transistors
Sixty-one years ago last November, John Bardeen and Walter Brattain discovered the transistor at Bell Labs, in 1951. Before this, electronics used tubes, which happened to be extremely bulky, generated lots of heat, and had short life spans. The invention of smaller, more efficient, and more durable transistors brought a revolution in electronics. They became an important discovery that changed the world forever.
The first ideas and experimentation with solid-state electronics began in 1874, but researchers gave it up because other researchers came out at this same time with vacuum tubes that appeared to work better. Vacuum tubes helped advance the electronic technology, but they had their limitations. For example, because tubes used a tremendous amount of electricity and gave off a lot of heat, radios remained larger than modern microwave ovens. Therefore they started research on solid-state again. By the late 1930s, people started realizing that an opportunity to create some sort of solid-state device might exist. The main people involved in the research where John Bardeen, William Shockley, and Walter Brattain. Shockley wrote down theory behind a bipolar junction transistor. The theory depended on the introduction of electrons and holes as minority carriers. Shockley, in developing this theory, became the first person to both clearly see and discuss minority carrier injection into the semiconductor. It was an important step.
By late 1947 Bardeen and Brattain managed to create a real, working transistor. Shockley contributed the information to create it. They tried to create a transistor because tubes could not meet the growing demands of electronic needs. The first transistor appeared extremely crude, but by December Bardeen and Brattain had redesigned it and used it in their presentation to amplify voices. Before this invention, amplification required amplifier tubes. On December 16, 1947, they had a working point-contact transistor. They gradually
The first ideas and experimentation with solid-state electronics began in 1874, but researchers gave it up because other researchers came out at this same time with vacuum tubes that appeared to work better. Vacuum tubes helped advance the electronic technology, but they had their limitations. For example, because tubes used a tremendous amount of electricity and gave off a lot of heat, radios remained larger than modern microwave ovens. Therefore they started research on solid-state again. By the late 1930s, people started realizing that an opportunity to create some sort of solid-state device might exist. The main people involved in the research where John Bardeen, William Shockley, and Walter Brattain. Shockley wrote down theory behind a bipolar junction transistor. The theory depended on the introduction of electrons and holes as minority carriers. Shockley, in developing this theory, became the first person to both clearly see and discuss minority carrier injection into the semiconductor. It was an important step.
By late 1947 Bardeen and Brattain managed to create a real, working transistor. Shockley contributed the information to create it. They tried to create a transistor because tubes could not meet the growing demands of electronic needs. The first transistor appeared extremely crude, but by December Bardeen and Brattain had redesigned it and used it in their presentation to amplify voices. Before this invention, amplification required amplifier tubes. On December 16, 1947, they had a working point-contact transistor. They gradually