography business landscape. Every time one looks at a picture on their cell
phone, that picture has its origin using their CCD concept. Boyle and Smith
received the Noble Prize in Physics for their CCD invention in 2009.
Boyle was
Director of Device Development and greeted me on my first day of employment at
Bell Labs and asked when I graduated. When I told him just the week earlier, he
commented, “So, you didn’t take anytime off…that tells me a lot about your
ambition, I think you will like the work we do here.” Two years later he personally assigned me to
a startup Ion Implantation development group. He said the Labs was big enough
to reassign trained physicists as often as every 2 years. He worked hard at
positioning my transfer as normal. Ion Implantation became a successful career
platform for me. The initial Department Head of the Implant group was George
Smith. It would be hard to fail. One of the first device applications was the
fabrication of Double Drift IMPATT Microwave Oscillator power source, where
precise implantations of both donors and acceptors were used.
Boyle
taught me that learning about the personalities of his staff could provide
insight for their best utilization.
Refs:
Willard Boyle and George Smith, U.S. Patent No. 3,858,232, "Localized
Charge Storage and Serial Transfer Through Semiconductor Potential Wells,"
1974. and US3792322A.
George
E. Smith 1967-2020 (Nobelist, CCD Inventor of an Electronic Picture)
George E.
Smith was co-inventor of the CCD (Charged Coupled Device) and a Noble Laurate.
He was also a friend, a sailing colleague, and a paternal mentor. Once I had
developed impurity gettering knowledge using both Phosphorus Diffusion and Ion
Implantation damage circa 1973, George realized my results were inconsistent
with what Goetzberger and the very famous Wiliam Shockley had published. He
arranged a meeting for me with Shockley. (see below)
The staff
at Bell Labs realized they could support one hobby, financially and from a
time-available standpoint. For George Smith and me, it was sailing in Barnegat
Bay, located 2 hours from the Bell Labs at Murray Hill, NJ. George ran an open
class sailing club (named “5B’s” for Barnegat Bay Boating, Bailing and Boozing
Society). There were about a half dozen races each year, starting around Easter
and ending around Thanksgiving. After the races, the club would meet at a
restaurant, and prizes were made to for first to finish in corrected and
uncorrected time.
My boat was
a Rhodes 22, named “Sum Luck”. It had a relatively large cockpit and small
sleeping area. It was great going downwind but poor “going-to-wind.” One race
was just one-way from Barnegat to Tom’s River, and on that day, the wind was 30
knots from the south, perfect for Sum Luck.
There were 2-foot waves that allowed us to surf. Going wing-on-wing, we
ran without a single tack the whole way and averaged about 15% above hull
limiting speed, finishing first overall and second on corrected time, earning a
pewter cup.
After
George Smith retired, he bought a double ender sailboat, a 31ft Southern
Cross. He named it “Apogee” outfitted it
with 50ft boat gauge rigging and sailed around the world with his partner,
Janet. The circumnavigation was 2 years
longer than planned because of an extended stay in New Zealand.
He was back
home in NJ, when awarded the Nobel Prize. On that early morning in 2009, he saw
the news online and woke Janet, exclaiming “Janet, Janet, I won a Noble Prize”
.., her response: “Oh George, it’s early, go back to sleep.” George passed in 2025.
I
learned from George Smith - a giant technical personality – he was never too
busy to be both paternal in the workplace and a lifelong social friend.
Ref:
wikipedia.org/wiki/George_E._Smith Nobel Lecture: “The invention and early
history of the CCD,” George E. Smith, Rev. Mod. Phys. 82, 2307 13 August,
2010.
Dawon
Kahng - 1972 (Static Flash Memory Inventor)
Dawon had
already invented the Flash Memory MOSFET transistor in 1967. He was Bell Lab’s host for a Soviet scientific
delegation that visited Bell at Murray Hill NJ, in October 1972. I was invited to present my work on impurity
gettering to the Soviets, they were only mildly interested in the topic. I then
joined them for lunch.
At lunch,
the Russians were politically confrontational. One asked, “Dr. Seidel, what do
you think of your president (Nixon)?” I responded, ‘That’s not for me to
say.’ I was also asked by the only
Russian woman (name like Adamcazk?) in their group, “Dr. Seidel, how can you
say you support woman’s rights when you have almost no women in management
positions at Bell Labs?
I seldom
have the presence of mind to handle such a question, but this time I did.
Noting that she was the only woman is their delegation of about a dozen, I
replied, “Well, our woman’s management percentage is higher than your
representation, being the only woman in your group. The Russian men, at the
lunch table roared with laughter. I had
carried the day for our side.
I
learned that Soviet Russian scientists believed in their political system and
were politically contentious.
Ref; Wikipedia,
org/wiki/Dawon Kahng; and US 3,500,142A
Willam
Shockley ~1973 (Bipolar Transistor Inventor, Nobel Laurate)
Wiliam
Shockley famously published an early description for a bipolar transistor while
at Bell Labs. For this he won a Nobel Prize in 1956. He had left Bell and then failed to manage
his own semiconductor business. Later he was a Stanford professor and a
consultant to Bell Labs. George Smith
suggested and arranged a meeting for me with Shockley to discuss my research on
gettered impurities that I had recently published at the 1973 Ion Implantation
Research Symposium at IBM.
