First-Hand:The First Quartz Wrist Watch: Difference between revisions
From ETHW
No edit summary |
No edit summary |
||
Line 23: | Line 23: | ||
== The foundation of the Centre Electronique Horloger (CEH) in 1962 was a consequence of the growing threat due to the appearance of certain kinds of wrist watches in the late 50'ies which were powered by small batteries rather then by the usual springs. Such watches had been announced by Lip (France), Hamilton (USA) and Ebauches SA (Switzerland). The introduction of Max Hetzel's Accutron, the famous tuning fork watch (picture) in 1960, accelerated this process remarkably. [[Image:Image002.jpg|thumb|right]]Hetzel was a Swiss engineer, who started his investigations with Bulova in Bienne, Switzerland and later on was transferred to U.S. to direct the production of the Accutron watch. The fear to lose leading positions on the international market assembled the Swiss watchmakers under the leadership of Ebauches SA and the Swiss Horological Federation (FH) to join in a common joint stock company called CEH. The goal was simply to invent anything which was superior in at least one count of what was available on the market. This to improve the Swiss position in possible licence negociations, a rather poor vision indeed. Luckily, they found Roger Wellinger, a U.S. bound Swiss engineer, teacher and researcher, for the challenging job to create a new research laboratory in a field which was not common at all in Switzerland. Wellinger had courage, enthusiasm and farsightedness. <br><br><u>2.2 Goal and Strategy:</u> == | == The foundation of the Centre Electronique Horloger (CEH) in 1962 was a consequence of the growing threat due to the appearance of certain kinds of wrist watches in the late 50'ies which were powered by small batteries rather then by the usual springs. Such watches had been announced by Lip (France), Hamilton (USA) and Ebauches SA (Switzerland). The introduction of Max Hetzel's Accutron, the famous tuning fork watch (picture) in 1960, accelerated this process remarkably. [[Image:Image002.jpg|thumb|right]]Hetzel was a Swiss engineer, who started his investigations with Bulova in Bienne, Switzerland and later on was transferred to U.S. to direct the production of the Accutron watch. The fear to lose leading positions on the international market assembled the Swiss watchmakers under the leadership of Ebauches SA and the Swiss Horological Federation (FH) to join in a common joint stock company called CEH. The goal was simply to invent anything which was superior in at least one count of what was available on the market. This to improve the Swiss position in possible licence negociations, a rather poor vision indeed. Luckily, they found Roger Wellinger, a U.S. bound Swiss engineer, teacher and researcher, for the challenging job to create a new research laboratory in a field which was not common at all in Switzerland. Wellinger had courage, enthusiasm and farsightedness. <br><br><u>2.2 Goal and Strategy:</u> == | ||
== The goal set up by the Swiss watch industry was to develop electronic wrist watches with at least one advantage compared to existing products (e.g. Accutron). A fairly modest goal indeed, reflecting business and legal aspects predominantly. - The strategy to reach that goal had been set up by Roger Wellinger and consisted mainly of three elements: i) recruiting and hiring Swiss scientists, who had spent a certain time in the U.S. and were willing to come back with the intention of importing technical and scientific know-how from the U.S. to Switzerland, especially in the area of semiconductors and circuits and ii) investigating all kinds of possible subsystems and later on developing new kinds of solutions similar to the morphology developed by Prof. Fritz Zwicky, Caltec. Especially in the area of sonorous resonators, frequency dividers and displays there had been a great number of various investigations resulting in a fairly complete catalogue of possibilities and iii) building up semiconductor expertise in Switzerland. – However, none of the projects until 1965 incorporated a quartz wrist watch.<sup>1)</sup> There was neither a strategy nor a project addressing a high frequency, say 10 kHz quartz wrist watch, simply because such an enterprise was considered impossible by experts and industry leaders due to the high frequencies involved and for other reasons.<sup>2)</sup> Even worse, in 1966, when the quartz wrist watch project was already established, the president of the governing board informed the two initiators of the quartz wrist watch project that the Swiss watch industry was not interested in this new kind of a quartz wrist watch!<br><br>Since the very beginning Roger Wellinger recognized the importance of an own semiconductor laboratory. That was the only way to become independent from foreign suppliers and at the same time allowed to investigate into dedicated research. Kurt Hübner and his group started quickly and very successfully developing integrated circuits (IC) capability and competence in bipolar transistor technology and double diffused, high impedance resistors. With this it was already possible in 1965 to produce the first complex IC's. CEH was certainly in a favoured position as compared to Seiko, which equipped their first quartz wrist watch calibre 1967 with discrete transistors, resistors and capacitors, about 200 of them. – Unfortunately, since Spring 1965 the CEH and its management had been confronted for more then a full year with the CISSA project. CISSA stands for "Communauté Industrielle Suisse SA", a consortium of a number of Swiss firms together with Philips, Netherlands. The purpose of this was an unfriendly buy-out of CEH's successful semiconductor department. It was above all Roger Wellinger who fought against this fatal attempts and provided for continuous fruitful cooperation between the semiconductor department and the rest of the laboratory. <br><br><br><u>3. Change of Strategy: Montre-bracelet à Quartz</u> <br><u>3.1 Status:</u> | == The goal set up by the Swiss