Sarnoff Corporation

Sarnoff Corporation was a research and development company specializing in vision, video and semiconductor technology. It was named for

To date, two historic technology developments among many that took place at RCA Laboratories have been recognized by the

Beginning in the 1940s, key aspects of thin film technology were developed at the RCA Laboratories. Thin film technology, including evaporation of thin metal and dielectric materials in a vacuum to coat a surface, was first developed intensively for photoemissive surfaces required for television camera technologies under development at RCA since the 1930s. It was later applied to semiconductor fabrication process development leading, in part, to the historic growth of solid state electronics.

In the mid-1950s, while working at the RCA Laboratories, Herbert Kroemer developed key aspects of his theories of heterostructure physics for which he was a co-recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physics.^[7]

Other pioneering and historic technology developments attributable to the RCA Laboratories and Sarnoff Corporation's David Sarnoff Research Center include development of the

Corporate history

Although the facility existed under the name David Sarnoff Research Center for many years, Sarnoff Corporation was only created as an independently operating business following the purchase by General Electric (GE) of RCA in the late 1980s. The context was RCA's write-off of $100M's of investment in capacitive-pickup videodisc technology. RCA's SelectaVision offering was overtaken by the videocassette recorder, which allowed recording in addition to playback offered by Selectavision disks. This 1983 product failure affected RCA stock at a time when equities markets were advancing strongly, thus paving the way for a GE takeover.

In the deal, in which GE gained ownership of

A late-1950s antitrust consent decree had required RCA to provide low-cost licenses for consumer electronics technology, largely television-related, to domestic U.S. competitors. RCA had, however, monetized its intellectual property by selling additional licenses internationally. The David Sarnoff Research Center had continued to provide support to clients to further the inventions described in these patents, and GE wished to maintain these activities of the David Sarnoff Research Center to service the very considerable sizable licensing activity that it acquired along with RCA.

To address this need, GE engaged non-profit SRI International as an independent third party. Ultimately, in 1986, GE accepted an SRI International proposal that it acquire the David Sarnoff Research Center by donation, along with sufficient operating funds to maintain the activity for several years. In fact, the patent licensing revenues associated with RCA television technologies significantly exceeded operating costs. GE retained the excess and the David Sarnoff Research Center continue to support the licenses and ensured they maintained their value. A provision of the divestiture was that, should the organization not be profitable five years after it was emancipated from GE, its land (nearly 300 acres (1.2 km²) of valuable property) would revert to GE. Sarnoff was able to attain profitability and the deed was transferred to Sarnoff Corporation around 1995.

A sizable part of the workforce was reduced by a layoff during the Dot Com Bust that reduced the amount of venture capital available; the company had 800 employees in 2001, and 540 in 2006.^[8] At the beginning of 2011, Sarnoff Corporation merged with SRI, ceasing to exist as an independent company.^[2]

Library

Between 1967 and 2010, the David Sarnoff Research Center housed exhibits and archives in the David Sarnoff Library, which was constructed by