I was
introduced and then we were left alone. Shockley had published, with
Goetzberger, that the gettering of unwanted impurities was due to the
“Phosphorus Glass,” but my research showed the gettered impurities were 99% in
the out-diffused phosphorus doped silicon and only a trace amount was the phosphorus
glass. After about 15 minutes, where I described my experimental results,
Shockley said, “Ok, I understand all this, why are we here?” When I cited his paper with Goetznberger, he
said, “Oh, I remember that, we were just guessing, but you have data, so you
can reference our paper or not. Let’s go to lunch.”
At lunch, I
learned that Shockley was an avid stamp collector. The US Post office had
recently issued commemorative stamps (1973) on the progress in Electronics. I
suggested sending him some self-addressed envelopes with the “Electronics”
commemorative stamps; he could sign his name and address in the upper left of
the envelope and mail them back to me. Such envelopes would be valued by
serious Philatelists. When he visited the Labs again a few months later, he
stopped me in the cafeteria and said, “Hey Tom, you never sent me those stamped
envelopes, please do that!” But, this
never happened.
I learned
it was regrettable to miss an opportunity to continue a relationship with a
famous person.
Ref: https://www.nobelprize.org/uploads/2018/06/shockley-lecture.pdf
Ginny
Cochrane - 1973 (Skiing Family Pioneer)
It was a
family skiing vacation in Vermont. We were taking beginner group lessons, and
my family had taken seats on the lift ahead of me. I was joined by an unknown
woman wearing a red jacket with an American flag on her sleeve. The scope of
our conversation: “I’m here with my family from New Jersey; my wife and 3 kids
are on lift seats ahead.” The woman in a red jacket: “I live here in Vermont
and started our kids skiing at an early age. …they love it … It’s a great
sport.”
Getting off
the lift, our ski instructor rapidly skied up to me, and excitedly exclaimed,
“Do you know who that was? it was Ginny Cochrane! and her kids are Olympic
champions.” Later, halfway down the hill, our instructor stopped our lesson.
Ginny Cochrane was coming at high speed, beautifully un-weighting and about to
ski past us. Then, right in front of us, she goes airborne and gracefully lands
with perfect controlled compression. It
was seeing how beautifully this can be done.
After her
sons’ medals, Ginny’s daughter, Barbara Ann won gold at Sapporo in 1972 and
grandson, Ryan won a silver at Cortina in 2026, multi-generational Olympic
champions.
What was
noteworthy: Ginny never told me her boys already medaled as Olympians. It was more important to her to share the experience
that she started them skiing at an early age. The other thought is that
competition at the Olympic level is very, very close. The difference in women’s
downhill between gold and 8th place at Cortina in 2026 was just 1
second out of a winning run time of 96 seconds. Winning at this level is both
special and lucky. Whatever her special
personality might have been, her interest in skiing has proceeded through 3
family generations at the highest level.
Ginny
taught me that fame itself is not more important than creating the conditions
for fame.
Ref: wikipedia.org/wiki/Skiing_Cochrans
WWII
Fighter Pilots - June 1974
In early
spring of 1974, I was bottom painting my sailboat at our summer house in
Barnegat, NJ. A neighbor approached and asked, “Can you take my cousin John
sailing? He’s an avid sailor from England and will be visiting me in June.
“Sure,” I offered, “when he comes, just let me know.” In the first week of
June, John arrived. I asked him to meet at the local Marina, which he did.
Just before
pushing off, I noticed my friend Jake Jacobs working on his boat in the
neighboring slip. I had crewed with him on his Hunter a few weeks earlier in a
race and “owed” him. “Jake, come out with us today,” I insisted, and he
eventually obliged after several refusals. It was an incredible blue-sky
sailing day with 15 knot southerly winds. We easily made it to the inlet near Barnegat
Light House and anchored up for lunch, drinks and a swim.
Once
anchored, John asked, “Jake what did you do in your former life?” Jake, rather
proudly proclaimed “I was a Messerschmidt pilot in WWII.” Then, John with a
slightly more intensive English accent said, “That’s very interesting, I was a
RAF-Hurricane pilot in WWII.” There was a measured pause, as if they might be
considering how to continue this conversation. Then Jake continued first, “I
flew over Normandy, made a quick strafing run and was really scared.” John
countered, “that was my mission as well, I couldn’t get my strafing run done
fast enough and was never so scared as on that day.
I shoved
open beers into their hands and suggested we all go for a swim and then head
back to the Marina. I do not recall any further conversation about WWII.
Interestingly
John’s flight was one of about 10,000 allied flights made on D-day itself, and there
is only a record of only 3 German flights that day. I suspect Jake made his
flight a day or so after D-day as the battle for Normandy lasted a few days.
Our sailing event was 30 years to the week from D-Day. Two opposing fighter pilots recalled the
event, in a chance meeting, and shared their role at a most significant event
of WWII.
What I
learned from this unusual encounter is that serendipity has no limits. Just be
open to engaging and then unusual things can happen. I am still puzzled by the
meaning of this meeting; some might call it a “God Wink.”
Ref:
“Allied Tactical Airpower in the Summer, Fall of 1944,” National WWII Museum,
New Orleans. Note: In fact-checking air
activities at Normandy, there were no Hawker Hurricanes, but only Hawker
Typhoons. John may have used the Hurricane name as it was prominent in British
consciousness, well known for attacking German bombers in the Battle of
Britain.
William
Shatner -1979 (Actor, well known for Captain Kirk role in Star Trek)
William
Shatner was on site at Bell Laboratories in Murray Hill, NJ to film a several
minute TV advertisements for ATT. He had
specifically asked for lunch with a “Member of the Technical Staff,” not a
manager and in a private area, explicitly not in a public cafeteria. It was his
wish to avoid an autograph rush. It was a time when he was dealing with the
“Trekkies.” I was assigned to have a one-on-one lunch with him.
