From triodee–(at)–meritech.net Wed Jun 18 17:24:20 CDT 1997
Article: 33463 of rec.audio.tubes
Path: geraldo.cc.utexas.edu!cs.utexas.edu!chi-news.cic.net!howland.erols.net!ais.net!ameritech.net!chi.ameritech.net!not-for-mail
From: triodee–(at)–meritech.net (Ned Carlson)
Newsgroups: rec.audio.tubes
Subject: Re: Any progress since 1960???
Date: Wed, 18 Jun 1997 19:07:42 GMT
Organization: Triode Electronics
Lines: 102
Message-ID: <33a824d5.783296--(at)--ews.chicago.il.ameritech.net>
References: <33a447d6.218436--(at)--ews.online.no> <33a6327a.13327518--(at)--ews.chicago.il.ameritech.net> <33A8A1CF.72F--(at)--wwwsome.com>
Reply-To: triodee–(at)–meritech.net
NNTP-Posting-Host: dyn-max1-31.chicago.il.ameritech.net
X-Newsreader: Forte Free Agent 1.11/16.235
Xref: geraldo.cc.utexas.edu rec.audio.tubes:33463

“Norman S. Braithwaite” wrote:

>Fuzzy cathodes?
>

Norm: PLease excuse me if I sound a bit patronizing..this is being
posted in a newsgroup..you understand?

Oh my, I was hoping someone would be brave enough
ask about this so I could have an excuse to elaborate..

An article about this appeared in 1969, but doggone
it I can’t remember which magazine!
It’s a very interesting concept but not easy to implement.

Imagine you are in a cave with a flat, wet ceiling.
Some drops of water will drop on your head, but most will
run down the walls.
Now imagine the same wet cave roof full of stalactites.
Most of the water would drip off the tips of the stalactites
and you wouldn’t be able to walk through the room
without some some water dripping on your head.

(ahh I love that water/electron analogy, makes things
much easier to explain..)

Now imagine those drips were electrons, and the
floor was the anode, and you were God (or the
deity of your choice) and could increase the
force of gravity (or in this case the voltage
of the anode) as much as you cared to.

Pow!! (you’re God, remember)
You could get a lot more electrons
dripping between the cathode (roof)
and the anode (floor) without expending
nearly as much energy on gravity
(voltage).

Save some energy for creating life on nearby
planets, or stirking spammers with bolts
of lightning…

You could get enormous amounts of electrons
flowing with very little voltage!
And there aren’t any atoms of silicon in the way
(imagine your cave was full of styrofoam packing
peanuts) to impede water flow.

(There’s an argument that advocates of transistors
always try to evade!)

I’d hope the Dave Cigna (the physics prof) might weigh in
with a better explanation, but in lieu of that..

Make a cathode that looks like the back of a
porcupine., and install it in a standard
electron tube. Wow, tons of electron flow at
low voltage and little heat!! Killer tube!
OTL heaven!!!
Cancel all those MOSFET orders!

Arggh! Big problem! All those little
porcupiine cathode quills need to be
equidiistant from the anode, otherwise you get
hot spots. Very hard to avoid in production.
So the concept of GFET (Gated Field Effect Triodes)
was born. Every liittle stalactite cathode is on a
ceramic substrate,and gets its own anode.
A little circular grid surrounds each cathode,
controlling

Now, go REALLY nuts. Put 10,000 of the
little buggers in a circular millimeter.
Holy VLSI, Batman, a vacuum tube
integrated circuit!!

No theory here..it’s already been done.
Yes, there are web pages on it!
Ask your Government why we spend millions
of $$$$ of tax money every year on this item,
yet you folks have to learn about it on Usenet.

Gotta run, the Illuminati have seen this
post, and are coming to kidnap me!!

Just kidding, but why isn’t all this
common knowledge? It’s not a new thing!

Ned Carlson
Triode Electronics
2225 w. Roscoe St
Chicago, IL 60618 USA
email: triodee–(at)–meritech.net
ph:773-871-7459
fax:773-871-7938
“Worldwide service,
Neighborhood prices”
since 1985