watch industry was to develop electronic wrist watches with at least one advantage compared to existing products (e.g. Accutron). A fairly modest goal indeed, reflecting business and legal aspects predominantly. - The strategy to reach that goal had been set up by Roger Wellinger and consisted mainly of three elements: i) recruiting and hiring Swiss scientists, who had spent a certain time in the U.S. and were willing to come back with the intention of importing technical and scientific know-how from the U.S. to Switzerland, especially in the area of semiconductors and circuits and ii) investigating all kinds of possible subsystems and later on developing new kinds of solutions similar to the morphology developed by Prof. Fritz Zwicky, Caltec. Especially in the area of sonorous resonators, frequency dividers and displays there had been a great number of various investigations resulting in a fairly complete catalogue of possibilities and iii) building up semiconductor expertise in Switzerland. – However, none of the projects until 1965 incorporated a quartz wrist watch.<sup>1)</sup> There was neither a strategy nor a project addressing a high frequency, say 10 kHz quartz wrist watch, simply because such an enterprise was considered impossible by experts and industry leaders due to the high frequencies involved and for other reasons.<sup>2)</sup> Even worse, in 1966, when the quartz wrist watch project was already established, the president of the governing board informed the two initiators of the quartz wrist watch project that the Swiss watch industry was not interested in this new kind of a quartz wrist watch!<br><br>Since the very beginning Roger Wellinger recognized the importance of an own semiconductor laboratory. That was the only way to become independent from foreign suppliers and at the same time allowed to investigate into dedicated research. Kurt Hübner and his group started quickly and very successfully developing integrated circuits (IC) capability and competence in bipolar transistor technology and double diffused, high impedance resistors. With this it was already possible in 1965 to produce the first complex IC's. CEH was certainly in a favoured position as compared to Seiko, which equipped their first quartz wrist watch calibre 1967 with discrete transistors, resistors and capacitors, about 200 of them. – Unfortunately, since Spring 1965 the CEH and its management had been confronted for more then a full year with the CISSA project. CISSA stands for "Communauté Industrielle Suisse SA", a consortium of a number of Swiss firms together with Philips, Netherlands. The purpose of this was an unfriendly buy-out of CEH's successful semiconductor department. It was above all Roger Wellinger who fought against this fatal attempts and provided for continuous fruitful cooperation between the semiconductor department and the rest of the laboratory. <br><br><br>'''<u>3. Change of Strategy: Montre-bracelet à Quartz</u>''' <br><u>3.1 Status:</u> == | ||
== The strategy and plan in the field of electronic wrist watches for the year 1965<sup>6)</sup> concentrated on three topics: i) the Swissonic calibre, basically an improved version of the Accutron with increased frequency of a tuning fork wrist watch by Max Hetzel, ii) the Alpha calibre, a wrist watch incorporating a figure 8-shaped metallic resonator with zero gravitational disturbance by Heinz Waldburger, otherwise similar to the Accutron and iii) the Beta project incorporating a metallic tuning fork like i) and ii) but newly with a small chain of frequency dividers to drive a separate motor. The Beta project at that time was the only one incorporating two electro mechanical transducers, the second transducer being an electro magnetic or a piezoelectric vibrating motor. The Beta project under the direction of Max Forrer was the most elaborate project concerning time and resources and further was the only one which never reached the status of a working calibre. - The Beta project must not be confused with the later Beta 1, Beta 2 and Beta 21 calibers, which were all high frequency quartz wrist watches.<br><br><u>3.2 Initiative:</u> == | == The strategy and plan in the field of electronic wrist watches for the year 1965<sup>6)</sup> concentrated on three topics: i) the Swissonic calibre, basically an improved version of the Accutron with increased frequency of a tuning fork wrist watch by Max Hetzel, ii) the Alpha calibre, a wrist watch incorporating a figure 8-shaped metallic resonator with zero gravitational disturbance by Heinz Waldburger, otherwise similar to the Accutron and iii) the Beta project incorporating a metallic tuning fork like i) and ii) but newly with a small chain of frequency dividers to drive a separate motor. The Beta project at that time was the only one incorporating two electro mechanical transducers, the second transducer being an electro magnetic or a piezoelectric vibrating motor. The Beta project under the direction of Max Forrer was the most elaborate project concerning time and resources and further was the only one which never reached the status of a working calibre. - The Beta project must not be confused with the later Beta 1, Beta 2 and Beta 21 calibers, which were all high frequency quartz wrist watches.<br><br><u>3.2 Initiative:</u> == |
Revision as of 07:33, 15 March 2009
The First Quartz Wrist Watch
by Armin H. Frei, LSM
Former Research Staff Member Centre Electronique Horloger
Content:
1. Introduction
2. Centre Eléctronique Horloger (CEH), Neuchâtel
2.1 Foundation
2.2 Goal and Strategy
3. Change of Strategy: Montre-bracelet à Quartz
3.1 Status
3.2 Initiative
3.3 Change of Strategy
4. The First Quartz Wrist Watch: Beta 1
4.1 World First
5. Components of Beta 1
5.1 Beta 1
5.2 Quartz Resonator
5.3 Driver Circuit
5.4 Frequency Adjustment
5.5 Temperature Compensation
5.6 Frequency Divider
5.7 Stepping Motor
6. Beta 2
6.1 Autonomy
6.2 Wrong Strategy
7. Beta 21
7.1 Industrial Version
7.2 Phase-out Model
8. Chronology of the First Quartz Wrist Watch
9. Rectification
10. Bibliography