I went to a
small conference room in the executive wing and took a seat at a square table
to Shatner’s left. During lunch he
wanted to know what Bell Labs Mathematicians did. I did NOT know. I offered
that they wrote code and developed computer languages like C.
Actually,
they were central to the transformation from audio to digital communication of
telephone speech. I had contributed to
developing Analogue-to-Digital and Digital-to-Analogue IC chips.
Touch-tone phones replaced rotary dialing in the mid 1970’s.
Mathematicians
at Bell Labs earlier fundamentally shaped modern technology by inventing
information theory. Key contributions included:
- Information Theory: Claude Shannon established
the basis for digital communication, defining how to measure and
transmittion.
- Operations Research: Researchers pioneered
methods for scheduling, bin packing, and dynamic storage allocation,
including amortized analysis.
- Computing Pioneer: George Stibitz built
early relay-based computers in the late 1930s to automate complex
telephone network calculations.
About 45,
minutes into lunch, an assistant appeared and said, “I hate to break this up,
Mr. Shatner, but I have to get you ready for the filming” At which time Shatner
rose and put on a jacket. He also noticeably changed his posture. When sitting at
lunch, he was just another person, but when he stood up and put his working
jacket on, he transformed to “Captain Kirk” right before my eyes.
His filming
was done in the entry area leading to the Integrated Circuits development
facility. His three short “takes” were perfect and although an hour was
planned, he was done in 20 minutes, even with repeat takes.
I
approached and asked, “Would he be ok for a single autograph to commemorate the
event?” He briefly discussed this with his director and agreed. I found a young
blonde technician I did not know, and she brought him the pen and paper for his
signature. She was frozen. Shatner laughed, pulled the pen from her hand and
made the autograph.
Then there
was a transformation. No one told the working staff that there would be just
one autograph (this was my bad). At least a dozen people queued up for an
autograph. The IC Fab manager cleared the area, and the fab workers transformed
to Captain Kirk fans left disappointed. One exclaimed… “Please Mr. Shatner,
just one for my son.” Shatner exclaimed to his director associate, “I told you
so!”
So, this
was an experience in controlling the appetite of fans for famous people.
Shatner was exceptional in his acting performance and his interest in what
mathematicians did at Bell Labs. It was a working day. He did not come to do
autographs.
I
learned that famous people have limits regarding engaging with the public, and
they set guard rails, but also Shatner was genuinely interested in learning
what Bell Labs mathematicians contributed. It was a very good question.
Ref. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Shatner
Angie
Dickenson -1984 (Actress, well known for her role in Police Woman)
I was going
to San Diego for a conference on Defects in Semiconductors and decided to go
thru LA for the closing day of the 1984 Summer Olympics. I had enough extra
cash to buy a commemorative gold coin or perhaps pay a scalpers price to get
inside for the closing ceremonies.
First, I
wanted to collect some inexpensive “Olympic pins” that were available in the
park in front of the main entrance to the Colosseum. I was looking at a board
of pins. Then only inches from me a good-looking woman appeared who also was
looking for pin memorabilia. We started to chat… “who were you getting these
for, etc.” then a different woman with a camera approached and asked her,
“excuse me, are you Angie Dickenson? “
“Yes, I
am,” the answer came back. I was simply dumbstruck. Then the photographer in a
forceful tone said to me, “would you move over so I can get Miss Dickenson’s
picture?” Before anything else happened,
Dickenson took over and said, “If you are going to take my picture, you can
take it with this guy as well, we’ll sit on that park bench over there.”
A photo was
taken and Dickenson went off toward the Colosseum, asking me if I was
attending. She said if I got the photo to send it to her in care of the Johnny
Carson show.
At the
Olympics that day, I did not go inside, but bought a gold commemorative coin
-later gave it to my grandson at my 50th wedding anniversary celebration- it
was a good investment ($300 in 1984, is ~$5000 in 2026). I did not go inside
the Colosseum but watched marathon runners enter the stadium late in the day.
Six months later I received the photo, but never sent it on to Dickenson thru
Carson.
I
learned that a movie star has a way of interacting with the public that is
sensitive to their feelings. Dickenson was not more important than me.
Ref:
.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angie_Dickinson
Jack
Kilby -1984 (Integrated Circuit Inventor and Nobelist)
George
Smith called me into his office and asked if I would participate in a Foreign
Assessment Science Information Corp (FASIC) study for DARPA on the status of
microelectronics in the Soviet Union. A committee of experts would meet to
share their opinions in Washington, chaired by Jack Kilby, the inventor of the
Integrated Circuit at Texas Instruments.
The
methodology was to have experts in various technology areas assess the Soviet
capability, by only reading their published literature. I would address Ion
Implantation. I was provided a few hundred hard copies of translated Russian
technical articles on Ion Implantation. George himself accepted an assessment
of Lithography.
A month
later, we met in Washington and I did a 5-slide presentation of my assessment
in front of our Kilby Committee, which concluded that there was ion implant
equipment and capabilities in the Soviet Union like that in the west. Their
“Vesuvius” implanter had energy and current like in the west at the time.
Considerable annealing characterization was already done. Devices, like
self-aligned MOSFETS could be made knowing the annealing conditions to use.
However, there
were no Transmission Electron Microscopy reports of residual extended defect
structures. Therefore, as the assessment for removal of this kind of extended
damage was limited, it was unlikely that they were well positioned -at that
time- to scale down feature sizes with high yield.
