Charles Vincent Litton Sr. (1904–1972) was an engineer and inventor from the area now known as

Silicon Valley Silicon Valley is a region in Northern California that serves as a global center for high technology and innovation. Located in the southern part of the San Francisco Bay Area, it corresponds roughly to the geographical areas San Mateo Coun ...

Biography

Early life

Charles Vincent Litton was born on March 13, 1904, in

San Francisco, California San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...

. His mother was Alice J. Vincent and father was Charles A. Litton. As a boy he experimented with radio technology at his parents' house in

Redwood City, California Redwood City is a city on the San Francisco Peninsula in Northern California's Bay Area, approximately south of San Francisco, and northwest of San Jose. Redwood City's history spans its earliest inhabitation by the Ohlone people to being a ...

. Litton learned machining in the California School of Mechanical Arts of San Francisco, and then attended Stanford University, where he graduated with an A.B. in

mechanical engineering Mechanical engineering is the study of physical machines that may involve force and movement. It is an engineering branch that combines engineering physics and mathematics principles with materials science, to design, analyze, manufacture, an ...

in 1924 and electrical engineering in 1925.

Career

In the 1920s, he experimented with new techniques and materials for building

vacuum tube A vacuum tube, electron tube, valve (British usage), or tube (North America), is a device that controls electric current flow in a high vacuum between electrodes to which an electric potential difference has been applied. The type known as ...

s. For example, he built the first practical glass blowing lathe. He worked for

Bell Telephone Laboratories Nokia Bell Labs, originally named Bell Telephone Laboratories (1925–1984), then AT&T Bell Laboratories (1984–1996) and Bell Labs Innovations (1996–2007), is an American industrial research and scientific development company owned by mult ...

in 1925 through 1927, and moved back to California in 1927. Amateur radio enthusiasts sought

s that would perform better than those then available from RCA, Western Electric, General Electric, and Westinghouse,Orr, B (1994). ''Radio FUNdamentals, Do You Want A Kilowatt??'' ic CQ p.60 and the San Francisco Bay area was one of the early centers of amateur radio activity and experimentation, containing about 10% of the total operators in the US. Litton joined fellow

amateur radio operator An amateur radio operator is someone who uses equipment at an amateur radio station to engage in two-way personal communications with other amateur operators on radio frequencies assigned to the amateur radio service. Amateur radio operators ...

s William Eitel and Jack McCullough at their vacuum tube manufacturing company located in the Bay area to address amateur needs. There, Litton originated glass lathe techniques which made mass production of reliable high quality power tubes possible, and resulted in the award of wartime contracts to the company. Eitel and McCullough's company, Eitel-McCullough, was headquartered in San Bruno and manufactured power-grid tubes for radio amateurs and aircraft radio equipment. He later went to work for the

Federal Telegraph Company The Federal Telegraph Company was a United States manufacturing and communications company that played a pivotal role in the 20th century in the development of radio communications. Founded in Palo Alto, California in 1909 by Cyril Frank Elwell, t ...

, and headed tube engineering there.

Cecil Howard Green Cecil Howard Green (August 6, 1900 – April 11, 2003) was a British-born American geophysicist, electrical engineer, and electronics manufacturing executive, who trained at the University of British Columbia and the Massachusetts Institute of Tec ...

(later the founder of

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 globa ...

) worked for Litton during that time. During the Great Depression, Federal was acquired and moved its facilities to

New Jersey New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York; on the east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on the west by the Delaware ...

. Litton stayed in California. In 1932, he founded Litton Engineering Laboratories with his savings, and continued to experiment in the shop on his parents' Redwood City property. He held 65 patents on various high-tech innovations. Some of these patents resulted in notable litigation. At

Frederick Terman Frederick Emmons Terman (; June 7, 1900 – December 19, 1982) was an American professor and academic administrator. He was the dean of the school of engineering from 1944 to 1958 and provost from 1955 to 1965 at Stanford University. He is wid ...

