Mullard Limited was a British manufacturer of electronic components. The Mullard Radio Valve Co. Ltd. of

Southfields Southfields is a district of inner London located within the London Borough of Wandsworth, England, 5.6 miles (9 km) south-west of Charing Cross. Southfields is mainly residential, historically a part of Wandsworth itself, and is divided b ...

, London, was founded in 1920 by Captain Stanley R. Mullard, who had previously designed thermionic valves for the Admiralty before becoming managing director of the Z Electric Lamp Co. The company soon moved to

Hammersmith Hammersmith is a district of West London, England, southwest of Charing Cross. It is the administrative centre of the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham, and identified in the London Plan as one of 35 major centres in Greater London. ...

, London and then in 1923 to

Balham Balham () is an area in south London, England, mostly within the London Borough of Wandsworth with small parts within the neighbouring London Borough of Lambeth. The area has been settled since Saxon times and appears in the Domesday Book as B ...

, London. The head office in later years was Mullard House at 1–19 Torrington Place,

Bloomsbury Bloomsbury is a district in the West End of London. It is considered a fashionable residential area, and is the location of numerous cultural, intellectual, and educational institutions. Bloomsbury is home of the British Museum, the largest mus ...

, now part of University College London.

Start-up

In 1921, the directors were Sir Ralph Ashton (chairman), Basil Binyon of the Radio Communication Co, C.F. Elwell and S.R. Mullard (Managing Director).

Partnership with Philips

In 1923, to meet the technical demands of the newly formed BBC, Mullard formed a partnership with the Dutch manufacturer Philips. The valves (vacuum tubes) produced in this period were named with the prefix PM, for Philips-Mullard, beginning with the PM3 and PM4 in 1926. Mullard finally sold all its shares to Philips in 1927. In 1928 the company introduced the first

pentode A pentode is an electronic device having five electrodes. The term most commonly applies to a three-grid amplifying vacuum tube or thermionic valve that was invented by Gilles Holst and Bernhard D.H. Tellegen in 1926. The pentode (called a ''tripl ...

valve to the British market.

Factories

Mitcham

Mullard opened a new manufacturing plant at the end of New Road, Mitcham, Surrey in 1929. A second building was added in 1936. Both buildings had a very distinctive flat roof construction and were very similar to those at Philips' headquarters in

Eindhoven Eindhoven () is a city and municipality in the Netherlands, located in the southern province of North Brabant of which it is its largest. With a population of 238,326 on 1 January 2022,Blackburn, Lancashire, and during the Second World War some operations were moved there from Mitcham; by the end of the war, nearly 3,000 were employed. Tungsten and molybdenum wire were produced on-site from 1954, and a glass factory was built in 1955. In 1962 over 6,200 were employed and Mullard described the Blackburn works as "the largest valve manufacturing plant in Europe". By 1949 Mullard had produced a number of television sets, such as the MTS-521 and MTS-684. In 1951 Mullard was producing the LSD series of photographic flash tubes.

Others

Mullard had factories in Southport and Simonstone, both in Lancashire. The latter closed in 2004. There was also a sister factory at Belmont in Durham (closed in June 2005). Other factories included those at Fleetwood (closed in 1979) and

Lytham St. Annes Lytham St Annes () is a seaside town in the Borough of Fylde in Lancashire, England. It is on the Fylde coast, directly south of Blackpool on the Ribble Estuary. The population at the 2011 census was 42,954. The town is almost contiguous with ...

(closed in 1972). A feeder factory at

Haydock Haydock is a village within the Metropolitan Borough of St Helens, in Merseyside, England. At the 2011 Census, it had a population of 11,416 Haydock's historic area covers the Haydock electoral ward and a section of the Blackbrook ward. Haydoc ...

closed in 1981. A small factory in Hove closed in the early 1970s.

Teletext

In the early 1980s, Mullard manufactured the SAA5050, one of the first teletext character generator modules made in the UK.

Semiconductors

Early Mullard small signal transistor packages

Mullard owned semiconductor factories in Southampton and

Hazel Grove Hazel Grove is a suburb in the Metropolitan Borough of Stockport, Greater Manchester, England, close to the Peak District national park. Within the boundaries of the Historic counties of England, historic county of Cheshire, the area was kno ...

, Stockport, Cheshire. Southampton (Millbrook Trading Estate) was a purpose-built plant, opened in 1957 for the manufacture of semiconductors. Production of germanium alloy transistors was transferred from Mitcham. At the same time the plant started the research, development and production of electro optical devices. Fabrication of planar devices on a mass production basis did not begin until 1966, when germanium sales were decreasing. 1967 saw the start of the development and production of

integrated circuit An integrated circuit or monolithic integrated circuit (also referred to as an IC, a chip, or a microchip) is a set of electronic circuits on one small flat piece (or "chip") of semiconductor material, usually silicon. Large numbers of tiny ...

s. The plant was planned to be the biggest semiconductor facility in Europe, employing 3,000 people including 200 scientists and engineers. In 1962 Associated Semiconductor Manufacturers (ASM) Ltd was formed by Mullard and GEC to combine the semiconductor development and production facilities of the two companies; Mullard owned two-thirds of the company and included the Southampton plant; GEC contributed their small factory in School Street, Hazel Grove, producing thyristors,

rectifier A rectifier is an electrical device that converts alternating current (AC), which periodically reverses direction, to direct current (DC), which flows in only one direction. The reverse operation (converting DC to AC) is performed by an Power ...

