Word: siliconized
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Fairchild Camera is a misnamed com pany whose eleven divisions concentrate on electronics and also turn out a range of products from heavy multiconductor cables to printing equipment. All the excitement is over one division, the Semiconductor branch. It put Fairchild on the ground floor in miniature silicon transistors, which are more effective than the original germanium variety; last year Fairchild had 30% of the booming U.S. market for silicon transistors. Fairchild's prize division also accounts for one-third of the market for integrated circuits, which are fleck-sized components that do the work of many transistors...
...told the reflector mechanism to reduce neutron leakage. Slowly the nuclear reaction started; heat built up in the core, and a magnetic pump circulated the metallic coolant at 1020°F. through tubes in the skin of the support structure. The inner ends of 2880 pellets of a germanium-silicon material were heated while their outer ends were kept comparatively cool by heat radiation into space. The germanium-silicon combination is "thermoelectric," it changes heat to electricity, and the difference between the two temperatures caused a faint current to flow. That current added up to about 650 watts-hardly enough...
...Unknown in nature, these are similar to the innumerable "organic" (carbon-containing) compounds, but have the central chain of carbon atoms replaced by a silicon-oxygen chain. Common sand consists mainly of quartz, which is silicon dioxide...
...break came recently with the discovery that small silicon diodes, working much like the cat's-whisker crystals of early radio sets, can pick microwave energy out of the air and turn it into direct current with reasonable efficiency. Thousands of diodes, strung like glass beads on a network of wires, are needed to intercept Raytheon's beam. In the model helicopter demonstrated last week, they feed direct current at about 100 volts to a small motor taken from an electric drill. The beam of 2,450-megacycle microwaves starts out with three kilowatts of power; the diode...
Ranger was preparing itself for its long voyage. Its computer brain came to life and began issuing orders. It spread its purple wings so their silicon cells could make electricity out of sunlight. Its dish antenna unfolded; its tiny eyes (sensors) commanded tiny gas jets to turn the spacecraft so that they could bear on the sun and the earth. Its radios chattered furiously, sending reports that all was going well...