After our
committee had a one-day preparatory meeting, the next day we met with a DARPA
audience. Kilby introduced each speaker and their topic, for me saying “Tom, will
you do Ion Implant?” There were no questions on my topic from DARPA.
This
experience led me to understand that intelligence in the hands of an important
national organization like DARPA is not accidental. One must be proactive and
the idea of assessing the literature of one’s competitors is a standard
methodology.
Ref:
wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Kilby, and "Miniaturized Electronic
Circuits," February 6, 1959. U.S. Patent 3,138,743,
Buzz
Aldrin -1986 (Second man to walk on the moon)
My Admin
assistant, Kay Alexander, came into my office in San Diego and announced that
Buzz Aldrin would be giving a seminar at UC Irvine. Aldrin was the second
person to set foot on the moon and had accompanied Neil Armstrong on the 1969
Apollo flight. Kay asked, “Did I want to go?”
Yes, and I was provided with tickets. My wife and I sat in the first row
in a surprisingly small conference room with an audience of about 50.
Aldrin was
impressive. He passionately promoted moon and interplanetary exploration, using
his concept of “transporter travel,” also named “The Mars Cycler”or the “Aldrin
Cycler.” This concept places a relatively large space vehicle in orbit between
earth and Mars (or the moon) where gravity provides the energy to perpetually
maintain it in orbit. A smaller space vehicle brings astronauts and supplies to
(and from) the Cycler, and they make the trip(s) to mars or the moon.
I always
thought this was a brilliant concept but has not been implemented to date
because of the upfront expense and other NASA priorities.
Aldrin’s
life has been exceptional. He was a Korean war fighter pilot with 2 MIGs shot
down, an MIT Astrophysics PhD, the NASA pilot-astronaut on Apollo 11, second
person to walk on the moon and most photographed there (Neil Armstrong had the
camera most of the time), and numerous post Apollo 11 achievements.
I
learned that in the future, the “Aldrin Cycler” or a version of it will be used
for continuing missions to the Moon and Mars. There’s no obvious better way to
take all the supplies needed to sustain such a remote, long-term mission.
Ref:
wikipedia.org/wiki/Buzz_Aldrin and "Cycler Orbit Between Earth and Mars,”
D. V. Byrnes, J, M, Longuski and B. Aldrin, J. Spacecraft and Rockets, Vol. 30,
3, pp 334-336, June 1 1993.
Robert
Noyce -1988 (Intel Co-founder and Integrated Circuit Inventor)
In 1988,
Rober Noyce, co-founder of Intel, took a leave of absence from Intel to be CEO
of SEMATECH (ST), a US consortium composed 14 of US semiconductor chip making
companies. The mission was to restore US semiconductor market share, which at
the time was dominated by Japanese DRAM memory chip producers.
At an early
staff meeting, Noyce stated his strategy. It was going to be to provide
improved US equipment. It was remarked that “supply chains win wars.” At that
staff meeting, Noyce asked the staff “How would we manage the strategy? After a
short pause, I suggested we could have departments, that I named “Thrusts,” for
each kind of specialized equipment, such as Lithography, Deposition, Etch,
Metrology and the like, with member company experts leading each Thrust.
Noyce
immediately said, “Ok, that’s what we will do.” (It was as if Eisenhower famously had just
said “Let’s Go.”) Both the strategy and
management structure were defined in about 10 minutes at one of Noyce’s first
Staff Meetings at SEMATECH. About a week later, the Joint Development Projects
(JDP), Equipment Improvement Projects (EIP) and ST Fab Equipment Development
(SIP) groups were formed. I was placed in charge of the JDP’s with an annual
budget of $80M and a staff of about 100.
Later
before a different staff meeting, Noyce commented that my writing implied more
than an engineer’s training and asked where my writing skill was developed. He
said he also had an undergraduate liberal arts component to his education and
then asked me to draft and issue the weekly staff meeting notes. That was a
powerful assignment.
One of
Noyce’s concepts for US Lithography was ST’s investment in GCA company to
populate multiple ST company fabs. This EIP project went well, but the DUV
248nm was late on the lens qualification and AMD and IBM pushed for leading
Lithography to be developed by ASML, supported by Zeiss and that became the now
famous Dutch Litho company. Noyce Passed unexpectedly in 1990 at age 63.
I
learned that Noyce (like Boyle) was interested in more information about those
he chose to mentor.
Ref:
.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Noyce, and U.S. Patent. 2,981,877 for a
"Semiconductor Device-and-Lead Structure," April 25, 1961. His
internal wiring allowed practical mass production that powered modern
microelectronics.
Joe
Parkenson -1990 (Co-Founder of Micron)
Joe and his
twin brother Ward founded a leading US memory semiconductor company, “Micron.”
Joe was on SEMATECH’s board of directors when Noyce passed away. He appeared at
my office about a month later and asked if I was interested in replacing Noyce.
I had presented to the SEMATECH board a few times at that point and felt that I
had not gained their highest confidence. I responded that I would be honored to
serve but said I did not think I had yet gained the confidence of the SEMATECH
board to be CEO, but Joe “would let me know if it would fly.”
I did not
hear back from him on this question, and he continued as a leading person at
Micron. Interestingly, Motorola and IBM, two US semi leaders at the time sold
their businesses and TI outsourced much manufacturing to TSMC. Micron left
SEMATECH and survived decade after decade, using low-cost production
strategies, like buying used equipment and improving both used and new
equipment using their own engineering. Today they are the pre-eminent
vertically integrated DRAM memory supplier. They have the leading-edge 3D
stacked memory design and are considered an essential supplier for the AI
buildout.
