The small semiconductor devices are considered the most manufactured item in the history of modern electronics. (Image credit: Pxhere)
The birth of modern electronics began 75 years ago when John Bardeen and Walter Brattain developed the first transistors at AT&T's Bell Labs in Murray Hill, New Jersey, in 1947. The pair performed experiments and noted that when two gold point contacts were applied to a germanium crystal, a signal was produced with the output power greater than the input.
In a video from AT&T, Brattain discusses what he wrote in his original notebook during a demonstration for senior colleagues, stating, "This circuit was actually spoken over. And by switching the device in and out, a distinct gain in speech level could be heard and seen on the scope presentation with no noticeable change in quality."
His transistor was developed using a shard of germanium, which is neither an electrical conductor nor an insulator; rather it was a semiconductor. The pair's supervisor, William Shockley, improved on the original design, making it easier to manufacture. All three won the Nobel Prize in physics for the invention of the modern transistor.
Before the invention of the transistor, the most common way to amplify electrical signals was through vacuum tubes. Back then, vacuum tubes were large, expensive, and not very reliable. They also used a lot of power and generated a lot of heat. The transistor was a better solution. It was smaller, cheaper, and more reliable than vacuum tubes. It also used less power and generated less heat.
In the 1950s, transistors were developed in a variety of forms and sizes, including the point-contact transistor, the junction transistor, the integrated circuit, and the Metal Oxide Semiconductor Field-Effect Transistor (MOSFET). The development of these transistors paved the way for the development of modern computers and other electronic devices.
Today, transistors are used in almost every electronic device to amplify electrical signals, control current, and switch electrical signals on and off. They are also used to make integrated circuits, which are the basis of most modern electronics. Without the transistor, our world would look very different than it does today.
Fun fact - The top transistor count as of 12/15/2022 is 5.3 trillion mosfets inside Micron's 2 TB V-NAND flash memory chip.
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