Switzerland as the birth place of the charging technology

Already early in the 20th century, there was intensive development and optimizing at combustion machines running. As a result of this, Alfred Buechi was the first getting a patent of a “combustion engine system” approved in 1905, which was built with a turbine compressor,
a combustion engine and a turbine at the exit.
The idea from Buechi was the birth of the turbochargers,
and the swiss company BBC ( today ABB ) has developed the first production ready turbocharger. Companies as KKK ( today Borg Warner ), IHI, Schwitzer and others was starting their activities in the turbocharger development based on Licenses from BBC.

The turbocharging principle stayed very similar over 100 years 

Also the pressure wave charger was invented by the Swiss company BBC in the fifties to supercharge Jet engines. In the seventies, BBC further developed this unit under the brand name Comprex to supercharge Diesel engines for cars.  Even though the comprex had shown a huge potential already at this time, it could not succeed against the turbocharger, which at this time could fullfil the needs of the Automotive Industry. High and efficient supercharging was not known at this time. With the Hyprex, the pressure wave charger was further developed and today, this unit is ideal to charge mostly smaller displacement gasoline engines, where his benefits over the turbocharger are obvious regarding boost response time and pressure ratio.