I
learned Joe would consider all options for the management of SEMATECH after
Noyce died and it was flattering to be considered for Noyce’s replacement.
Ref.
wikipedia.org/wiki/Micron_Technology
Tadhiro
Ohmi 1992 (Tohoku University Professor, founder of the Ultra Clean Society)
Professor
Ohmi and I had given back-to-back keynote presentations at MITI’s Global Partnership
Conference ISSMT 92. Then, during the period when SEMATECH was considering
international membership participation, Ohmi visited SEMATECH promoting his
concept of the value of ultraclean equipment and “perfect” factory processes.
At lunch, I
told him he might be providing a value to SEMATECH and the semiconductor
industry at large that was similar to that Demming contributed to post war
Japan’s adoption of quality processes. That initiated Japan’s emergence as a
premier manufacturing nation.
In a few
weeks, I received an invitation to take a sabbatical at Sendai’s Tohoku
University. As interesting as this career diversion might have been, after a
discussion with my CEO Bill Spencer, I politely declined. Nonetheless, Ohmi’ s
initiatives did indeed promote higher semiconductor manufacturing yields, and
the industry progressed thru many generations due in no small part to “Ohmi’s
Rules.”
I
learned that a flattering, but true comment, will result in a positive
response.
Ref: https://www.semiconductor-digest.com/omhi-kept-us-ultra-clean/
”
Bill
Bradley ~1993 (pro Basketball Player and US Senator)
I was
waiting on standby for a seat on a United flight from SFO to Washington DC. I
thought I recognized Senator Bill Bradley getting on first class. Eventually, I
was directed to first class and had the seat inside him. He rose to allow me to
enter my seat inside his. A few moments after seating and before takeoff, I
asked, “Excuse me, but are you “Dollar Bill?”
This was his nickname from basketball fame. With a very disappointed
look on his face, he said, “Yes, I am” and then stood up, took out a thick
sheath of papers from his briefcase and stuffed them into his seat pocket. As
if to say… “I’ll be working and DON’T YOU DARE TALK TO ME. I did not talk to him until about 20 minutes
before landing.
I mentioned
my tenure at SEMATECH, how it was funded by DARPA and enabled equipment
suppliers for the US Semi-industry. He seemed interested, asking “how did that
work?” I went through a few things. Near
the end of the trip, I mentioned the Consortium concept could be applied to any
US industry, for example auto manufacturing. He seemed interested. Bradley left
politics a few years later and pretty much disappeared from public life. He was
talented, charismatic, and impressive.
I
learned that, at the right time and conditions, he was approachable by a
stranger.
- Refs:
wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Bradley, and Bradley, Bill The New
American Story (Random House, 2007) ISBN 978-1400065073,
and Bradley, Bill, We Can All Do Better (Vanguard Press,
2012) ISBN 978-1593157296.
Edward
Teller – 1995 (H-Bomb Inventor and Nobelist)
We had just
attended a WWII 50th year celebration in Fredericksburg, TX.
Memories include a 4-year-old girl saluting a passing American flag and Pearl
Harbor veterans driven in a open truck. A single P51 - at a few hundred feet altitude
- flew down above the main street. In the newspaper, it was mentioned that
Edward Teller (father-inventor of the H-bomb) would be speaking in San Antonio
in a few days. We went to that event. Teller was one of 5 people on a panel who
spoke about the development and use of the Atomic Bomb. After the
presentations, Teller was alone on the stage. I went to speak to him before he
got up and asked him directly, “What was your opinion about how the A-Bomb could
have been used? He said” “It could have been done differently.” I repeated my
question, asking “but what was your position on how it should be
used? He repeated exactly the same
thing… “It could have been done differently.”
This
response obviously was something he had used before. It was a safe answer, it
did not take a particular position on the bomb use, but it implied he favored a
use that did not kill so many people.
I must say,
it was a thrill to speak with him, such a famous person and the co-designer of
the H-bomb. He had created a mechanism capable of destroying mankind. That was
big stuff. Today, five countries have H-bomb arsenals. The United States and
Russia each maintain about a thousand of atomic weapons, and most are the
H-bomb type; the United Kingdom, France, and India also have them, while Israel
and North Korea likely have that capability. The closest the world came to actual
H-bomb use was during the Cuban Missile Crisis between the United States and
the Soviet Union around 1965.
I
learned that a position on a contentious issue could be consistently deflected.
Refs:
wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Teller, and see his complex engagement in the H-bomb
design.
Tuomo
Suntola ~1996 (Material Scientist and Atomic Layer Deposition Inventor)
Suntola had
visited SEMATECH during a US tour to promote Atomic Layer Deposition (ALD) at a
time when it was not even on the Industry’s Semiconductor Technology RoadMap. I
knew this technology’s time had come for memory and gate dielectrics on high
aspect ratio devices. I then joined Genus, a semiconductor equipment company in
Sunnyvale, CA with products in CVD and Ion Implantation. Also, the Suntola
original patents had expired, so it seemed reasonable to develop advanced
equipment that could be accepted and used by the current major High-Volume
Manufacturers, HVM.
I made a
trip to Helsinki and invited Suntola to partner with Genus, whose tungsten CVD
equipment was already sold to semiconductor HVM community. Suntola was a
gracious host, showing some ALD equipment and systems that were used at the
Helsinki airport. He recognized that the ASM company was a better partner
(European location and reputation) for bringing the ALD technology to the
semiconductor HVM.
