Historically interesting patents


J.E. Lilienfield-US Patent 1,900,018

First known patent describing an insulated-gate field effect transistor (according to C.T. Sah, it is not known if operation was demonstrated)

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J.E. Lilienfield-US Patent 1,745,175

Patent describing a device identifiable as a MESFET (a junction field effect transistor)

 
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Other patents I plan to put here

W. Shockley's FET patent (need to look up the number; try Wallmark's book)
J.S. Kilby 3,138,743, and R.N. Noyce 2,918,877 (two dueling patents of the integrated circuit)
K. Lehovec 3,029,366 (junction isolation)
C.T. Sah and Wanlass, CMOS

A short discussion of the early history of semiconductor devices, together with a nice collection of historical photographs and figures, can be found in the first chapter of Runyan and Bean, Semiconductor Integrated Circuit Processing Technology (Addison Wesley).