More Reliable Vacuum Tubes Designed for Digital Circuits are Produced

1952
photograph circuity from a core memory unit of Whirlwind.

Circuitry from core memory unit of Whirlwind incorporating vacuum tubes.

In 1952 manufacturers began producing vacuum tubes with higher reliability standards especially designed for use in digital circuits.

"To meet the reliability requirements of the 1951 US digital computer Whirlwind, "special-quality" tubes with extended life, and a long-lasting cathode in particular, were produced. The problem of short lifetime was traced largely to evaporation of silicon, used in the tungsten alloy to make the heater wire easier to draw. The silicon forms barium orthosilicate at the interface between the nickel sleeve and the cathode barium oxide coating.[7]:301 This "cathode interface" is a high-resistance layer (with some parallel capacitance) which greatly reduces the cathode current when the tube is switched into conduction mode.[34]:224 Elimination of silicon from the heater wire alloy (and more frequent replacement of the wire drawing dies) allowed the production of tubes that were reliable enough for the Whirlwind project. High-purity nickel tubing and cathode coatings free of materials such as silicates and aluminum that can reduce emissivity also contribute to long cathode life.

"The first such "computer tube" was Sylvania's 7AK7 pentode of 1948 (these replaced the 7AD7, which was supposed to be better quality than the standard 6AG7 but proved too unreliable).[35]:59 Computers were the first tube devices to run tubes at cutoff (enough negative grid voltage to make them cease conduction) for quite-extended periods of time. Running in cutoff with the heater on accelerates cathode poisoning and the output current of the tube will be greatly reduced when switched into conduction mode.[34]:224 The 7AK7 tubes improved the cathode poisoning problem, but that alone was insufficient to achieve the required reliability.[35]:60 Further measures included switching off the heater voltage when the tubes were not required to conduct for extended periods, turning on and off the heater voltage with a slow ramp to avoid thermal shock on the heater element,[34]:226 and stress testing the tubes during offline maintenance periods to bring on early failure of weak units.[35]:60–61

"The tubes developed for Whirlwind were later used in the giant SAGE air-defense computer system. By the late 1950s, it was routine for special-quality small-signal tubes to last for hundreds of thousands of hours if operated conservatively. This increased reliability also made mid-cable amplifiers in submarine cables possible" (Wikipedia article on vacuum tube, accessed 9-2020).

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