Mr transistor is dead

Norman Krim died on 14 December at the age of 98. The industry called him "Mr. transistor"...

This is a visionary electronics who played a pivotal role in the industry who has left us. This undisputed figure of the transistor - even if he does not invented it - found potential. It was he who pushed the production mass of transistors by his employer Raytheon, first for the design of sonotones.

Invented by Bell Labs in 1947, the transistors will be used by Norman Krim as early as 1953 for small equipment requiring little energy. These transistors were manufactured in Germanium, rare metal, which has been replaced by Silicon a little after.

The first transistors produced by Raytheon, the CK722 series, were too powerful for the project of Norman, but he soon realized that these components could be used in other devices than his own. He then contacted two major magazines of the time, Popular Science and Radio Electronics, to inspire engineers and push them to use these transistors. Therefore, born modern radio stations transistor, of guitar amplifiers, oscilloscopes, Geiger counters, or metal detectors.

Before transistors, in 1938 he had also worked on the miniaturization of the boosters lamps for use in portable radios powered by batteries. After leaving Raytheon in 1961 where he was Vice President of the semiconductor, he bought two electronic shops in Boston named RadioShack. He stayed until 1997, a Marketing consultant for Raytheon and other companies in the sector.