Sidney Darlington

Who was Sidney Darlington?

Sidney Darlington was an electrical engineer and inventor of a transistor configuration in 1953, the Darlington pair. He advanced the state of network theory, developing the insertion-loss synthesis approach, and invented chirp radar, bombsights, and gun and rocket guidance.

Darlington joined Bell Labs in 1929, where his first supervisor was Hendrik Wade Bode, and he remained there until he retired in 1971.

In 1945, he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the United States' highest civilian honor, for his contributions during World War II. He was an elected member of the National Academy of Engineering, which cited his contributions to electrical network theory, radar, and guidance systems. In 1975, he received IEEE's Edison Medal "For basic contributions to network theory and for important inventions in radar systems and electronic circuits" and the IEEE Medal of Honor in 1981 "For fundamental contributions to filtering and signal processing leading to chirp radar".

He died at his home in Exeter, New Hampshire, USA, at the age of 91.