ames M. Early, an electrical engineer who pioneered increased transistor performance in the 1950's at Bell Labs, died on Jan. 12 at the veterans hospital in Palo Alto, Calif. He was 81 and lived in Palo Alto.

The cause of death was severe asthma, which Mr. Early had suffered from since childhood, a daughter, Mary Beth Early, said.

When Dr. Early arrived at the Bell Labs research laboratory in Murray Hill, N.J., in September 1951, his first task was to measure the performance of the first transistors made at Bell Labs, and also those from General Electric and RCA.

During the 1950's, he made theoretical contributions that led to faster transistor performance, which was crucial for applications like television, the FM transistor radio and early military radar.

He is most widely recognized for describing an aspect of the behavior of bipolar transistors, known as the Early Effect. Transistor designers used the effect to optimize the performance of the transistors, which were tiny switches. He remained at Bell Labs for 18 years before joining Fairchild Camera and Instrument in Palo Alto. He was a laboratory director for Bell Labs in Murray Hill from 1962 to 1964 and in Allentown, Pa., from 1964 to 1969.

While at Bell Labs, he created the oscillator transistor for the first United States satellite, led the development of solar cells and transistors for the Telstar I satellite and participated in the original integrated circuit work at the laboratory.

When he went West in 1969, he became director of the Fairchild Research Center. Under his guidance, that company developed commercial charged coupled devices, which were used in early military reconnaissance satellites.

When he retired from Fairchild in 1986, he took his rack of ties and held a necktie-burning celebration, telling his family that he was delighted to be done with what he considered to be an instrument of torture.

Dr. Early received his Bachelor of Science in pulp and paper manufacturing in 1943 from the New York State College of Forestry in Syracuse. After serving in the Army, he went to graduate school at Ohio State University, where he received his Ph.D. in 1951.

In addition to his daughter Mary Beth Early, who lives in Brooklyn, he is survived by his wife of 55 years, Mary Agnes, and seven other children, Kathleen Early of Tassajara, Calif.; Joan Farrell of Ocean City, N.J.; Rhoda Alexander of Menlo Park, Calif.; Maureen Matthews and Rosemary Early, both of Campbell, Calif.; James M. Early Jr. of Mountain View, Calif.; Margot Early of Ridgway, Colo.; and 11 grandchildren. Also surviving are eight brothers and sisters, Joe Early, Mary Beth O'Neill and Kathleen Eccles, all of Syracuse; John Early of Sterling, N.J.; Rhoda Corcoran of Fresno, Calif.; Frank Early of Lakewood, Colo.; Jane Early of Bradenton Beach, Fla.; and Larry Early of Madera, Calif.

JAMES EARLY

Palo Alto, Calif. January 12, 2004 PALO ALTO, Calif. — James M. Early, 81, husband of the former Mary Agnes Valentine of Logan, passed away after a long illness on January 12, 2004, in Palo Alto, Calif. Dr. Early was well known in the field of semiconductor engineering, held 14 patents, and was a fellow of the IEEE. He is survived by his wife of 55 years, eight children and eleven grandchildren. In lieu of flowers, the family requests contributions be sent to Catholic Charities of Santa Clara County, 2625 Zamker Road, San Jose, CA 95134. Roller Hapgood & Tinney Funeral Directors of Palo Alto, Calif., is in charge of the arrangements.

Notice entered Saturday, January 17, 2004.

http://www.rpi.edu/~schubert/More%20reprints/2001%20Early%20(IEEE-TED)%20An%20early%20history%20of%20transistors.pdf

James M. Early (A’48–SM’54–F’59–LF’88) was born in Syracuse, NY, in 1922. He received the B.S. degree in pulp and paper manufacturing from New York State College of Forestry, Syracuse in 1943 and the M.Sc. and Ph.D. in electrical engineering from Ohio State University (OSU), Columbus, in 1948 and 1951, respectively.

He served in the U.S. Army from 1943 to 1945.

In 1951, he joined Bell Telephone Laboratories at Murray Hill, NJ, as Member of Technical Staff. He worked on grown and alloy germanium transistors, germanium diffused base transistors, silicon diffused transistors, solar cells for Telstar, and integrated circuits. After 18 years at Bell Laboratories, the last seven as a Laboratory Director (Murray Hill 1962–1964, Allentown, PA

1964–1969), he joined Fairchild Camera and Instrument at Palo Alto, CA. There, he was Director of Semiconductor Research from 1969 to 1983 and a Technical Advisor to the vice-president of research from 1983 to his retirement in 1986. At Fairchild, he was directly responsible for processes as well as devices. He pushed Fairchild into the use of ion beam implantation, whole wafer lithography, electron beam mask-making, and CCD device development. He contributed technically to bipolar memories, fast ECL circuit technology, CMOS without guard rings, and many CCD projects. He holds about a dozen patents, has published 12 or more papers, and given scores of talks.

Dr. Early is a Fellow of AAAS and a member of APS. He has received the Texnikoi and Distinguished Alumnus Awards from OSU and the J. J. Ebers Award from the IEEE Electron Devices Society. He served IEEE and its IRE predecessor on the first transistor standardization committees, on many meeting and program committees, and was active in the annual device research conferences.