However,
Genus independently developed its own ALD equipment, differentiating it by maintaining
constant pressure during chemical precursor exposure and removal cycles. When
ASM sued Genus for patent infringement, the suit failed because of Genus’s
iso-pressure manifold. Many companies provide ALD systems today, and ASM has a
leading position..
I
learned that it is hard to keep complete ownership of a technology, even if one
is a pioneer of that technology.
- Refs
wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuomo_Suntola, and US 4,058,430, US 4,413,022, and T.
Suntola, "Atomic Layer Epitaxy", Tech. Digest of ICVGE-5, San
Diego, 1981
Gordon
Moore -1997 (Intel Co-founder and driver of Moore’s Law)
I was
invited to Bell Lab’s 50th Anniversary of the celebration of the
invention of the transistor. I was one
of only a few invited who were not retired senior executives. Walter Brown, a
department head and researcher in particle physics put me on the invitation
list. It was a 2-day event. The first day was full of presentations about the
discovery and development of the bipolar transistor. Central to these
presentations was the importance of Silicon versus Germanium. The original
operation of a silicon transistor at boiling water temperatures was illustrated
against Germanium.
A fine
dinner with speeches capped the first evening. All events, including lab tours
were completed with a cocktail party being held at the end of the second
day. I was standing on the perimeter of
the cocktail gathering and noticed that Gordon Moore was standing by himself. No
one was talking to him. Can you imagine that? I thought. I approached and
introduced myself, saying I had been on Noyce’s staff at SEMATECH. Noyce and
Moore had founded Intel, although Noyce had died unexpectedly in 1992. In 1997,
I was with Genus and their High Energy Ion Implant tools were selling well.
However, Intel had not bought any. I started to market the Genus MeV Ion
Implant tool to Gordon Moore. Once he got the idea, he politely thanked me and
said he would pass the information onto the Intel staff.
It is worth
mentioning that Gordon Moore was a driver of the Semiconductor Industry
Roadmaps that appeared circa the 1990’s and later. He sent letters to many
industry participants with a personally signed letter, requesting Roadmaps
development that covered the industry’s needs for the next 15 tears.
As
accomplished and famous as Gordon Moore was, in late life he still learning and
he accommodated a stranger’s approach.
Refs: wikipedia.org/wiki/Gordon_Moore,
and "Cramming More Components onto Integrated
Circuits". Electronics Magazine. 38 (8): 114–117,
April 1965.
Judy
Woodruff – 2016 (PBS Anchor News Reporter)
My wife,
Jeanne and I went to a Hillary Clinton rally in Daytona, FL. It was an overflow
crowd, but we waited in a long line, about a block long. Walking along this
line was a familiar-looking person. I am not usually good a recognizing people,
but I quickly recognized Judy Woodruff, …the news anchor woman from PBS…
I
exclaimed… “Hey you are Judy Woodruff, aren’t you? We watch you almost every
night… she stopped and I asked her for a selfie with me. She obliged.
I had not
done selfies much and was so excited that I took a photo of my shoulder and did
not get her face in the photo.
We got into
the rally as one of the last allowed in. The crowd was excited and very noisy.
I
learned that Woodruff allowed herself to be inclusive with the public.
Refs:
wikipedia.org/wiki/Judy_Woodruff, and Judy Woodruff's goodbye message to viewers…".
PBS. Archived from the original on
December 31, 2022
CV
Thomas E.
Seidel
14 River Point Drive, Palm Coast FL, 32137
408 309 9571, zoomtotom@gmail.com
Thomas
(Tom) E. Seidel is a semiconductor process technologist, with a 50+ year
career, and service at Bell Laboratories, J.C. Schumacher (Air Products),
UC-Santa Barbara, SEMATECH, and Genus (AIXTRON). Currently, he is a Research
Affiliate at MIT, a Prof. of Practice at U of FL and consults under the name
Seitek50.
Tom
received a PhD. in physics from Stevens Institute of Technology
(1965), a BS in Electronic-physics at St. Joseph’s University (1957) and a MS
in physics at the U of Notre Dame (1959).
He joined Bell
Laboratories in 1965 and characterized the silicon hole velocity at high
electric fields for microwave source avalanche diode development.1,
P1 He then was a charter member of Bell Labs’ ion implantation group,
characterizing implanted boron dopant activation rate (“Seidel Kinetics”),2
gettering,3 integrated on-chip resistors,4 P2 bipolar
and MOS transistors. In 1977, he held a teaching-research sabbatical at
Cal-Tech.5 The above was the basis for the tutorial chapter “Ion
Implantation,” published in “VLSI Technology.” 6 In the
early 1980’s, he led a tech-transfer group for AT&T’s first CMOS
manufacture, improving yield on 2-micron designs. In the mid 80’s he advanced
rapid thermal annealing technology for ultra-shallow junctions,7 and
lectured for the Material Research Society and was co-editor of MRS Symposium
Proceedings.8 He received Bell’s “Distinguished Member of the
Technical Staff Award” in 1984.
In 1985, he
joined J.C. Schumacher Co. as VP of technology for silicon
characterization and participated in its acquisition by Air Products. In 1987,
he was Head of Microelectronics, at NSF’s Center for Robotic Systems in Microelectronics
at the UC-Santa Barbara.9 Concurrently, he
consulted for Linear Technology, Hughes Research, Sandia, TRW, Bell Labs and
Air Products.
