Japanese Pioneers

Shingo Iwase was born in 1918. He graduated from the Department of Physics within the Faculty of Science at Tohoku Imperial University in 1945, and served as a research assistant at the same university. While at the Research Institute for Telecommunications of the Ministry of Telecommunications from 1950, he received a Doctorate of Science from Tohoku University in 1955. He became director of the Semiconductor Research Institute of Sanyo Electric Co., Ltd. in 1957, a director of Tokyo Sanyo Electric Co., Ltd. and general manager of their semiconductor factory in 1959, an executive managing director and general manager of the semiconductor division of the same company in 1977, a representative executive director and general manager of the semiconductor business group of Sanyo Electric Co., Ltd. in 1986. He retired as the representative executive director of the company in 1989 to be a corporate advisor, and became an honorary associate member of the company in 1994.

Iwase was first in Japan to confirm the amplifying effect of germanium-crystal-based transistors in October 1950. This was only eight months after the February launch of the Transistor Research Project by the Research Institute for Telecommunications of the Ministry of Telecommunications, and one year and eight months after Bell Laboratories announced the invention of the transistor. This achievement was his first as a project leader at the institute. The key to success was what he termed the forming treatment at the points of contact between the points of the needles and the body of germanium. This technique was the result of applying voltage stress over repeated measurements, and he made a tremendous effort over many days to achieve eventual success. He also developed Japan’s first alloy transistor in 1952 and exhibited a transistor radio in 1953. This was two years before Sony started selling transistor radios as consumer products. Clearly, he was far ahead of his time in this early period of Japan’s semiconductor industry. He moved to Sanyo Electric Co., Ltd. in 1957 to launch a semiconductor project for them, with Sanyo developing from there to become one of the biggest semiconductor businesses in Japan by the 1980s.