Title
A binder containing reports produced by Mullard Limited numbered between 38 and 64
Reference
MUL/B/5
Production date
26-03-1959 - 21-04-1960
Creator
- Mullard LimitedBiographyBiography
Mullard Limited was initially founded as the Mullard Radio Valve Company by Captain Stanley Robert Mullard. The new company was financed by the Radio Communication Co in order to compete with Marconi, especially in the field of maritime radio, and its valves were soon adopted for use by the Admiralty. The business was boosted by the beginning of broadcasting in the UK during the early 1920s and would go onto form Mullard Wireless Service Co to market the valves in produced. Despite this by 1924 the company was in need of additional capital as well as additional technical resources, in part to meet the demands of the newly formed BBC, and as result Mullard sold half the company to Philips. As part of this Philips established a UK based subsidiary, Philips Electrical which held its shares in Mullard, and in 1925 Mullard was register as a private company. In 1927 Philips acquired the rest of the company and in 1929 Captain Mullard stepped down as managing director of both it and the Mullard Wireless Service Co.
Following the departure of its founder the company continued to expand, beginning production of cathode ray tubes in 1936, opening new production facilities and in 1938 acquiring E.K. Cole Ltd, until the Second World War. During the war Mullard was considered a foreign owned company and, although it produced a large number of conventional valve designs, it was not part of any government funded research projects, such as those into microwave frequencies. Partly as a result of this, and partly due to a lack of a coherent UK research facility, born from a reliance on Philips’ Eindhoven facility, the company formed the Mullard Research Laboratories in 1946. This new facility replaced the existing structure of fragmented laboratories in each of the production facilities and would therefore allow the company to participate in research projects that received funding from the British Government. At the same time Philips had a reorganisation of its subsidiaries and Mullard became a wholly owned subsidiary of Philips Electrical Industries Limited which in turn was a subsidiary of Philips.
By 1951 the company’s products had expanded beyond the valves it originally produced and in order to reflect this its name was changed to Mullard Limited. At around the same time the company also began to produce its first transistors, which would eventually be produced at their own facility in Southampton, and took over the running of British Tungsram, another Philips owned company. Along with this expansion in 1957 Mullard also helped to set up the Mullard Radio Astronomy Observatory. Throughout this period the production of transistors had continued to grow, with new models being introduced in 1953, and by 1960 Mullard produced 75% of all British semiconductors, by volume, as well as a number of other electronics components. In 1962 the company formed a joint venture with GEC, Associated Semiconductor Manufacturers, in order to combine development and production, mostly of transistors, but this only lasted until 1969 when GEC pulled out. Expansion continued through the rest of the 1960s, with the Mullard Space Science Laboratory being opened in 1966 and increased production capacity, with one factory producing one million colour television tubes by 1968.
Despite the success enjoyed during the 1960s, by the 1970s Mullard began to suffer some difficulties, with factories being closed in 1972, 1975 and 1979, and production being cut back in other areas. In 1977 the Mullard Research Laboratory was renamed the Philips Research Laboratory. Despite further factory closures in the 1980s Mullard also began to produce teletext decoders and video discs for the Philips laser disk system.
Philips continued to use the Mullard name until 1988 when the subsidiary’s name was changed to Philips Components Limited. The semiconductor facilities were transferred to Philips Semiconductors, later NXP Semiconductors, with the Southampton site closing.
Scope and Content
A binder containing the following reports produced by the Mullard Semiconductor Measurement and Application Laboratory, Southampton:
- 38 'The Choice of Transistor Suitable for Gating Large Current Pulses', 31st March 1959
- 39 'Measurement of f1 of high-frequency power transistors', 26th March 1959
- 40 'Measurement of the Transistor type VX8510', 7th April 1959
- 41 'The Specification for a Silicon Transistor suitable for use in a Direct Coupled Hearing Aid Amplifier', 16th April 1959
- 42 'An Investigation into Criteria and Methods for Selection of Avalanche Transistor Types', 17th April 1959
- 43 'A Method of Measuring the Thermal Resistance of Power Transistors', 22nd April 1959
- 44 'A Survey of Computer Storage Systems and their Transistor Requirements', 28th April 1959
- 45 'Measurements on Wireless Telephone Company modified first and second I.F. transformers and oscillator coils', 23rd April 1959
- 46 'Investigation of a G.E.C. Development Type Power Transistor', 30th April 1959
- 47 'A Survey of Computer Logical Circuits', 8th May 1959
- 48 'Measurements on Weymouth Radio Coils for Transistor Receivers', 28th May 1959
- 49 'Record of Miscellaneous Investigations Carried out in the Electronic Development Group', 21st May 1959
- 50 'Investigation of the Telefunken CC614 High Frequency Transistor', 12th June 1959
- 51 'An Investigation Carried out on Samples of Silicon Photovoltaic Cells Produced by the Research Department at Southampton, especially with regard to their suitability for tape reading', 19th June 1959
- 52 'An apparatus for the measurement of power gain of mixer and I.F. stage transistors in radio receiver circuits', 3rd July 1959
- 53 'Demonstration Voltage Quadrupler', 1st October 1959
- 54 'Investigation of Clevite Silicon-Germanium Diodes', 24th September 1959
- 55 'A comparison of the PG40B photodiode with a silicon photovoltaic cell', 6th October 1959
- 56 'Notes on the development of the transistor type VX8510', 4th December 1959
- 57 'Investigation of Philco High Frequency Micro-Alloy Transistors, Type 2N499, 2N502 and 2N504, and the Mullard Transistor, Type OC170', 14th December 1959
- 58 'Automatic Tuning of RFG3 Package Test Gear', 1st January 1960
- 59 'Switching Stability of OC22, OC23 and OC24', 6th January 1960
- 60 'Investigation of the Following Range of Power Transistors:- Texas Instruments 2N511, 2N513 and 2N514; Motorola 2N630; and Bendix 2N1030', 8th January 1960
-61 'Investigation of S.T.C. Silicon Rectifiers Type FST.1/4.' 8th February 1960
-62 'A preliminary investigation into the use of concern semiconductors in a transistorised take-off system for automatic transmission in road vehicles', 19th February 1960
- 63 'Investigation of Ferranti Silicon high speed junction diodes, Types ZS40, ZS41 and ZS42', 25th February 1960
- 64 'Development Assistance Report on the M.8.A. diode', 21st April 1960
Extent
Single Binder
Physical description
Typed reports bound together
Language
English
Level of description
ITEM
Repository name
Science Museum, London
Conditions governing access
Open Access
Conditions governing Reproduction
Copies may be supplied in accordance with current copyright legislation and Science Museum Group terms and conditions