Biography

William Shockley was a very important entrepreneur of the digital revolution. He graduated MIT in 1936 and was offered a job at Bell Labs by Mervin Kelly. He was tasked with finding a cheaper, more stable replacement for vacuum tubes. In 1939, he realized that instead of using vacuums he could use semi-conducting material such as silicon to do the job. To make this happen, Shockley recruited Walter Brattain (another researcher at Bell Labs, who worked with semiconducting compounds). Before they could find a solution, they were sent away to help in the war effort. Shockley was recruited by the Navy as a research director for the antisubmarine group, and afterwards he went to Allied countries to help develop radar for B-29 Bombers.

When Shockley returned from the war, he returned to Bell Labs and was assigned to a new research group with the same goal as before. This new group consisted of Walter Brattain and John Bardeen, who was an expert in using quantum theory to understand how electricity was conducted through materials. Shockley had another idea for how the apparatus would work. He placed a slab of germanium next to an electrical field in the hope that the field would pull some of the semi-conductor’s electrons to the surface and allow a current to travel through the slab. This theory however proved ineffective as well. The problem, they discovered, was that the electrons were trapped so that they formed a sort of shield around the slab that not even a very powerful electric field could penetrate. They needed to find a way to break through the shield. 

John Bardeen(left) William Shockley(center) and Walter Brattain(right)

After a year of work, Shockley, Brattain, and Bardeen discovered they could use water to move some of the electrons that were making the shield, and stick a piece of metal through to connect it. Bardeen and Brattain then realized that this device could only slightly amplify a current. Therefore, to improve it they used two pieces of metal, and the first transistor was created. Shockley felt that he should have been one of the inventors of the transistor, and he set out to create his own improved version of it.

The first Transistor

Shockley drew up the schematics for his new transistor in Chicago and sent them back to Bell Labs. When he returned, he found that both Bardeen and Brattain had already been consulted about the patent application. He was angered by this and argued that he should get sole credit for creating this device. When Bell Labs applied for a patent, they discovered that Julius Lilienfeld had already applied and received a patent for the device in 1930. Instead, they applied for a patent for the original transistor created by Bardeen and Brattain. Shockley was again angered by this, and decided to improve both designs and make a better transistor.

In January 1948, he developed the idea for his improved transistor. His new idea was to have an adjustable piece of germanium with a deficit of electrons sandwiched by two pieces of germanium charged with excess electrons, so that a current could run through the transistor and depending on how the middle section was adjusted it could amplify or switch off the current. He was determined to get credit for this discovery, thus he did not share his findings with his colleagues.

At a presentation in 1948, some Bell Labs Scientists presented findings that provided the necessary knowledge to make a device like his. This worried him, because someone could easily make the connection and create a device like his while getting credit for it. Later that night, he got up onto the stage and shared his idea for the new transistor. This upset both Bardeen and Brattain, who contacted Mervin Kelly and told him about all their problems with Shockley. Bardeen resigned and Brattain was moved to another section where he no longer had to report to Shockley.

Shockley was not happy about these events and left Bell Labs. He became a professor at Caltech and later helped to consult the Army’s Weapons Systems Evaluation Group. Then he started his own transistor manufacturing company, Shockley Semi-conductor, based out of Palo Alto. Shockley needed employees for his company and he started by calling people who had worked with him at Bell Labs. However, nobody he had worked with at Bell Labs liked him or wanted to work with him again. He began cold-calling the best semi-conducting engineers in the country. Among the most notable people that worked at Shockley Semi-conductor were Robert Noyce and Gordon Moore.

Gordon Moore(left) and Robert Noyce(right)

Shockley Semi-conductor

Shockley hired these scientists and tasked them with finding a way to manufacture a four layer diode that would be even faster that his three layered transistor. When he realized that the device wouldn’t work, he began blaming all the other scientists for the failure. This, and many other events like it, caused the scientists at Shockley Semi-conductor to come to despise William Shockley. Arnold Beckman, Shockley’s boss, was told by the staff at Shockley Semi-conductor, that he would have to fire Shockley or they would leave the company. Beckman decided that Shockley was more important to the company and chose him over the staff. This led to eight members of the company (later dubbed The Traitorous Eight) leaving and starting Fairchild Semi-conductor.

The Traitorous Eight at Fairchild Semi-conductor

After all his staff left the company, it fell from it’s position in the industry, and William Shockley fell with it. He died on August 12, 1989 in Stanford, California.