Sarnoff Corporation
Encyclopedia
Sarnoff Corporation, with headquarters in West Windsor Township, New Jersey
, was a research and development company specializing in vision, video and semiconductor technology.
The cornerstone of Sarnoff Corporation's David Sarnoff Research Center in the Princeton
vicinity was laid just before the attack on Pearl Harbor
in 1941. That facility, later Sarnoff Corporation headquarters, was the site of several historic developments, notably color television
, CMOS
integrated circuit
technology, electron microscopy, and many other important technologies affecting everyday life worldwide. Following 47 years as a central research laboratory for its corporate owner RCA
(and briefly for successor GE
), in 1988 the David Sarnoff Research Center was transitioned to Sarnoff Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary of SRI International
, in which capacity it served multiple clients. At the beginning of 2011 Sarnoff Corporation merged with the parent company.
, the two are not, and have not been, directly affiliated. Until 2010, the David Sarnoff Research Center housed important exhibits and archives dating from the RCA years.
In 2010, the Sarnoff Corporation transferred off-site the David Sarnoff Library, a museum highlighting the important work which occurred at the facility over many years, and the important role of longtime RCA leader and labs namesake David Sarnoff
as the impresario and entrepreneur bringing broadcast radio
and television
to North America. Exhibits associated with this library are transitioned to nearby facilities at The College of New Jersey.
Separately, also in 2010, archival RCA documents pertaining to the history of industrial innovation are transitioned to the Center for the History of Business, Technology, and Society at the Hagley Library in Wilmington, DE.
and the 1968 invention of the Liquid Crystal Display
.
Beginning in the 1940s, key aspects of thin film
technology were developed at Sarnoff Corporation's David Sarnoff Research Center. Thin film technology, including evaporation of thin metal and dielectric materials in a vacuum to coat a surface, was first developed intensively for photoemissive surfaces required for television camera technologies under development at RCA
since the 1930s. It was later applied to semiconductor fabrication process development leading, in part, to the historic growth of solid state electronics.
In the mid-1950s, while working at Sarnoff Corporation's David Sarnoff Research Center, Herbert Kroemer
developed key aspects of his theories of heterostructure physics for which he was a co-recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physics.
Other pioneering and historic technology developments attributable to Sarnoff Corporation's David Sarnoff Research Center include development of the electron microscope
, the photon-counting photomultiplier
, the CCD
imager, CMOS
integrated circuit technology, and early optoelectronic components such as lasers and LED
's.
(GE) of RCA in the late 1980s. A few years prior to the takeover, RCA had written off hundreds of millions of dollars of investment in videodisc technology
. RCA's SelectaVision
product was overtaken by the videocassette recorder
, which allowed easy recording and could store an entire movie on one tape. This major product failure led to the failure of RCA and its purchase by GE.
In the deal, which was intended to gain ownership of NBC
(created and owned by RCA), RCA was broken into pieces. General Electric's Jack Welch
sold several RCA units, while retaining RCA's broadcast company, NBC. Lockheed Martin
acquired RCA's government systems unit located in the Philadelphia area. Harris Corporation
acquired RCA's semiconductor
division, located along Route 202 in New Jersey
. Thomson SA
, the French company, acquired RCA's consumer electronics
division with manufacturing activities in Indianapolis, IN and Lancaster, PA.
At first, GE did not have a solution for the RCA David Sarnoff Research Center. GE did not require an augmentation of already existing GE labs in Schenectady, and Syracuse, NY. There was contemporaneous interest in developing an east-coast "Silicon Valley" in the Princeton area, and there was a desire for the David Sarnoff Research Center to play a role as an important component of such a regional center.
GE needed to maintain the David Sarnoff Research Center, among other purposes, to service the lucrative patent licensing business it had inherited as a result of acquiring RCA. A late 1950s antitrust consent decree had required RCA to provide low-cost licenses to domestic U.S. competitors. RCA had monetized its intellectual property by selling additional licenses internationally, leading in part to the explosive growth of the consumer electronics business in Japan and, later, elsewhere in East Asia.
To address this need, GE engaged non-profit SRI International
as an independent third party. Ultimately, in 1986, GE accepted an SRI International proposal that it acquire the David Sarnoff Research Center by donation, along with sufficient operating funds to maintain the activity for several years. In fact, the patent
licensing revenues associated with RCA television technologies significantly exceeded operating costs. GE retained the excess and the David Sarnoff Research Center continue to support the licenses and ensured they maintained their value. A sizable part of the workforce was reduced by a layoff. A nearby GE facility was opened as the licensing center for the former RCA intellectual property
.