Tom joined SEMATECH,
a consortium for advancing US semiconductor manufacturing in 1988. Initially a
Fellow, he proposed an organization made up of “thrusts” such as Lithography,
Metrology, Deposition, Etch, etc. He managed SEMATECH’s Joint Development
Programs, with a budget of $80M/yr for 0.5um and 0.35um demonstrations. Some
development tools used CRADAs, and he testified before the US Congress to
expedite government signoffs. These activities took place while Tom was on CEO
Robert Noyce’s Directors Staff, until Noyce’s untimely death in 1990. Later,
Tom was Director of Strategic Technology (1991-95), responsible for initiation
of advanced programs such as Dual Damascene and LoK,P3 SOI and early
300mm wafer quality proof of concept. He also managed the liaison with
university programs and contributed to the early Semiconductor Industry Roadmap
at the “Overall Characteristics” level., 10,11 In 1993, he presented a programmatic plan for SEMATECH’s second 5
years to the Board of Directors, which was accepted.
In 1996, he
joined Genus Inc. as CTO with responsibility for technical direction of
CVD and Ion Implant businesses. He promoted the use of Atomic Layer Deposition
(ALD) when it was a nascent market 12,13 and co-authored fourteen
ALD based patents,.e.g.P4 Genus’ ALD tools, using an iso-pressure
purge flow manifold, were sold in the semiconductor and data storage segments.
Genus merged with AIXTRON in 2005, and Tom continued as CTO of the Silicon
Semiconductor business unit until retiring in May 2008.
Tom has
over 100 publications and 29 US patents. He is a senior member of IEEE and has
been a member of the MRS, ECS, and AVS-ALD organizations, and the VLSI
Technology Symposium Committees. He has chaired Sandia’s External Peer
Technical Review Committee.
Selected US
Patents
P1:
3,466,512 “Impact avalanche
transit time diode with heterojunction”
P2:
3,965,453 “Piezoresistive Effects in
Semiconductor Resistors”
P3:
6,100,184 “Method of making a dual
damascene interconnect structure using low dielectric constant material for an
inter-level dielectric layer”
P4:
7,981,473 “Transient
enhanced atomic layer deposition”
P5:
10,923,359 “Angle Directed Ion Beam Assisted Atomic Layer
Etch Processes for localized deposition
on non-planar surfaces.”
Selected
Publications
- T. E. Seidel and D. L. Scharfetter, A
High-Power Double Drift IMPATT Solid Source, Proceedings of the IEEE (Vol.
58, Issue 7, pp. 1135–1136). July 1970
- T. E. Seidel and A. U. MacRae, The
Isothermal (Kinetic) Annealing of Boron Implanted Silicon,” “Radiation Effects (Gordon and Breach)
7, 1-6, 1971.
- T. E. Seidel and W. C. Gibson, “Buried
Guarded Layer Ion Implanted Resistor,” Proceedings of the IEEE
Transactions on Electron Devices 20, (8); p744-748
- R. L. Meek and T. E. Seidel, “Enhanced
Solubility and Ion Pairing of Cu and Au in Heavily Doped Silicon at High
Temperatures,” J. Phys. Chem. Solids, 36, p731, 1975.
- W. Tseng, T. Koji, J. W. Mayer and T. E.
Seidel, “Simultaneous Gettering of Au in Si by Phosphorus and
Dislocations,” Applied Physics Letters, 33, (5) 1, p442, 1978.
- T. E. Seidel, “Ion Implantation” in “VLSI
Technology,” 1st edition, Ed. S. M. Sze, McGraw Hill, ISBN:
0-07-062686-3, 1983
- T. E. Seidel, “Rapid Thermal Processing of
Semiconductors”, Encyclopedia of Materials Science and Engineering, MIT,
Pergamon Press, p 1223-1228, 198.
- T. E. Seidel, MRS Symposia Proceedings:
Rapid Thermal Processing, 1985 Vol 52, Rapid Thermal Annealing/ Chemical
Vapor Depositing and Integrated Processing, 1989 Vol 146
- D. Chen, T. Seidel and S. Hackwood,
“system. Vac. Sci. Technol. A 7, 3105–3111, 1989.
- T. E. Seidel, “SIA Roadmap and
Semiconductor Materials Requirements,” MRS Symposium Proceedings: Vol 318.
- W.
Spencer, T. Seidel,
“National Technology Roadmaps: the U.S. Semiconductor Experience,” Proc.
of 4th Internat. Conf. on Solid-State and IC Technology. Oct 24, 1995
- O. Sneh, R. B. Clark-Phelps, A. R.
Londergan, J. Winkler and T. E. Seidel, “Thin Film Atomic Layer Deposition
Equipment for Semiconductor Processing” Thin Solid Films, 402/1-2,
p248, Jan 2002.
- T. E. Seidel, “Atomic Layer Deposition,”
Handbook of Semiconductor Manufacturing Technology, 2nd
Edition, Eds. Doering and Nishi, CRC Press, ISBN-13: 978-1-5744-675-3,
2008.
- T. E. Seidel, A. Goldberg, M. D. Halls, M.
I. Current, “Simulation of
nucleation and growth of atomic layer deposition phosphorus for doping of
advanced FinFETs,” J. Vac. Sci. Tech. A34(1), 01A150, 2016.
- A. U. Mane, A. Goldberg, T. E. Seidel, M.
D. Halls, M.I. Current, J. Despres, O. Byl, Y. Tang, J. Sweeney and J.
Elam, "Atomic layer disposition of boron-containing films using B2F4,”
J. Vac. Sci. Technol. A34(1), 01A132., 2016
- T. E. Seidel and Michael I. Current,
“Limited dose and angle-directed beam ALE and ALD processes for localized
film coatings on 3D sidewall structures.” J.Vac Soc. Technol. A 38,
022602, doi: 10.1116/1.5133953. 2020.
