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{{Person | {{Person | ||
|Names=George Joseph Frye | |Names=George Joseph Frye | ||
|Affiliations=Tektronix ; Frye Electronics | |Countries=USA; | ||
}} | |Affiliations=University of Kansas;Tektronix;Frye Electronics | ||
}} co-invented the [[random sampling]] technique. | |||
[[ | George Frye grew up in Kansas City, Missouri and attended Rockhurst High School in Kansas City. | ||
After that, he attended Rockhurst College as a physics major. | |||
He transferred to the University of Kansas and studied electrical engineering. | |||
As an undergrad project, he built a [[wikipedia:Carrier_current|carrier current]] system for the campus. | |||
During these early years, George was active on ham radio (W0EZU) and eventually worked all continents. | |||
During undergrad, Frye worked at Wilcox Electric, initially in shipping, | |||
later on the assembly line, soldering, and later helping debug 10 kW shortwave transmitters. | |||
As a grad student, also at the University of Kansas, under Professor Norris Nahman, | |||
he developed the [[random sampling]] technique under a grant from the US National Security Agency. | |||
== | George writes: | ||
<blockquote> | |||
“But then realized that an NSA project I worked on while going for my MSEE at KU showed the way to generate real time sampling pulses at very high frequencies. | |||
Just use a klystron. Velocity modulate the beam at the desired sampling frequency and then place a catch electrode at the point where the electrons combine in pulses at the modulating frequency. Klystrons usually place a cavity there to collect the amplified RF signal. | |||
That was the basis for the project I was assigned to 60 years ago…” | |||
</blockquote> | |||
While still in Kansas City, he took a job at Bendix Corporation. That was work for the Department of Defense. | |||
In 1962, he joined [[Norm Winningstad]]'s sampling group at Tektronix. | |||
Their group was in a building on Barnes road. Later, they moved to the second floor of [[Building 50]] on the Tektronix Campus. | |||
George's first assignment at Tek was to build a high speed (around 100 MHz) square wave waveform generator for internal purposes. | |||
It didn't go into production. | |||
After Norm Winningstad left Tektronix in the mid-1960s, George Frye's manager was [[Al Zimmerman]]. | |||
Frye is listed as "Project Engineer, Electrical" on the [[4S2A]] sampling plug-in for the [[661]]. | |||
In the late 1960s, he was involved ("head man") with the development of the [[S-1]] and [[S-2]] sampling heads. | |||
The sampling technology used in those sampling heads was similar to previous instruments, just modularized. | |||
In terms of making high speed sampling heads, | |||
Tek was at a disadvantage compared to HP because HP had faster snap-off diodes. | |||
This enabled HP to generate very sharp sampling strobe pulses | |||
and therefore achieve small aperture time and therefore good high frequency response. | |||
George Frye pondered how to build a very fast (low aperture time) sampler using the components Tek had at the time. | |||
He decided to leverage the very short turn-off time of Tek's Schottky diodes. | |||
This led to the invention of the traveling wave sampling gate, [[Patent US 3629731A|US patent number 3629731]]. | |||
In this new sampling gate design, the aperture time is not a function of the length of the sampling strobe pulse. | |||
Only the falling edge matters. Another way of viewing this is that conventional sampling heads depended on the | |||
sampling pulse having a high second derivative, whereas the new design only required a high first derivative. | |||
This led to a significantly faster sampling head. | |||
The first product using this new sampling gate design was the [[S-4]], which has a rise time of 25 picoseconds. | |||
===After Tektronix=== | |||
George Frye left Tektronix in 1972. | |||
In 1973, he incorporated ''Frye Electronics'' to produce audiological test equipment <ref>George Frye: ''[https://www.electronicdesign.com/displays/george-frye-family-need-leads-better-hearing-aid-and-new-industry Family Need Leads To A Better Hearing Aid And A New Industry]''. Electronic Design, Nov 2008</ref><ref>[https://www.frye.com/wp/history/ Frye Electronics: History]</ref>. | |||
Frye Electronics produces instruments for measuring the performance of hearing aids. | |||
As of May 2023, George is still actively involved with Frye Electronics. | |||
===Selected publications=== | |||
* George Frye and Norris S.Nahman, ''[[Media:Frye_random_sampling_oscillography.pdf|Random Sampling Oscillography]]''. IEEE Transactions on Instrumentation and Measurement, Vol. IM-13 Issue 1, March 1964 | |||
* George Frye, ''[[Media:Frye_s4_gate.pdf|A new Approach to Fast Gate Design]]'', 1968 (also in [[Media:Service Scope 52 Oct 1968.pdf | Servicescope No. 52, Oct 1968]]) | |||
* George Frye, ''[[Media:Frye_subnanosecond_pulse_gen.pdf|A Predictable Subnanosecond Step Generator]]''. IEEE Transactions on Instrumentation and Measurement, Vol. IM-17 No. 4, December 1968 | |||
{{Documents|Author=George Frye}} | |||
{{Designer|George Frye}} | {{Designer|George Frye}} | ||
* Project Engineer on [[4S2A]] (1966; see [[Media:tek_4s2a_eng_spec.pdf|Tektronix 4S2A Engineering Spec]]) | |||
* Designed [[S-4|S-4 Sampling Head]] (1968) | |||
{{Patents|George Frye}} | {{Patents|George Frye}} | ||
== | ==Links and References== | ||
<references /> | |||
[[Category:Tektronix people]] | [[Category:Tektronix people]] | ||