A provision of the divestiture was that, should the organization not be profitable five years after it was emancipated from GE, its land (nearly 300 acres (1.2 km²) of valuable property) would revert to GE. Sarnoff was able to attain profitability and the deed
was transferred to Sarnoff Corporation around 1995.
At the beginning of 2011 Sarnoff Corporation merged with SRI, ceasing to exist as an independent company.
West Windsor Township, New Jersey
-Demographics:As of Census 2010, West Windsor had a population of 27,165. The median age was 39.6. The racial and ethnic composition of the population was 54.9% White, 3.7% Black or African American, 0.1% Native American, 37.7% Asian, 1.0% some other race and 2.6% reporting two or more races...
, was a research and development company specializing in vision, video and semiconductor technology.
The cornerstone of Sarnoff Corporation's David Sarnoff Research Center in the Princeton
Princeton, New Jersey
Princeton is a community located in Mercer County, New Jersey, United States. It is best known as the location of Princeton University, which has been sited in the community since 1756...
vicinity was laid just before the attack on Pearl Harbor
Attack on Pearl Harbor
The attack on Pearl Harbor was a surprise military strike conducted by the Imperial Japanese Navy against the United States naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on the morning of December 7, 1941...
in 1941. That facility, later Sarnoff Corporation headquarters, was the site of several historic developments, notably color television
Color television
Color television is part of the history of television, the technology of television and practices associated with television's transmission of moving images in color video....
, CMOS
CMOS
Complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor is a technology for constructing integrated circuits. CMOS technology is used in microprocessors, microcontrollers, static RAM, and other digital logic circuits...
integrated circuit
Integrated circuit
An integrated circuit or monolithic integrated circuit is an electronic circuit manufactured by the patterned diffusion of trace elements into the surface of a thin substrate of semiconductor material...
technology, electron microscopy, and many other important technologies affecting everyday life worldwide. Following 47 years as a central research laboratory for its corporate owner RCA
RCA
RCA Corporation, founded as the Radio Corporation of America, was an American electronics company in existence from 1919 to 1986. The RCA trademark is currently owned by the French conglomerate Technicolor SA through RCA Trademark Management S.A., a company owned by Technicolor...
(and briefly for successor GE
Gê
Gê are the people who spoke Ge languages of the northern South American Caribbean coast and Brazil. In Brazil the Gê were found in Rio de Janeiro, Minas Gerais, Bahia, Piaui, Mato Grosso, Goias, Tocantins, Maranhão, and as far south as Paraguay....
), in 1988 the David Sarnoff Research Center was transitioned to Sarnoff Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary of SRI International
SRI International
SRI International , founded as Stanford Research Institute, is one of the world's largest contract research institutes. Based in Menlo Park, California, the trustees of Stanford University established it in 1946 as a center of innovation to support economic development in the region. It was later...
, in which capacity it served multiple clients. At the beginning of 2011 Sarnoff Corporation merged with the parent company.
Current activities
Sarnoff Corporation is a highly diverse developer and provider of technology solutions, products, and services to government and commercial clients.Princeton-area facility
The Sarnoff Corporation Princeton, NJ facility includes the historic David Sarnoff Research Center, formerly the central research laboratory of RCA Corporation. Although located adjacent to Princeton UniversityPrinceton University
Princeton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....
, the two are not, and have not been, directly affiliated. Until 2010, the David Sarnoff Research Center housed important exhibits and archives dating from the RCA years.
In 2010, the Sarnoff Corporation transferred off-site the David Sarnoff Library, a museum highlighting the important work which occurred at the facility over many years, and the important role of longtime RCA leader and labs namesake David Sarnoff
David Sarnoff
David Sarnoff was an American businessman and pioneer of American commercial radio and television. He founded the National Broadcasting Company and throughout most of his career he led the Radio Corporation of America in various capacities from shortly after its founding in 1919 until his...
as the impresario and entrepreneur bringing broadcast radio
Radio
Radio is the transmission of signals through free space by modulation of electromagnetic waves with frequencies below those of visible light. Electromagnetic radiation travels by means of oscillating electromagnetic fields that pass through the air and the vacuum of space...
and television
Television
Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...
to North America. Exhibits associated with this library are transitioned to nearby facilities at The College of New Jersey.
