Amperex - Slatersville, Rhode Island

Slatersville, Rhode Island

North American Philips Corporation built a 40,000 sq ft (3,700 m2) plant at 100 Providence Pike, North Smithfield, Rhode Island (Slatersville) on a 15-acre (61,000 m2) plot in 1959. The 15-acre property is recorded by the Town of North Smithfield Tax Assessor as Lot No. 60 on Plat No. 4, and Lot No. 385 on Plat No. 5. There are five buildings located on the property. The property is bordered to the north by Industrial Drive; to the south by Comstock Road, to the east by a grassy area; and to the west by Providence Pike. The plant was operated by one of Philips' fully owned subsidiaries, Amperex Electronics, to supply IBM, one of Philips' largest customers, with high speed, gold-doped germanium logic diodes. Millions of these diodes were manufactured at the Slatersville plant every year. With the advent of silicon diodes in 1962 there was a decreasing demand for these germanium diodes, so Philips transferred their germanium Post Alloy Diffused Transistor (PADT) manufacturing to Slatersville to take advantage of the site's capacity.

In 1960 Philips invented an imaging tube called the Plumbicon to replace the vidicon and Image Orthicon tubes used in studio television cameras. The technical advantages of this new tube allowed true color fidelity to be seen in television broadcasts for the first time. In 1967 the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences presented Philips with an Emmy Award for "Outstanding Achievement in Engineering Development" for the invention of the Plumbicon tube.

The popularity of the Plumbicon tubes was so great that Amperex, built a second plant adjacent to the 1959 building on the Slatersville site to meet the demand. The new plant was 85,000 sq ft (7,900 m2), and at the time of construction employed the largest and cleanest clean room facilities in the world. The plant was officially opened in 1967 and is still making Plumbicon camera tubes today. Although the original use of Plumbicon camera tubes was in broadcast television, current demand is primarily in for use in medical imaging equipment.

In 1973, several years after its acquisition by Amperex, the manufacturing operations of Advanced Micro Electronics were transferred to Slatersville. The products transferred from Advanced Micro Electronics included small signal silicon planar transistors for military and industrial applications, Leadless Inverted Devices (LIDs) and hybrid circuits using both thin and thick film technology. Manufacturing of these three products and the sales office for Philips Semiconductors were housed in Slatersville until 1992 when this business unit was sold.

In 1998 Philips Components purchased, from English Electric Valve (EEV), the only other lead oxide camera tube business still in existence and so became the World's sole lead oxide camera tube manufacturer.