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| Inventors Shockley (seated), bardeen (left) and brittain (right) were the first to demonstrate a solid state amplifier. (pic: AT&T archives) |
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Physicists John Bardeen and Walter Brattain under the direction of William Shockley working at Bell Telephone Labs assembled, from a tiny slab of Germanium, some pieces of gold foil, a paper clip and some bits of plastic, what became the first transistor. Around the edge of a triangular plastic wedge a small strip of gold foil was glued and this foil covered wedge pressed down into the Germanium surface with a makeshift spring, fashioned from a paper clip. This delicate assembly, less than one inch high, was clamped together by a U-shaped piece of polystyrene resting upright on one of its arms. Two copper wires were soldered to the edges of the gold foil and connected to batteries, transformers and an oscilloscope, needed to assess performance. The work and research of Shockley, Bardeen and Brattain enabled Ralph Brown, Head of Bell Labs, to announce at a press conference held at Bell's West Street premises on June 30th 1948, 'We call it the 'transistor' because it is a resistor or semi-conductor device which can amplify electrical signals as they are transferred through it". Two more years were needed before Bell scientists perfected the techniques needed to grow Germanium crystals with the correct characteristics to act as transistors and several more years before 'junction' transistors could be produced in quantity. In 1954, a small Dallas company, Texas Instruments began producing junction transistors for portable radios which sold in the US for less than $50. However, they abandoned the market only to see it taken over by a little known Japanese outfit called Sony. You know the rest.Transistor Trivia- During the 1950s, the cost of a transistor went from $45 to $2. Today's transistors, like the millions used in a microchip, cost less that than a hundred thousandth of a penny.- This year more than half a billion transistors will be manufactured every second.- A typical integrated circuit used in a computer has 3 to 5 million transistors.- If a digital cellphone was made using thermionic valves instead of transistors it would occupy a building larger than the Canary Wharf Tower.
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