He served the Advisory Group on Electron Devices (Department of Defense) for 20 years, retiring in 1982 after six years as chairman of the main panel of advisors.

I was born and raised in Syracuse, NY, second child and second son in a family of nine children blessed my marvelous parents and limited but adequate resources. An outstanding high school physics teacher, the late John Condon, gave me my start in technical analysis. I attended the NY State College of Forestry, from which I received a B. Sc. in 1943, specializing in pulp and paper manufacturing. The forestry college taught us well, with long hours and long work. At Ohio State while in the U.S. Army, I found electrical engineering easier and more interesting than the paper industry. Enrolling at Ohio Sate full time (including four years as full-time instructor) after the second World War, I received the M.Sc. and eventually the PhD. in 1951. In graduate school, my advisors, Profs. E. M. Boone and D. J. Kraus wisely gave me almost no guidance in my thesis and dissertation. Through their restraint and encouragement, I became used to choosing and defining my own analytical problems and approaches. I was grateful to them. Looking back, I am even more grateful.

In early September of 1951, Bell Laboratories gave a one week introductory transistor in Princeton, NJ. Shockley’s book was our prime text. In this world I was young, short on self-confidence, and much in awe of our instructors.

There, one day, Shockley told of his then recently-proposed junction field effect transistor. He drew on the board postulated drain voltage characteristics in which the drain current at fixed gate-to-source voltage would initially rise with diminishing slope as it does in actual devices. After saturation is reached, he indicated, the current would gradually cut off, falling to zero.

With some trepidation I questioned this, proposing that the drain current could not fall because it was involved in bringing the channel-to-gate voltage to the pinch-off point. He thought for a very short time, agreed, and changed the characteristic to the false pinch-off region we are familiar with. We never talked of the matter again, but he was always cordial and treated me as a technical peer. The incident probably helped my self-confidence in dealing with semiconductor theory."

Mary Agnes, my beloved wife, and I have been blessed with two and a half dozen children (that’s right, 2+6=8), of whom seven, including the youngest are daughters.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

The author is grateful to his many collaborators over the years, who helped make his work in transistor technology development both fulfilling and enjoyable. This account was developed from material presented at the 1992 Device Research Conference [1], [2]. The author is also very grateful to Peter Asbeck for encouragement to put this talk in print, editing it with sensible emendations and clarifications. Thank you, Peter!

REFERENCES

Solving easy problems," IEEE Trans. Electron Devices, vol. 39, p. 263,

[2] , "Classic semiconductor devices-point contact through HSI; Solving easy problems," in 50th Annu. Device Res. Conf., Cambridge, MA, June 22–24, 1992.

James M. Early (A’48–SM’54–F’59–LF’88) was

James M. Early was born (July 25, 1922) in Syracuse, New York, second of the nine children of Rhoda G. Early and the late Frank J. Early. He received the B.S. in Pulp and Paper Manufacturing in 1943 from the New York State College of Forestry (Syracuse). After army service at Ohio State University and the Manhattan Engineer District, Oak Ridge, Tenn., he returned to O.S.U. as a graduate student and instructor in Electrical Engineering. He received the M.S. (magnetron resonances) in 1948 and the Ph.D. (anisotropic dielectric waveguides) in 1951.

He joined Bell Laboratories in September 1951. During his eighteen years at Bell, he created much of the design theory of bipolar transistors, discovered the effects of space-charge layer widening ("Early effect"), created the oscillator transistor for the first U.S. satellite, led development of solar cells and transistors for Telstar I, and led the development of sealed junction technology as part of Bell Lab's first major IC work, ending his Bell Labs service as Director of the Electron Device Laboratory at Allentown, Pa. He joined Fairchild in September 1969 as leader of their research and development work. Under his direction and often with his significant personal contributions, Fairchild Research Center created the isoplanar bipolar process and the prototype of the its isoplanar memory products, created the buried channel CCD imagers which have revolutionized low light level electronic imaging, created the prototypes of the 4000C series of 15 volt CMOS, created the 100K series of ECL, and contributed to the creation of FAST. His leadership brought Fairchild the first ion implanter in a merchant semiconductor manufacturing company (1970) and the first commercial electron beam mask-making machine (MEBES 1 - 1977). He became a technical adviser in mid-1983 and retired from Fairchild at the end of 1986.

He is a fellow of IEEE (1958), a member of APS, AAAS, and Sigma XI. His IEEE service includes the Fellow Committee, ED Adcom, ED Transactions, IEEE PROCEEDINGS, and SPECTRUM. He is an IEEE representative on the Fritz Medal committee of the IEEE.

He has published numerous technical papers and holds fourteen patents.

He was associated with the Advisory Group on Electron Devices (ODDR&E) since 1962 to 1982 and was its chairman for four years.

Jim and his wife, Mary Agnes, of 42 happy years live in Palo Alto, California. Their pastimes include duplicate bridge, bicycling, swimming, and reading.