Separately, also in 2010, archival RCA documents pertaining to the history of industrial innovation are transitioned to the Center for the History of Business, Technology, and Society at the Hagley Library in Wilmington, DE.
Science and technology
To date, two historic technology developments among many that took place at Sarnoff Corporation's David Sarnoff Research Center in Princeton, NJ have been recognized by the IEEE History Center Milestone Program. These two are the 1946-1953 invention of Monochrome-Compatible Electronic Color TelevisionTelevision
Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...
and the 1968 invention of the Liquid Crystal Display
Liquid crystal display
A liquid crystal display is a flat panel display, electronic visual display, or video display that uses the light modulating properties of liquid crystals . LCs do not emit light directly....
.
Beginning in the 1940s, key aspects of thin film
Thin film
A thin film is a layer of material ranging from fractions of a nanometer to several micrometers in thickness. Electronic semiconductor devices and optical coatings are the main applications benefiting from thin film construction....
technology were developed at Sarnoff Corporation's David Sarnoff Research Center. Thin film technology, including evaporation of thin metal and dielectric materials in a vacuum to coat a surface, was first developed intensively for photoemissive surfaces required for television camera technologies under development at RCA
RCA
RCA Corporation, founded as the Radio Corporation of America, was an American electronics company in existence from 1919 to 1986. The RCA trademark is currently owned by the French conglomerate Technicolor SA through RCA Trademark Management S.A., a company owned by Technicolor...
since the 1930s. It was later applied to semiconductor fabrication process development leading, in part, to the historic growth of solid state electronics.
In the mid-1950s, while working at Sarnoff Corporation's David Sarnoff Research Center, Herbert Kroemer
Herbert Kroemer
Herbert Kroemer , a professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University of California, Santa Barbara, received his Ph.D. in theoretical physics in 1952 from the University of Göttingen, Germany, with a dissertation on hot electron effects in the then-new transistor, setting the stage...
developed key aspects of his theories of heterostructure physics for which he was a co-recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physics.
Other pioneering and historic technology developments attributable to Sarnoff Corporation's David Sarnoff Research Center include development of the electron microscope
Electron microscope
An electron microscope is a type of microscope that uses a beam of electrons to illuminate the specimen and produce a magnified image. Electron microscopes have a greater resolving power than a light-powered optical microscope, because electrons have wavelengths about 100,000 times shorter than...
, the photon-counting photomultiplier
Photomultiplier
Photomultiplier tubes , members of the class of vacuum tubes, and more specifically phototubes, are extremely sensitive detectors of light in the ultraviolet, visible, and near-infrared ranges of the electromagnetic spectrum...
, the CCD
Charge-coupled device
A charge-coupled device is a device for the movement of electrical charge, usually from within the device to an area where the charge can be manipulated, for example conversion into a digital value. This is achieved by "shifting" the signals between stages within the device one at a time...
imager, CMOS
CMOS
Complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor is a technology for constructing integrated circuits. CMOS technology is used in microprocessors, microcontrollers, static RAM, and other digital logic circuits...
integrated circuit technology, and early optoelectronic components such as lasers and LED
LEd
LEd is a TeX/LaTeX editing software working under Microsoft Windows. It is a freeware product....
's.
Corporate
Although the facility existed under the name David Sarnoff Research Center for many years, the modern Sarnoff Corporation was created as a result of the purchase by General ElectricGeneral Electric
General Electric Company , or GE, is an American multinational conglomerate corporation incorporated in Schenectady, New York and headquartered in Fairfield, Connecticut, United States...
(GE) of RCA in the late 1980s. A few years prior to the takeover, RCA had written off hundreds of millions of dollars of investment in videodisc technology
Videodisc
Videodisc is a general term for a laser- or stylus-readable random-access circular disc that contains both audio and analog video signals recorded in an analog form...
. RCA's SelectaVision
SelectaVision
The Capacitance Electronic Disc was an analog video video disc playback system developed by RCA, in which video and audio could be played back on a TV set using a special needle and high-density groove system similar to phonograph records....
product was overtaken by the videocassette recorder
Videocassette recorder
The videocassette recorder , is a type of electro-mechanical device that uses removable videocassettes that contain magnetic tape for recording analog audio and analog video from broadcast television so that the images and sound can be played back at a more convenient time...
, which allowed easy recording and could store an entire movie on one tape. This major product failure led to the failure of RCA and its purchase by GE.
In the deal, which was intended to gain ownership of NBC
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...
