The David Sarnoff Research Center (DSRC) in Princeton, New Jersey was the central research organization for the Radio Corporation of America (RCA) from 1942 to 1987. Following GE’s acquisition of RCA in 1986, the DSRC was donated to SRI International as a contract research laboratory. Renamed the Sarnoff Corporation in 1997, it was integrated into SRI in 2011.

The pioneering work of scientists at the DSRC included the inventions of color television and liquid crystal displays (LCDs), the co-invention of high-definition television (HDTV), and numerous improvements in an array of fields relating to electronics.

For the history of RCA, see the historical note for accession 2069, RCA Corporation records: http://findingaids.hagley.org/xtf/view?docId=ead/2069.xml

Before RCA Labs

Research in electronics and related fields was critical to the success of RCA throughout its history. Its work in radio and television was performed at an assortment of different laboratories in different organizations until research was centralized in 1941-1942.

Although RCA was only formed in October 1919, its first laboratory was established before the end of the year by Harold H. Beverage in a tent at Riverhead, Long Island. This became the center for radio reception research, while radio transmission research was conducted at the nearby Rocky Point laboratory founded in 1920. Research in radio terminal equipment was carried out by a third laboratory in Manhattan that was established around this time.

RCA entered into manufacturing with the acquisition of the Victor Talking Machine Company of Camden, New Jersey in 1929 and General Electric’s tube plant in Harrison, N. J. the following year. Also in 1930, RCA established the License Laboratory in Manhattan.

At the start of the 1930s, RCA now had four physically and organizationally separate major research units: the RCA Communications, Inc. laboratories in Riverhead, Rocky Point, and Manhattan; the RCA Victor Company in Camden; the RCA Radiotron Company in Harrison; and the License Laboratory (later the Industrial Service Laboratory) in Manhattan.

The initial steps to consolidate research were made at the end of 1934 and beginning of 1935. First, the RCA Victor Company and RCA Radiotron Company became divisions of the newly established RCA Manufacturing Company. This was followed by the appointment of Ralph R. Beal as Research Supervisor (later Research Director) with responsibility for coordinating RCA research.

Despite these efforts, leading figures at RCA were dissatisfied by an organization where the manufacturing and operating units controlled the research groups. This made it very difficult for teams to conduct long-term research when they were judged on their contributions to the short-term goals of the production units.

At the end of 1940, Otto S. Schairer sent RCA President David Sarnoff a proposal for the establishment of RCA Laboratories as a central research organization. In addition to addressing RCA’s organizational problems, the proposal recommended the construction of a central laboratory facility in Princeton, New Jersey. Princeton was selected mostly because of its convenience to the existing RCA plants in Camden and Harrison, as well as company headquarters in New York City.

On March 5, 1941, General Order S—56 established RCA Laboratories under Vice-President Schairer. All four major research groups were made part of the new organization and most teams were slated to move to Princeton.

Construction of the new Princeton laboratories began in the summer of 1941 and the facility was dedicated on September 27, 1942. In 1951, it was renamed the David Sarnoff Research Center (DSRC) in honor of David Sarnoff, RCA’s longtime head.

1942-1950s

Founded in the midst of the Second World War, RCA Laboratories initial work focused on military electronics, especially opto-electronics, high frequency tube design, and acoustics. This led to immediate applications in radar, radio antennas, and infrared scopes. Particularly important was the image orthicon tube (nicknamed “immy”), a major breakthrough in television cameras and for which the “Emmy” award was named.

In the post-war period, research increasingly shifted from electronics development to fundamental research into electronic materials. When Bell Labs announced the invention of the transistor in 1948, RCA Laboratories quickly realized that it would have a profound impact on electronics. By the end of the decade, the Labs were investing substantial resources into solid state technology research and would continue to do so into the 21st century.

Despite this shift, the late 1940s and early 1950s saw the Laboratories lead the successful development of the all-electronic compatible color television system (NTSC).

