The famous
words of Jorge Agustín Nicolás Ruiz de Santayana y Borrás (aka
George Santayana) immediately
came to mind when I saw this Bell Telephone Laboratories advertisement in a 1955
issue of Radio & Television News magazine: "Those who cannot remember
the past are condemned to repeat it." Anyone involved in the electronics field at
the beginning of the lead-free (Pb-Free) craze in the early 2000's probably remembers
the purportedly unexpected phenomenon of
tin whiskers growing
out of lead-free solder joints and wreaking havoc with the short circuits caused
when whiskers between adjacent elements made contact. The problem appeared with
closely spaced connector pins, fine pitch integrated circuit packages, high density
surface mount circuit board layouts, etc. Military and aerospace engineers and scientists
had fits initially trying to figure out what was going on. As it turns out, the
issue was known and dealt with half a century earlier. In the rush to reduce the
presence of lead by a miniscule fraction in the electronics industry, a huge problem
was created. Keep that in mind when you see that Pb-Free
RoHS symbol now so proudly displayed by vendors.
Bell Telephone Laboratories Ad
Whiskers on tin-plated steel, enlarged 6
times. Immense yield strength of metals in whisker form was discovered by Bell scientists.
The clue of the metal whiskers
The habit of close observation at Bell Laboratories often turns "tremendous trifles"
into important scientific progress. Such a case occurred when unexplained short
circuits in wave filters seemed to be associated with a zinc-plated mounting bracket.
Close scrutiny disclosed a whiskery growth on the zinc plating. Similar whiskers
of tin were found growing on tin-plated equipment. Studies showed the whiskers to
be tiny single crystals of metal.
Suspecting that these unusual crystals might be of essentially perfect structure,
alert Laboratories scientists saw an opportunity at last to test an important metallurgical
theory.
The scientists studied the whiskers, grew larger ones, and showed that the crystals
had enormously high yield strength as predicted by the theory for perfect crystals
- a strength far greater than for the same metal in any other known form. This clue
has opened new frontiers in the study of what makes metals strong or weak, and has
excited metallurgists all over the world.
Thus, another new advance has come out of the Bell Telephone Laboratories practice
of scrutinizing everything that can play a part in better telephone service. Through
the study of thousands of specially cultivated whiskers, Bell scientists seek to
prevent treacherous growths in telephone equipment.
Bell Telephone Laboratories
Improving Telephone Service for America Provides Careers for Creative Men in Scientific
and Technical Fields
Posted August 25, 2020
Bell Telephone
Laboratories Infomercials |
-
Key to a Crystal Gateway
- June 1949 Popular Science
-
Bell Telephone Laboratories - Time Domain Reflectometry - December 1948 Popular
Science
-
The Future Holds Great Promise - August 1949 Popular Science
-
Waveguide: 7/47 Popular Mechanics
-
Wire Wrapping - 10/1953 Popular Science
-
X-Rays, 4/60 Radio-electronics
- The Battle of
the Atoms, 4/1948 Radio News
-
The Transistor, 6/1952 Radio-Electronics
- 90-Mile Laboratory
for Telephone and Television, 6/1945 Radio News
-
Wire-Wrap, 10/53 Radio-Electronics
-
EDT Crystals, 10/47 Radio-Craft
- Germanium Refining,
5/54 Radio & TV News
- Crystal Timekeeping,
1/46 Radio News
- Transatlantic
Cable, 11/56 Radio & Television News
- Pipe Circuits,
11/48 Radio & Television News
-
Coaxial
Electron Tube, 6/54 Radio & Television News
- Thermocompression
Wire Bonding, 3/58 Radio News
-
Radio Relay Stations, 8/52 Radio & Television News
- Isolators,
6/56 Radio & Television News
- Punch
Cards, 3/55 Radio & Television News
-
Over-the-Horizon
Communications, 10/55 Radio & Television News
- Memory
Devices, 2/58 Radio & TV News
-
Adventure in Silicon, 5/55 Radio & Television News
- Pipes of Progress,
6/55 Radio & Television News
-
Project Echo, 11/60 Electronics World
|
-
Inertial Navigation - September 1960 Electronics World
-
Testing Phones - November 1947 Popular Science
-
Jacques Bernoulli, February 1960 Radio-Electronics
-
Type-O Carrier System, October 1952 Radio-Electronics
-
Electron Microscope, 4/1952 Radio-Electronics
-
Thermistor, 11/1946 Radio-Craft
-
Germanium Crystal, 1/1954 Radio-Electronics
-
Lens
Antenna, 5/46 Radio-Craft
- Quality Control, 6/46
Radio News Article
- Transcontinental
Radio-Relay, 10/51 Radio & TV News
- Solar
Battery, 7/54 Radio & Television News
-
Germanium Transistors, 1/54 Radio & Television News
- Cavity
Magnetron, 10/45 Radio News
-
The Cableman, 10/49 Radio & Television News
-
Coaxial Cable, 12/49 Radio & Television News
-
Tin
Whiskers, 12/55 Radio & Television News
- Relay
Contact Inspection, 7/55 Radio & Television News
- Transistor's
10th Anniversary, 6/58 Radio & Television News
-
Wire
Wrapping, 10/53 Radio & Television News
- Junction
Diode Amplifier, 11/58 Radio News
-
Nobel Prize Winners, 2/57 Radio & Television News
-
Diode Speeds Voices, 8/58 Popular Electronics
-
Microwave Relays, 7/59 Electronics World
|
|