25) "Mesa-Type" Opened the Way to the Full-scale Transistor Era

 
Photo A: Dot-Mesa Transistor made by Hitachi Ltd.,


Photo B: Mainichi Shimbun reported Hitachi was awarded the Mainichi Industry Technology Award
for the Dot-Mesa transistor (Enlargeable)

The first transistor manufactured by diffusion technology was mesa-type. The cross section of the device is similar to a landscape of trapezoidal hills (mesa) often seen in Western movies. That's why it was named as mesa-type. This transistor was excellent in the high-frequency characteristics, operating at as fast as 500MHz, and then made a large contribution to the superior performance of Japanese radios and televisions.
This technology was developed by Bell Telephone Laboratories first and introduced to Japan in or about 1957. Combining this technology with the conventional alloy-type and grown-type one, "Alloy-diffusion type" and "Grown-diffusion type" respectively were developed and put into practical use by Matsushita Electronics Industry Corporation and by NEC respectively. Hitachi developed their original product called "Dot-mesa type" transistor and put it in the merchant market. In 1961 the production of transistors already surpassed that of electron tubes in terms of volume as well as amount, and that entirely owed to the mesa-type.
Photo A shows "Dot-mesa type" transistor developed in 1959 and mass-produced in 1961 by Hitachi, for which Hitachi was awarded the Mainichi Industrial Technology Award in 1963. Photo B shows the article in the Mainichi saying Hitachi established mass-production process of a high frequency transistor first in the world, thanks to easiness of controlling the position of electrode junction, which was highly appraised.
(Source: "20 Years History of Musashi Works" by Hitachi Ltd.,)

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