Satellite Laboratories

In order to focus on long-term research without neglecting support of the product divisions, RCA Laboratories established what were variously called resident, satellite, or affiliated laboratories. These were labs established at the DSRC by product divisions to improve research coordination with RCA Laboratories. The product divisions provided the funding and technical direction.

The first such lab was created by the transfer of the RCA Tube Division’s Microwave Advanced Development Group from Harrison, New Jersey to the DSRC in December 1956. The number of satellite laboratories peaked at eleven in 1962. In 1972, the remaining labs were merged into RCA Laboratories, with the exception of the small Materials and Display Device Laboratory. Around the same time, a new model of satellite laboratory was implemented with the establishment of the Solid State Technology Center. In this model, RCA Laboratories created laboratories that were located at, and reported to, the product divisions. RCA Labs cooperated with planning and monitoring the research projects.

1960s-1980s

During the 1960s, a research team led by George H. Heilmeier developed the first liquid crystal displays (LCDs). At the same time, other teams made breakthroughs on lasers and holography.

Attempts to apply these revolutionary advances were handicapped by the increasing demands from senior management and the product divisions for support of advanced development. In particular, RCA’s disastrous foray into the general purpose computer business led to massive losses and forced the DSRC to devote substantial resources to increasingly desperate attempts to shore up RCA Computer Systems until RCA sold the unit in 1972.

Even with the sale, the poor economic climate of the 1970s limited the DSRC’s ability to pursue long-term exploratory research. In 1974, such work accounted for only 7% of its overall research efforts.

This was partly due to the decision to develop the RCA VideoDisc, the largest RCA Labs research effort since color television. In this system, video was recorded on vinyl discs much as audio had been for decades. This was a remarkable technological achievement, as video data requires vastly more storage space than audio data. Released commercially in 1981, the VideoDisc was abandoned as unable to compete with VHS in 1984.

Despite the focus on VideoDisc, the DSRC continued to innovate in other fields during the 1970s and 1980s. A few examples are the successful application of charge-coupled devices (CCDs) to television cameras to vastly decrease the size and complexity of the devices, new efforts in satellite communications in cooperation with RCA Americom, and major improvements in integrated circuit manufacturing.

Transition to Contract Lab

On December 11, 1985, GE announced that it had agreed to acquire RCA for $6.3 billion. This unexpected announcement rocked the staff at the DSRC, who were well aware that GE already had a central research facility that overlapped in many areas. Even after the merger was officially completed on June 9, 1986, it was unclear whether the DSRC would have a role in GE.

After more than a year of uncertainty, GE announced the donation of the DSRC to the non-profit research organization SRI International on February 5, 1987. Now the David Sarnoff Research Center, Inc., it became a wholly owned for-profit subsidiary of SRI on April 1.

Although GE guaranteed $250 million in research contracts over the first five years, they also retained rights and royalties to all DSRC intellectual property, worth more than $250 million in annual revenue. Starting almost from scratch, the DSRC had to transition from an organization that rarely spent more than a quarter of its efforts on contract research, to one that depended entirely on such work.

1987-2000

Under the terms of the SRI/GE agreement, the DSRC was given five years to become self-sustaining. This was accomplished and the company (renamed the Sarnoff Corporation in 1997) was profitable from 1993 to 1998, but always by slim margins. Despite a loss in 1999, they appeared to have turned the corner in 2000 thanks in large part to the substantial equity in the over twenty tech spinoffs created during the 1990s.

During the 1990s, the DSRC championed the information revolution, which fit in well with its long-term strengths in consumer electronics, communications, computing, and video. Biomedical research also became a major focus during this time.

21st Century

Like many high-tech firms, the Sarnoff Corporation was badly hurt by the collapse of the dot-com bubble in the early 2000s. Nevertheless, annual revenue increased from $130 million in 1998 to $450 million in 2008.

In 2011, the Sarnoff Corporation was fully integrated into SRI. The David Sarnoff Research Center continues to operate as one of the principal SRI research facilities.