|
Western Electric's Reading Works in Berks County, Pennsylvania was a manufacturer of integrated circuit and optoelectronic equipment for communication and computing. The work force grew to nearly 5,000 by 1985 making the Reading, Pennsylvania, facility one of Berks County's largest industrial employers. As a part of Western Electric and the Bell System, it changed it masthead many times during its life.〔The Reading Eagle, 6/17/07, ''Our industrious roots: Western Electric, This was Silicon Valley''; Reading (PA), US; Reading Eagle Press.〕 ==1952 - From Allentown to Laureldale== The origins can be traced back to 1876, when Elisha Gray lost his race to invent the telephone. Alexander Graham Bell put in a patent application just hours before Gray filed one. Gray nevertheless left his mark on the telephone industry in 1869 when he and Enos N. Barton formed Gray and Barton, a small manufacturing firm in Cleveland, Ohio. Three years later, the firm, now based in Chicago, was renamed the Western Electric Manufacturing Co. By 1880 it was the largest electrical manufacturing company in the US. A year later when growth of the telephone network was outstripping the capacity of smaller suppliers, American Bell purchased a controlling interest in Western Electric Company and made it the exclusive manufacturer of equipment for the Bell telephone companies. Western Electric Company was responsible for developing as well as manufacturing Bell equipment. In 1907, Theodore N. Vail combined the AT&T and Western Electric engineering departments into a single organization that became Bell Labs in 1925. Western Electric became the manufacturing arm of the Bell System. In 1951, just four years after the invention of the transistor by Bell Laboratories, the Allentown Plant was opened to manufacture the first transistors.〔Prescott C. Mabon (1975). ''Mission Communications: The Story of Bell Laboratories''; Murray Hill (NJ), US; Bell Laboratories. Page 181〕〔Western Electric Co. (1983). ''Western Electric Reading Works:''; Reading (PA), US; Page 3〕 Jack Morton was assigned to develop transistors for manufacture. He had been responsible for inventing and providing the military with microwave components during WWII and knew how to get an idea from the lab, into production, and into the field. He established a system of branch labs at several Western Electric plants, consisting of teams of Bell Labs scientists and engineers focused on production engineering and acting as liaison with their colleagues back in Murray Hill. Morton fine-tuned this approach at the new Western Electric plant in Allentown, Pa., which produced electronic devices and components for the Bell System. He set up a Bell Labs semiconductor development group there and put Eugene Anderson in charge.〔Michael Riordan (2006). "''IEEE Spectrum, Volume 43, Issue 12,"" How Bell Labs Missed the Microchip"; IEEE Press, Piscataway (NJ), US; Page 36-41〕 In 1952, operations in Reading began when Western Electric Company (WECO) converted the old Rosedale knitting mill in Laureldale into a factory that produced electronic components for the U.S. government for use by the military and the space program.〔The Reading Eagle, 12/6/98, "Once a wee mill, Western Electric now dominant employer in Berks"; Reading (PA), US; Reading Eagle Press.〕 On August 22, 1952, Western Electric Company opened the doors of its new electronics manufacturing facility in Laureldale.〔〔Reading Eagle Company (1999). ''Reading Towne: 1748-1998''; Reading (PA), US; Reading Eagle Press. Page 141〕 Growth was slow but steady.〔Michael Riordan and Lillian Hoddeson (1997).''Crystal Fire: The Invention of the Transistor and the Birth of the Information Age''. New York: Norton. Page 204〕 By the end of 1952, there were 130 employees, and by the end of 1953, 253 employees.〔〔 On January 12, 1956, a diffused base transistor was unveiled at Laureldale before top military brass at a solid-state diffusion symposium. That was the same year that Bell Labs' scientists Bardeen, Brattain, and Shockley received the 1956 Nobel Prize in physics for the invention of the transistor. "Bell Laboratories scientists in Murray Hill, N.J., may have won the Nobel Prizes and gotten most of the press, but Allentown and Reading delivered the goods," notes Stuart W. Leslie, a historian of science at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.〔Michael Riordan (2005). "''IEEE Spectrum, Volume 42, Issue 7,"" The End of "AT&T"; IEEE Press, Piscataway (NJ), US; Page 46-51〕 In 1958, a group of Bell Laboratories scientists moved to Reading, Pennsylvania, from other locations and started the Laureldale Laboratory in the Laureldale Western Electric Plant. Bell Labs was a division of Western Electric. Initially the Laureldale Laboratory designed electron tubes (vacuum tubes). Eventually, after becoming the Reading Laboratory, it designed semiconductor devices which eventually included integrated circuits, light emitting diodes, and lasers.〔〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Reading Works」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|