2017 Volume 26 Issue 2 Pages 112-143
This paper explores the technology transfer of transistor manufacturing from the United States to Japan by Sony (then known as Tokyo Tsushin Kogyo, or Totsuko) between 1953 and 1954. Although Sony's engineers acquired the basic knowledge to manufacture transistors by studying two textbooks on this subject (including Bell Labs' Transistor Technology), the two books provided little information about the specifications of the necessary apparatus or the manufacturing process itself. Sony sent its chief scientist, Kazuo Iwama, to the United States to obtain direct knowledge by observing transistor manufacturing processes and talking with engineers. In early 1954, Iwama sent many letters and reports from the United States to Sony headquarters in Tokyo. This collection of documents became known as the "Iwama Report," analyzed here as a historical study for the first time. The technical information included in Iwama's correspondence and in Transistor Technology played a crucial role in transmitting information. However, Iwama's coworkers in Japan also provided Iwama with crucial guidance in his study based on feedback from their own transistor manufacturing experiments, which in turn were based on the technical information sent by Iwama. Therefore, Sony's successful technology transfer is interpreted as an interactive and dialogical process in which visual and written communication and experimentation worked together, rather than as a unilateral transmission of knowledge.