(created and owned by RCA), RCA was broken into pieces. General Electric's Jack Welch
Jack Welch
John Francis "Jack" Welch, Jr. is an American chemical engineer, business executive, and author. He was Chairman and CEO of General Electric between 1981 and 2001...
sold several RCA units, while retaining RCA's broadcast company, NBC. Lockheed Martin
Lockheed Martin
Lockheed Martin is an American global aerospace, defense, security, and advanced technology company with worldwide interests. It was formed by the merger of Lockheed Corporation with Martin Marietta in March 1995. It is headquartered in Bethesda, Maryland, in the Washington Metropolitan Area....
acquired RCA's government systems unit located in the Philadelphia area. Harris Corporation
Harris Corporation
Harris Corporation is a Florida-based international communications equipment company that produces wireless equipment, electronic systems, and both terrestrial and spaceborne antennas for use in the government, defense, and commercial sectors. It is also the largest private-sector employer in...
acquired RCA's semiconductor
Semiconductor
A semiconductor is a material with electrical conductivity due to electron flow intermediate in magnitude between that of a conductor and an insulator. This means a conductivity roughly in the range of 103 to 10−8 siemens per centimeter...
division, located along Route 202 in New Jersey
New Jersey
New Jersey is a state in the Northeastern and Middle Atlantic regions of the United States. , its population was 8,791,894. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York, on the southeast and south by the Atlantic Ocean, on the west by Pennsylvania and on the southwest by Delaware...
. Thomson SA
Thomson SA
Technicolor SA , formerly Thomson SA and Thomson Multimedia, is a French international provider of solutions for the creation, management, post-production, delivery and access of video, for the Communication, Media and Entertainment industries. Technicolor’s headquarters are located in Issy les...
, the French company, acquired RCA's consumer electronics
Consumer electronics
Consumer electronics are electronic equipment intended for everyday use, most often in entertainment, communications and office productivity. Radio broadcasting in the early 20th century brought the first major consumer product, the broadcast receiver...
division with manufacturing activities in Indianapolis, IN and Lancaster, PA.
At first, GE did not have a solution for the RCA David Sarnoff Research Center. GE did not require an augmentation of already existing GE labs in Schenectady, and Syracuse, NY. There was contemporaneous interest in developing an east-coast "Silicon Valley" in the Princeton area, and there was a desire for the David Sarnoff Research Center to play a role as an important component of such a regional center.
GE needed to maintain the David Sarnoff Research Center, among other purposes, to service the lucrative patent licensing business it had inherited as a result of acquiring RCA. A late 1950s antitrust consent decree had required RCA to provide low-cost licenses to domestic U.S. competitors. RCA had monetized its intellectual property by selling additional licenses internationally, leading in part to the explosive growth of the consumer electronics business in Japan and, later, elsewhere in East Asia.
To address this need, GE engaged non-profit SRI International
SRI International
SRI International , founded as Stanford Research Institute, is one of the world's largest contract research institutes. Based in Menlo Park, California, the trustees of Stanford University established it in 1946 as a center of innovation to support economic development in the region. It was later...
as an independent third party. Ultimately, in 1986, GE accepted an SRI International proposal that it acquire the David Sarnoff Research Center by donation, along with sufficient operating funds to maintain the activity for several years. In fact, the patent
Patent
A patent is a form of intellectual property. It consists of a set of exclusive rights granted by a sovereign state to an inventor or their assignee for a limited period of time in exchange for the public disclosure of an invention....
licensing revenues associated with RCA television technologies significantly exceeded operating costs. GE retained the excess and the David Sarnoff Research Center continue to support the licenses and ensured they maintained their value. A sizable part of the workforce was reduced by a layoff. A nearby GE facility was opened as the licensing center for the former RCA intellectual property
Intellectual property
Intellectual property is a term referring to a number of distinct types of creations of the mind for which a set of exclusive rights are recognized—and the corresponding fields of law...
.
A provision of the divestiture was that, should the organization not be profitable five years after it was emancipated from GE, its land (nearly 300 acres (1.2 km²) of valuable property) would revert to GE. Sarnoff was able to attain profitability and the deed
Deed
A deed is any legal instrument in writing which passes, or affirms or confirms something which passes, an interest, right, or property and that is signed, attested, delivered, and in some jurisdictions sealed...
was transferred to Sarnoff Corporation around 1995.
At the beginning of 2011 Sarnoff Corporation merged with SRI, ceasing to exist as an independent company.