An integrated semiconductor shift register

A description is given of an integrated electronic device, or circuit, in the form of a miniaturized germanium shift register consisting of thyristor stages and minority carrier delay lines. Design considerations including theoretical analysis of minority carrier drift under dc and pulse conditions are presented. The most important second-order effects, such as influence of minority carrier storage, potential interaction, capacitances, and temperature, are analyzed. The register operates with shift pulses of 20 volts over 10,000 ohms and a repetition rate of several hundred kc. An improved version with the stages in parallel rather than in series offers considerable advantages from a fabrication point of view, in that larger tolerances in the fabrication process may be allowed.