Amphenol
More info
- Creator
- Arthur Schmitt
- Released
- 1932
- Type
- Connectors
- Website
- amphenol.com
American connector maker from the Bakelite age, now second-largest in the business.
Founded in 1932 in Chicago by Arthur Schmitt as the American Phenolic Corporation — the name refers to Bakelite (phenolic plastic), the material in the radio-tube sockets it first made. Connectors soon became the main business, and an Amphenol engineer, Carl Concelman, lent the "C" to the BNC connector.
Today Amphenol is the world's second-largest connector maker after TE Connectivity, big in defence, aerospace and high-speed data. That a company named for Bakelite still dominates RF and fibre connectors is one of electronics' longer legacies.