News Briefs
August 1966 Radio-Electronics

August 1966 Radio-Electronics [Table of Contents] Wax nostalgic about and learn from the history of early electronics. See articles from Radio-Electronics, published 1930-1988. All copyrights hereby acknowledged.

In a 1966 issue of Radio-Electronics magazine, several technological advancements were highlighted: A consulting economist suggested that booming color TV sales - requiring significant consumer spending - might be diverting funds from automobile purchases, potentially reducing car sales by an estimated 800,000 units that year. That brings to mind the old saying "Correlation does not imply causation," but maybe so in that case. RCA Laboratories had developed a practical vapor-phase growth technique for gallium arsenide crystals, enabling breakthroughs like room-temperature semiconductor lasers, high-frequency Gunn-effect microwave sources, and ultra-bright electroluminescent diodes. Philco introduced a visual tuning eye for color TVs, aiding precise channel adjustment on higher-end models. Finally, Westinghouse unveiled an open-air electron-beam welder, using a helium-shielded beam for precision welding without a vacuum chamber.

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News Briefs

Auto Sales Hurt by Color TV?

According to a New York consulting economist, the boom in color TV sales may be more responsible for any decline in auto sales than the belated discovery by prospective buyers that cars are not entirely safe. A typical color set, he says, costs about $500 or more. A car costs about $3,000 with an average $1,000 trade-in. Therefore a car requires about 4 times as much cash or credit as a color TV. This year about 3.2 million more color sets will be sold than in 1965. Thus, the TV industry could conceivably be responsible for affecting the sales of some 800,000 cars.

Gallium Arsenide Crystals Practical with New Technique

Dr. James Hillier, vice president of RCA Laboratories, has announced that for the first time a practical technology has been developed for the use of gallium arsenide alloys in semiconductor devices. This, he says, promises to be a third major technology complementing the earlier methods for making practical devices from germanium and silicon.

How the various elements are vaporized and flowed on the gallium substrate.

Methods that produce germanium and silicon crystals (such as alloying and diffusing) have given poor device results for gallium arsenide. As a result there has been little progress with that material. The work has been carried on for a number of years. The method is known as vapor phase growth and is carried in a vacuum. All the materials are prepared separately in gaseous form. They are then mixed and allowed to flow over a solid crystal of gallium or one of its alloys. The crystal is kept a little cooler than the gases so they condense on its surface. This forms a true extension of the crystal, differing from it only in that it contains the required impurities.

Experimental devices already produced by the new technology include:

The first semiconductor laser to generate physical light at room temperature.

A Gunn-effect microwave source that has operated at 40 GHz, the highest frequency yet achieved this way.

The brightest electroluminescent diodes yet developed.

An electro-optical modulator that can modulate a visible laser beam transversely at the rate of 100 million bits per second.

Experimental varactor diodes with the highest combination of cut-off frequency and voltage breakdown yet achieved.

New Electron-Beam Welder Now Works in Open Air

Electron-beam welding, previously possible only in a vacuum chamber, can now be carried out in free space with a new portable, out-of-vacuum electron beam welder developed by Westinghouse. Besides working in open air, the device has been designed so that the welding head can be brought to the work, a new feature in electron-beam welders. In the new welder, an extremely powerful beam of electrons is ejected into the air through a specially designed orifice system and then shielded from air by a cloak of lightweight helium molecules. The equipment uses 13 kW at 150,000 volts. The tube is pumped continuously to maintain internal vacuum. Electron-beam welding produces a joint with the minimum of heat, therefore welds made by the process weaken the metal less than any other type.

Philco Adds Tuning Eye to Color TV Receivers

The new Philco color TV line includes a visual tuning indicator, resembling those used on stereo sound receivers. Converging green light bars indicate when the set is tuned exactly to the correct point for best color. The tuning indicator appears on the top model of the 23-inch line, all the 25-inch receivers and combinations and on the 21-inch color sets above $489.