Transitron Electronic Corporation was a
semiconductor device fabrication
Semiconductor device fabrication is the process used to manufacture semiconductor devices, typically integrated circuit (IC) chips such as modern computer processors, microcontrollers, and memory chips such as NAND flash and DRAM that are pres ...
company of the United States. It was founded by Leo and David Bakalar incorporated in
Wakefield, Massachusetts
Wakefield is a town in Middlesex County, Massachusetts in the Greater Boston metropolitan area, incorporated in 1812 and located about north-northwest of Downtown Boston. Wakefield's population was 27,090 at the 2020 census. Wakefield offers ...
, in 1952. David Bakalar was the president from 1952 to 1984. In 1986 the company went out of business, failing to keep pace with the rapid advances in technology.
["The Demise Of Transitron"]
''The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
''["David Bakalar - Transistor Museum Historic Profile"]
/ref>
History
The company was established at the time of the economic boom in .[ Its first successful product was the gold bonded ]germanium
Germanium is a chemical element with the symbol Ge and atomic number 32. It is lustrous, hard-brittle, grayish-white and similar in appearance to silicon. It is a metalloid in the carbon group that is chemically similar to its group neighbors s ...
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 ...
, widely used in computers, military equipment, etc.[ After that the company manufactured silicon ]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 (which David claims were the world's first ones), grown junction silicon NPN transistor
A bipolar junction transistor (BJT) is a type of transistor that uses both electrons and electron holes as charge carriers. In contrast, a unipolar transistor, such as a field-effect transistor, uses only one kind of charge carrier. A bipolar ...
s,[ In 1959 ''Time Magazine'' reported it was number 3 American semiconductor company, after ]Texas Instruments
Texas Instruments Incorporated (TI) is an American technology company headquartered in Dallas, Texas, that designs and manufactures semiconductors and various integrated circuits, which it sells to electronics designers and manufacturers globall ...
and General Electric
General Electric Company (GE) is an American multinational conglomerate founded in 1892, and incorporated in New York state and headquartered in Boston. The company operated in sectors including healthcare, aviation, power, renewable energ ...
,[ while ''Fortune Magazine'' placed it at number 2, with estimated 1959 sales of $40 million.]["Companies"]
at the Computer History Museum
The Computer History Museum (CHM) is a museum of computer history, located in Mountain View, California. The museum presents stories and artifacts of Silicon Valley and the information age, and explores the computing revolution and its impact on ...
A number of senior industry persons, including Wilfred Corrigan
Wilfred J. Corrigan is a British engineer and entrepreneur, known for founding and running LSI Logic Corp. He was the chairman and chief executive of LSI for over two decades until 2005, during the earlier part of which he made vital contribu ...
, Dave Fullagar, Pierre Lamond Pierre R Lamond (born September 12, 1930) is a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley, who has specialized in semiconductors, systems and cleantech. He was a partner at Sequoia Capital based in Menlo Park, California from 1981 until he left to join V ...
, Nick DeWolf
Nicholas DeWolf (July 12, 1928 – April 16, 2006) was co-founder of Teradyne, a Boston, Massachusetts, Boston, Massachusetts-based manufacturer of automatic test equipment. He founded the company in 1960 with Alex d'Arbeloff, a classmate at Mass ...
, George Wells, and Thomas Longo used to work in Transitron.[
In December 1959 the company went public, with ]IPO
An initial public offering (IPO) or stock launch is a public offering in which shares of a company are sold to institutional investors and usually also to retail (individual) investors. An IPO is typically underwritten by one or more investment ...
of 1,000,000 shares at $36 each. The first week closed at $43 per share.["Corporations: The Transistor Tycoons"]
/ref>
After going out of business, David Bakalar devoted his time to sculpture
Sculpture is the branch of the visual arts that operates in three dimensions. Sculpture is the three-dimensional art work which is physically presented in the dimensions of height, width and depth. It is one of the plastic arts. Durable sc ...
; see ''Renaissance'' (1989)
References
{{reflist
Defunct semiconductor companies of the United States
Wakefield, Massachusetts