• A transistor is an electronic "switch" that can be set to either "on" (representing 1) or "off" (representing 0).

• Today's "microprocessor revolution" was made possible by the (1956 Nobel prize-winning) invention of the transistor.

• Today, transistors are extremely small 1cm² (and even smaller when etched on a chip) and fast (switch speed of nanoseconds).

• Other "bistable" (i.e., two-state) devices have been used in the past: relays, vacuum tubes, magnetic cores.

• Question: What might we use in the future?

The original Transistor

The three inventors of the transistor: William Bradford Shockley John Bardeen Walter H. Brattain The Minds behind the Transistor - from Lucent technologies. The History of the Transistor and the Integrated Circuit (IC)

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Last Updated 01/05/2000
© L.Heath, 2000