The Transistor at 75
Seventy-five years is a long time. It's so long that most of us don't remember a time before the transistor, and long enough for many engineers to have devoted entire careers to its use and development. In honor of this most important of technological achievements, this issue's package of articles explores the transistor's historical journey and potential future.
This article is part of our special report on the 75th anniversary of the invention of the transistor.
In The First Transistor and How it Worked," Glenn Zorpette dives deep into how the point-contact transistor came to be. Then, in The Ultimate Transistor Timeline," Stephen Cass lays out the device's evolution, from the flurry of successors to the point-contact transistor to the complex devices in today's laboratories that might one day go commercial. The transistor would never have become so useful and so ubiquitous if the semiconductor industry had not succeeded in making it small and cheap. We try to give you a sense of that scale in The State of the Transistor."
So what's next in transistor technology? In less than 10 years' time, transistors could take to the third dimension, stacked atop each other, write Marko Radosavljevic and Jack Kavalieros in Taking Moore's Law to New Heights." And we asked experts what the transistor will be like on the 100th anniversary of its invention in The Transistor of 2047."
Meanwhile, IEEE's celebration of the transistor's 75th anniversary continues. The Electron Devices Society has been at it all year, writes Joanna Goodrich in The Institute, and has events planned into 2023 that you can get involved in. So go out and celebrate the device that made the modern world possible.
The Transistor at 75The past, present, and future of the modern world's most important invention
How the First Transistor Worked
Even its inventors didn't fully understand the point-contact transistor
The Ultimate Transistor Timeline
The transistor's amazing evolution from point contacts to quantum tunnels
The State of the Transistor in 3 Charts
In 75 years, it's become tiny, mighty, ubiquitous, and just plain weird
3D-Stacked CMOS Takes Moore's Law to New Heights
When transistors can't get any smaller, the only direction is up
The Transistor of 2047: Expert Predictions
What will the device be like on its 100th anniversary?
The Future of the Transistor Is Our Future
Nothing but better devices can tackle humanity's growing challenges
John Bardeen's Terrific Transistorized Music Box
This simple gadget showed off the magic of the first transistor