Computing · 1947
Transistor
A solid-state switch that replaced the vacuum tube.
John Bardeen, Walter Brattain and William Shockley demonstrated the point-contact transistor at Bell Labs in December 1947. Smaller, cooler and more reliable than tubes, it is the building block of all modern electronics; over 10^22 have now been made.
What it built on 2
What it led to 14
- Zone refining 1950
- Silicon solar cell 1954
- Photolithography 1957
- Integrated circuit 1958
- Modem 1958
- MOSFET 1959
- Planar process 1959
- Transit navigation satellite 1960
- Unimate industrial robot 1961
- Telstar communications satellite 1962
- Computer-aided design 1963
- CDC 6600 1964
- IBM System/360 1964
- Brain-computer interfaces restore speech ~2032
Watch
Related measurements
The dashed line marks when it first worked.
Transistors per microprocessor Latest: 58.2B transistors (2021) Source: Our World in Data
Computation per constant dollar, 1850-2006 Latest: 7.3B million units of computer power per 2006 $ (2003) Source: Nordhaus 2007, Two Centuries of Productivity Growth in Computing, J. Econ. Hist. 67(1), Table 6
US utility patents granted since 1790 Latest: 352k patents per year (2020) Source: Our World in Data