s and power

diode A diode is a two-terminal electronic component that conducts current primarily in one direction (asymmetric conductance); it has low (ideally zero) resistance in one direction, and high (ideally infinite) resistance in the other. A diode ...

s. GEC pulled out of ASM Ltd in 1969. In 1972 production was moved to a newly constructed factory nearby on Bramhall Moor Lane. Both sites were later owned by

NXP Semiconductors NXP Semiconductors N.V. (NXP) is a Dutch semiconductor designer and manufacturer with headquarters in Eindhoven, Netherlands. The company employs approximately 31,000 people in more than 30 countries. NXP reported revenue of $11.06 billion in 2 ...

(formerly

Philips Semiconductors NXP Semiconductors N.V. (NXP) is a Dutch semiconductor designer and manufacturer with headquarters in Eindhoven, Netherlands. The company employs approximately 31,000 people in more than 30 countries. NXP reported revenue of $11.06 billion in 2 ...

). The Southampton site is now closed. The one in Hazel Grove, Stockport specialises in power semiconductor devices and is now Nexperia Manchester. The first transistors produced by Mullard were the OC50 and OC51 point-contact types in 1952, which were not widely used. In 1953 Mullard moved to junction transistors, beginning with the plastic-cased OC10 series. These were followed by the glass-encapsulated OC43...47, OC70/71, (released in 1957) and OC80 series (the output devices were metal encapsulated to facilitate heatsinking), which were produced in large numbers and copied by other companies, such as Valvo (another Philips subsidiary) and

Siemens Siemens AG ( ) is a German multinational conglomerate corporation and the largest industrial manufacturing company in Europe headquartered in Munich with branch offices abroad. The principal divisions of the corporation are ''Industry'', '' ...

in Germany, and

Amperex Amperex Electronic Corporation was a manufacturer of vacuum tubes and semiconductors.Knight (2007) Brooklyn, New York Originally located at 79 Washington Street in Brooklyn, New York, Amperex was a long-established manufacturer of transmitting t ...

in the USA. RF transistors were the OC170 and OC171. All these were germanium PNP transistors. Mullard's first silicon transistors were the OC201 to OC207, PNP alloy types using the standard SO-2 metal-over-glass construction such as the OC200 shown. From about 1960 Mullard switched to using the BC prefix for silicon, and AC for germanium, eliminating the confusion of part numbers. in the mid 1960s the first plastic packages were introduced. In 1964 the company produced a prototype electronic desktop

calculator An electronic calculator is typically a portable electronic device used to perform calculations, ranging from basic arithmetic to complex mathematics. The first solid-state electronic calculator was created in the early 1960s. Pocket-sized ...

as a technology demonstrator for its transistors and cold cathode indicator tubes.

Space science

In 1957 Philips-Mullard helped to set up the Mullard Radio Astronomy Observatory (MRAO) at the University of Cambridge. In 1966 the

Mullard Space Science Laboratory The UCL Mullard Space Science Laboratory (MSSL) is the United Kingdom's largest university space research group. MSSL is part of the Department of Space and Climate Physics at University College London (UCL), one of the first universities in the ...

(MSSL) was opened near

Dorking Dorking () is a market town in Surrey in South East England, about south of London. It is in Mole Valley District and the council headquarters are to the east of the centre. The High Street runs roughly east–west, parallel to the Pipp Br ...

, Surrey as part of University College London. The Royal Society Mullard Award for young scientists and engineers was set up in 1967.

Mullard brand name

Philips continued to use the brand name "Mullard" in the UK until 1988. Mullard Research Laboratories in Redhill, Surrey then became Philips Research Laboratories. As of 2007, the Mullard brand has been revived by Sovtek, producing a variant of the ECC83 and EL34.

Z Electric Lamp Company

The Z Electric Lamp Co. continued business into the 1970s operating from premises in Thornton Heath, southern Greater London, manufacturing lamps of specialised design. However, it closed due to the recession in the mid 1970s.

50th Anniversary in 1970

To mark the 50th anniversary of the founding of the company, Mullard management decided to have a rose named after the company. Mullard's quest was simple, they wanted a world-beater, nothing less, so they contacted the renowned grower Sam McGredy IV in Northern Ireland. The naming fee of £10,000/$24,000 was a lot of money in 1970 and established a record fee for a new rose : Mullard Jubilee "Electron". To mark the occasion every employee received a "Mullard Jubilee” rose bush.

References

External links

*{{YouTube, id=GDvF89Bh27Y, title=The Blackburn Story – Mullard film, 1960s
Mullard Semiconductors by Andrew WylieSome Mullard History on personal blogHistory of Mullard TubesMullard Valve Works in Blackburn
Defunct technological companies of the United Kingdom Vacuum tubes Guitar amplification tubes Electronics industry in London Electronics companies of the United Kingdom Manufacturing companies based in London Electronics companies established in 1920 History of the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham History of the London Borough of Wandsworth 1920 establishments in England