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George Frye: Difference between revisions
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|Affiliations=University of Kansas;Tektronix;Frye Electronics | |Affiliations=University of Kansas;Tektronix;Frye Electronics | ||
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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>. | 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>. | ||
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* Project Engineer on [[4S2A]] (1966; see [http://w140.com/tek_4s2a_eng_spec.pdf Tektronix 4S2A Engineering Specification]) | * Project Engineer on [[4S2A]] (1966; see [http://w140.com/tek_4s2a_eng_spec.pdf Tektronix 4S2A Engineering Specification]) | ||
* Designed [[S-4|S-4 Sampling Head]] (1968- | * Designed [[S-4|S-4 Sampling Head]] (1968) | ||
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 carrier current system for the campus. | |||
During these early years, George was active on ham radio and eventually worked all continents. | |||
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. | |||
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 test 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 with the development of the [[S-1]] and [[S-2]] sampling heads. | |||
The sampling technology used in those was similar to previous instruments, just miniaturized. | |||
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, 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. | |||
George Frye left Tektronix in 1972. He formed Frye Electronics in 1973. | |||
Frye Electronics produces instruments for measuring the performance of hearing aids. | |||
As of March 2023, George is still actively involved with Frye Electronics. | |||
===Selected publications=== | ===Selected publications=== | ||