The Philo T. Farnsworth Circus and Other Stories
Peter Singer, Editor-in-Chief -- Semiconductor International, 12/1/2002
Most people believe that the television was invented at the Radio Corporation of America (RCA) in the 1930s. But a closer look reveals that the true origins of television — and many of today's "new" technologies, such as strained silicon and CMP — are murky, with few of the people who actually first developed the idea getting much of the credit.
The television is a perfect example. Some old-timers still believe TV was introduced at RCA President David Sarnoff's widely publicized demonstration during the 1939 World's Fair. However, historians and the U.S. Patent Office say that Philo T. Farnsworth was the true inventor of electronic television. In fact, it was just over 75 years ago, on Sept. 7, 1927, when Farnsworth succeeded in transmitting the first electronic image (a simple line that moved). Several authors have recently tried to portray this David vs. Goliath story of the hapless Farnsworth pitted against the RCA empire. No fewer than four books about Farnsworth have been published, including "The Last Lone Inventor," by Evan Schwartz; and "Philo T. Farnsworth: The Father of Television," by Donald Godfrey.
The response to the commemorative hoopla over Farnsworth has been interesting. One Boston Globe reader wrote: "After months of the Philo T. Farnsworth circus, I feel I must set the record straight. John Logie Baird, a Scotsman, is the true father of television. The first public demonstration did not take place in the United States, but before an audience of scientists in London on Jan. 26, 1926." Another reader, Ernest Massa, wrote: "Although P.T. Farnsworth received a patent for TV in the late 1920s, the picture tube described in his patent did not have sufficient sensitivity to produce a satisfactory picture on a receiver. It was not until the early 1930s when Vladimir Zworykin (former director of the electron research lab at RCA) and his staff of scientists developed a picture tube, the Iconoscope, that was sensitive enough to produce a suitable TV picture before images transmitted over the airways could be properly received by the TV receiver. This was the true beginning of TV as we know it." Massa should know: He was one of the original 12 scientists who worked with Zworykin.
It turns out that John Logie Baird did, in fact, demonstrate a working television in 1926, but it was a mechanical television, not electrical (although Baird did go on to make many significant inventions, including the first high-definition color TV). And while Farnsworth may have had the idea that is still the basis of how TV works today, it was Zworykin with RCA's resources behind him that made it usable.
I have to wonder how many other Farnsworth stories are out there. How many times has a lone inventor or scientist made a discovery and reported it, only to find a huge corporation later swoop in, make the idea "usable" and then make a glowing announcement of its breakthrough?
As a recent example, consider IBM's advances in strained silicon. Last year, IBM announced that it had been able to increase chip performance by 35%, and that it could implement the new technology with minimal impact on existing manufacturing lines (see Semiconductor International , July 2001). This was, indeed, a significant development. But it took some digging to find that the advantages of strained silicon were first reported by Gene Fitzgerald in 1991 and then demonstrated at Stanford by Judy Hoyt (now at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology) and fellow researchers (see Semiconductor International , November 2002).
Another example came to me in an e-mail from Shlomo Rotter, who noted that the latest lateral epitaxial overgrowth (LEO) technique, used for the growth of GaN and said to be responsible for Shuji Nakamura's success in the blue world, is an old technique demonstrated with GaAs in 1965 by scientists at the Sylvania Semiconductor Division of GTE. Rotter also said he was one of the first — maybe the first — to use CMP on semiconducting materials 20 years ago. He asks me: "I wonder whether I can claim some priority in this field?"
I don't know, Shlomo — you'd probably need a team of lawyers. What I do know is that most major advancements would not be possible without the resources of a company such as IBM, and public relations folks have a duty to trumpet the significance of breakthroughs in all their glory. But we all could certainly do more to give credit where credit's often due: to "lone inventors" like Farnsworth.
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