Youthful
Learnings
1941-45 was
the WW2 war era. As a single child, age 6 to 10. I was raised by my
grandparents and given high play time. I had space and a time limit and then
was set free. I was a natural experimentalist. The news of the war also
influenced my playtime imagination. Before any formal exposure to physics or
chemistry, I had experienced a few things in nature by self-learning.
Going to
school on a local train, I picked rocks from the train bed, put them in my
school bag and practiced “bombing” a creek from an open train window. Due to
the train’s motion, my first attempts failed. The “grenade-rocks” landed well
beyond the target. At age 6, I was
familiar with the concept of “a projectile’s initial velocity.”
A year
later, seated near a school window in winter, I noticed snowflakes landing on
the windowsill, saw their star shape, and watched them melt. Structured matter
and change of state were “in-play.”
There were
stories of rescued pilots in the Pacific, and how they used mirrors to signal
their position to a rescue plane. So, I practiced this, using a mirror to flash
the reflected sun on different places and saw that it was feasible to track a
moving airplane. Optics were “in- play.”
I would
often call a stray dog, yelling “Ya, ya, did da de dee.” The sound echoed off
the nearby hills and came back to my delight. An approaching train whistle and
a doppler effect were also noticed. Acoustics were “in-play.”
I watched
my grandparents play Auction Pinochle cards. One summer day, a thunderstorm
approached. A yellow-orange ball of
flame, about the size of a watermelon, came right through an open window. It was a slowly rotating ball, moving at
about 5 feet per second, heading directly for my grandfather’s back! A few feet
from him, it simply disappeared. I saw a rarely observed “ball lightning,” an
excited gas plasma state in nature.
In high
school, a classmate (Henry Gerstenberg - later an EE and a NIST careerist)
introduced me to the Radio Amateur hobby. Learning the amplification
characteristics of a vacuum triode tube was a good foundation for transistors,
electronic physics and ultimately Integrated Circuits
|
|
|
Acquaintances, Friends, Colleagues, Co-authors,
Managers… |
H. Gerstenberg, A. Bur, W. Neal, J. Merz, H. Meissner, I.
Kudman, T. Kinsel, L. Vieland, E. F. Hockings, C. M. Schmelz, E. F. Steigmeier,
A. Wickland, J. Gittleman, B. Rosenbloom, B. Abeles, G. Cody
W. Boyle, G.E.
Smith B. DeLoach, D. L. Scharfetter,
R. A. Moline, A. U. MacRae, R. L. Meek, J. M. Poate, K. Pickar, J. North, L. C.
Parrillo, R.S. Payne, S. P. Murarka, W.L Brown, L. Feldman, T. Misawa, W. C. Gibson, G. Pasteur,
J. C. C. Tsai, R. E. Kerwin, A.G. Cullis, W. Tseng, T. Koji, R. L. Meek, M.
Shoji, D. Lischner, S. P. Murarka, M. Tischler, N. Crosbie, I. Manz, S. Shive,
E. Nicollian, G. Rozgonyi, S. M. Sze, D. Lischner, D. Maher, A. Sinha, C. W.
Pearce, R. Fair, S. Shatas, S. Prussin, W. T. Lynch, H. Levinstein, S.S. Lau,
C-S Pai, G. Celler, H.J.Leamy, D. Jacobson, J. S. Williams, W. Brinkman, J. W.
Mayer, J. Plummer
J. C.
Schumacher, D. Elwell, D. Roberts, J. Monkowski, E. Hu, D. Chen, S. Belenski,
S. Hackwood
R. Noyce,
T. Hasty, P. Mills, W. Spencer, W. George, S. Harrell, R. Stark, P.K Vasudev,
B. Zhao, P. Zeitzoff, M. TerBeek, R. Horwath, D. Paliga, D. Reed, K. Ericksen,
K. Herb, L. Novak, R. Manukonda, G. McMillan, G. Fuller, R. Clover, D.
Ranadive, D. Hartman, V. Menon, D.
Williams, F. Robertson, G. Feit, B. Kuyel, K. Levy, L. Larson, H. Huff, V.
Menon, A. Diebold, K. Lally, J. Canning, G. Escher, A. Tryba, P.K. Seidel, S.
Kudda, G. Fuller, J. Frank, R. Markle, P. Gabella, J. Hackenberg, K. Maxwell,
L. Jerde, K. Monnig, L. Larson, D. Ziger, K. Wilkes, S. Mittal, J. Stimmel, T.
Turner, F. Geyling. A. Oscilowski, D. Kyser, P. Gargani, J. Traub, D.
Deininger, W. Arnold, T. C. Smith, J. Meindl, R. Griffith, D. Rose, C. Barrett,
T. Ohmi.
W.L. Elder,
A. Londergan, C. Galewski, O. Sneh, R. B. Clark-Phelps, J. Winkler, S.
Ramanathan, K. Vu, S. Rassigia, R. Hiznay, J. Winkler, L. Matthysse, X. Liu, A.
Srivastava, E. Lee, M. Schumacher, S. Ramanathan, S.Q Wang, M. Daulesberg, J.
Lintner, Z. Karim, Y. Senzaki, J. Borland, W. Glime, R. Doering, Y. Nishi, M.
Gutsche, R. Gordon, S, George, T-J King Liu
M. I.
Current, A. Goldberg, M. D. Hall, A. U. Mane, J. Despres, O. Byl, Y. Tang, J.
Sweeney, J. Elam. L.C. Kimmerling, L. Rubin, K. Jones, R. Puurunen
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