's request, Litton helped Stanford build a tube research lab, and recruit

David Packard David Packard ( ; September 7, 1912 – March 26, 1996) was an American electrical engineer and co-founder, with Bill Hewlett, of Hewlett-Packard (1939), serving as president (1947–64), CEO (1964–68), and chairman of the board (1964–68 ...

. During

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

, Litton participated in the design and production of

microwave Microwave is a form of electromagnetic radiation with wavelengths ranging from about one meter to one millimeter corresponding to frequencies between 300 MHz and 300 GHz respectively. Different sources define different frequency ra ...

tubes used in communications and radar equipment, for which he was awarded the Presidential Certificate of Merit. In 1941 he formed a partnership called Industrial and Commercial Electronics with Philip Scofield and Ralph Shermund.

Russell and Sigurd Varian Russell Harrison Varian (April 24, 1898 – July 28, 1959) and Sigurd Fergus Varian (May 4, 1901 – October 18, 1961) were American brothers who founded one of the earliest high-tech companie ...

used Litton

klystron A klystron is a specialized linear-beam vacuum tube, invented in 1937 by American electrical engineers Russell and Sigurd Varian,Pond, Norman H. "The Tube Guys". Russ Cochran, 2008 p.31-40 which is used as an amplifier for high radio frequen ...

tube-making equipment in their family firm,

Varian Associates Varian Associates was one of the first high-tech companies in Silicon Valley. It was founded in 1948 by Russell H. and Sigurd F. Varian, William Webster Hansen, and Edward Ginzton to sell the klystron, the first vacuum tube which could amplif ...

. Another firm (later called

Eimac Eimac is a trade mark of Eimac Products, part of the Microwave Power Products Division of Communications & Power Industries. It produces power vacuum tubes for radio frequency applications such as broadcast and radar transmitters. The company name ...

) founded by fellow amateur radio operators William Eitel and Jack McCullough used Litton technology. After the war, Litton Industries was incorporated in 1947 to manufacture vacuum tubes and the machinery used to produce them. The company grew rapidly, soon rivaling established electronics firms in the east. On August 3, 1952, Litton split off the glass lathe products, which became the sole proprietorship Litton Engineering Laboratories on May 1, 1953. On November 4, 1953, he sold the vacuum tube manufacturing portion of the company to Electro Dynamics Corporation, which had been founded by Charles Bates "Tex" Thornton. In 1954, Electro Dynamics bought the rights to the name

Litton Industries Litton Industries was a large defense contractor in the United States named after inventor Charles Litton Sr. During the 1960s, the company began acquiring many unrelated firms and became one of the largest conglomerates in the United States. A ...

. It grew to a multi-national conglomerate. Also in 1954, Litton moved the machinery manufacturing division into a new facility in

Grass Valley, California Grass Valley is a city in Nevada County, California, United States. Situated at roughly in elevation in the western foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountain range, this northern Gold Country city is by car from Sacramento, from Sacramento ...

. Litton convinced friend Dr. Donald Hare to move to Grass Valley, and Hare's company became the Grass Valley Group.

Death and legacy

He died in November 1972 in Carson City, Nevada. His papers are in the collection of

The Bancroft Library The Bancroft Library in the center of the campus of the University of California, Berkeley, is the university's primary special-collections library. It was acquired from its founder, Hubert Howe Bancroft, in 1905, with the proviso that it retai ...

. His sons Charles Jr. and Larry carried on the business of producing glassworking lathes under the "Litton Engineering Laboratories" name in Grass Valley. He also had five grand children. Litton was a leader in developing the Nevada County Airpark, and the Sierra Nevada Memorial Hospital.

References

External links

Charles Litton Sr. on Littoncorp website
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Litton, Charles Sr. 1904 births 1972 deaths People from San Francisco Radio pioneers Stanford University alumni Silicon Valley people