Morgan Sparks | Transistor pioneer, 91
Morgan Sparks, 91, a Bell Laboratories scientist who invented a semiconductor device that has revolutionized almost every aspect of modern life, has died.
Dr. Sparks died Saturday at his daughter's home in Fullerton, Calif., according to a news release from Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, N.M.
Dr. Sparks worked for 30 years at Bell Labs in New Jersey before taking over as director of Sandia in 1972. He served in the post until his retirement in 1981.
Sandia and Bell Labs officials said Dr. Sparks invented the first practical transistor, a semiconductor device that led to devices such as personal computers, cell phones and DVD players.
Transistors work something like light switches, flipping on and off inside a chip to generate the ones and zeros that store and process information inside a computer.
Dr. Sparks joined the Semiconductor Research Group at the New Jersey lab in 1948 just as a group of physicists were developing the first transistor.
Soon, transistors became essential in electronic computers and their production grew monumentally after the emergence of the microchip in the 1960s.
- AP