George Smoot Horsley

George Smoot Horsley
Born(1916-05-30)May 30, 1916
DiedJune 13, 1992(1992-06-13) (aged 76)
NationalityAmerican
Alma materUniversity of Utah (PhD)
Known forSemiconductor and printed circuitry pioneer
Scientific career
FieldsPhysics
InstitutionsBell Labs
Motorola
Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory
First Lieutenant

George Smoot Horsley
Buried
Tacoma, Washington
AllegianceUnited States of America
Service / branchUnited States Army Air Corps
Years of service1942-1945
Rank First Lieutenant
AwardsAir Medal, Five oak leaf clusters

George Smoot Horsley (1916 – 1992) was a physicist and pioneer in printed circuitry and semiconductors.[1] He was one of the first four recruits by William Shockley to help develop technologies at Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory.[2]

Early life

Horsley was born in 1916 in Brigham City, Utah to Mormon parents Golden and Mary Horsley. He served in the US Army Air Corps during World War II, originally commissioned a Second Lieutenant in 1942 and assigned to field artillery.[3] He attained the rank of First Lieutenant and earned his Aviator Badge to become a pilot in October 1943.[4] He had served as a missionary and in 1945 was named an acting Chaplain aboard a ship bound for North Africa.[5] He served in Africa and Italy.[4] In 1945, near the close of the war, he began taking a course in Algebra with the Armed Forces Institute.[6]

After his military service had ended, he enrolled at the University of Utah, where his grades were sufficient to admit him into Phi Beta Kappa.[7] He obtained his PhD in physics from University of Utah in 1954.[8]

Career

During the winter of 1954–1955, William Shockley decided to seek a sponsor to help him establish production of complex transistors and his own Shockley diodes. He was initially supported by Raytheon, but the agreement was soon canceled by that company. After Shockley subsequently established Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory under the umbrella of Beckman Instruments, he recruited four men: William W. Happ who he knew from Raytheon,[9][10] Horsley and Leopoldo B. Valdes both of whom he knew from Bell Labs, and Richard Victor Jones, a new Berkeley graduate.[2] Horsley had also previously worked at Motorola.[2]

Horsley's name appears on Shockley patents originally from 1959 but re-dated 1964 after Shockley Labs had been sold to Clevite.[11]

References

  1. ^ staff (June 16, 1992). "George Smoot Horsely". Tacoma News Tribune.
  2. ^ a b c Lojek, Bo (2007). History of Semiconductor Engineering. Springer Science & Business Media. p. 70. ISBN 978-3540342588. Retrieved 28 July 2021.
  3. ^ staff (September 30, 1942). "Utahns in Service Get Commissions". Deseret News.
  4. ^ a b staff (September 25, 1944). "Airman Writes of War Aims". Salt Lake Tribune.
  5. ^ staff (April 28, 1945). "Mormon Hero Seves As Acting Ship Chaplain". Deseret News.
  6. ^ staff (April 26, 1945). "Attends School". Salt Lake Tribune.
  7. ^ staff (May 7, 1950). "'U' Phi Beta Chapter Adds 32 Students". Deseret News.
  8. ^ staff (May 27, 1954). "The Horsleys to Live in the East". Deseret News.
  9. ^ Shurkin, Joel N. (2006). Broken Genius: The Rise and Fall of William Shockley, Creator of the Electronic Age. Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 168–169. ISBN 0230552293.
  10. ^ Brock, David C. "R. Victor Jones Transcript of an Interview" (PDF). Chemical Heritage Foundation Oral History Program. CHEMICAL HERITAGE FOUNDATION. pp. 11, 13, 23. Archived from the original (PDF) on 28 July 2021. Retrieved 28 July 2021.
  11. ^ staff (1964). "Voltage regulating semiconductor device".