1) Panel Discussion by Golden BBS TRIO
Panel discussion on the 25th anniversary commemoration of transistor invention
The Panel discussion on the 25th anniversary commemoration
of transistor invention was held at a hotel in New York City in March, 1973,
hosted by IEEE. The Panelists were “BBS TRIO” of Bell Telephone Laboratories
shown in the photograph.
From left to right,
W. Shockley Abundant ability & the leader of the colleagues.
J. Bardeen Theoretician & the youngest of them.
W. Brattain Experimental physicist & the oldest of them.
The theme of the discussion was "Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow of Transistor."
It was unusual that all of these 3 persons gathered at official meetings after
their winning of Nobel Prize in 1956. So, the meeting place, where seats for
about 300 people were prepared, was already occupied by an overcrowded audience
before the scheduled opening time.
One person from the audience questioned them, "The semiconductor industry
grew into a big industry. How much profit did you make out of it? "
Brattain answered, ‘’Patent reward to me from Bell Telephone Laboratories
was one dollar. But I have no problem. I am not attached to money anyway.
Bardeen followed him, "Me too. It was only one dollar," and the
audience burst into big laughter.
In contrast to them, Shockley kept silence. It probably was related to the
institution of Shockley Semiconductor Laboratories in 1955 on the west coast,
by which he aimed at commercialization of transistors. His venture unfortunately
failed in less than 2 years. However, the name is carved in the industry history,
as the first semiconductor enterprise in Silicon Valley.