Sixty years ago today: transistors -- and modern electronics -- were born

Like transistors? You must -- you're using a few million (or billion) right now just reading this sentence. But it's actually difficult to overstate the transistor's importance since its invention exactly 60 years ago today by super nerd gods John Bardeen, Walter Brattain, and William Shockley -- everything changed when solid state circuits were finally able to replace mechanical relays and vacuum tubes. There's little doubt electronics and technology as we know it today are only possible because of this fundamental discovery, although 60 years on we can only seem to navel gaze about what sorts of real jobs we'd all have if we weren't just spending our days obsessing about the gadgets these transistors power.

[trackmania 1 @ Dec 16th 2007 9:07PM]

I thought it was from the All Spark Cube :)

[Eric Walker @ Dec 16th 2007 9:31PM]

Good answer.

[Charlie Calhoun @ Dec 17th 2007 12:53AM]

I thought it was all reverse engineered from the Federation Time Ship Aeon..

[3rdsun @ Dec 17th 2007 4:44AM]

As is stated fact, transistors and all mordern electronic devices were reversed engineered from MB1 aka Megatron when he was discovered frozen in the polar icecaps. All hail Megatron.

[Kal-El @ Dec 17th 2007 9:43PM]

It's actually called NBE-1 (Non Biological Entity - 1)...but yeah, whatever. I shouldn't even know this.

[tange1 @ Dec 16th 2007 9:08PM]

And where were they invented? Just down the street from me in Allentown, PA at Bell Labs on Union Blvd.

[mattwier @ Dec 16th 2007 10:22PM]

You live in Allentown? I live in Kimberton (near Phoenixville and Pottstown) we're not too far from eachother! Happy B-Day Transistors!

[Morisato @ Dec 17th 2007 12:12AM]

I hear a play date between nerds being scheduled.

[yannick @ Dec 16th 2007 9:14PM]

Heed my words, transistor will reach it maximum speeeds in the next 10 years, and we still wont be able to muster up a way to use quantum pc to at the speeds of silicon. Only way out for now is processors with 100 million cores, or a silicon with no viscosity :D that way heat would never be generated.

[John P @ Dec 16th 2007 9:25PM]

Aw, how can you tell the transistor that on its birthday? It's transistor's special day! Shame on you :p

[Bernhard @ Dec 16th 2007 10:14PM]

Well, at least I can still send email, create a budget, surf the net, listen to my music and play starcraft on my 600 Mhz Celeron. What amazing things other than that could we do with 100 million cores on a processor?

[paul34 @ Dec 16th 2007 10:27PM]

Well, we can still play Doom. 100 million copies at the same time.

[Anthony @ Dec 16th 2007 10:46PM]

Wow, you read the CNN article too!

[TJ @ Dec 16th 2007 11:43PM]

It's a good thing we don't use silicon then. Check out the use of Hafnium in the Penryn architecture. Then check out the fourth successor to Penryn called Sandy Bridge.

(Penryn > Nehalem > Westmere > Sandy Bridge)

"Intel's plans are to introduce new microarchitectures every two years, so this processor should debut in 2010. In keeping with its tick-tock principle, the 22 nm shrink of Sandy Bridge is due out in 2011.

According to a presentation made by Intel in December 2006, Sandy Bridge is planned to run at 4 GHz and feature 4 to 8 cores. Sandy Bridge may possibly feature up to 32 cores. Sandy Bridge will also feature 32 KB L1 cache/core, 512 KB L2 cache/core, and 2-3 MB L3 cache (most likely shared, but it may be per core). Other features include 64 GB/s memory bandwidth and a 17 GB/s QuickPath link. The presentation also mentions that Sandy Bridge will be capable of up to 28 GFLOPS/core, which would give a total of 112-224 GFLOPS/processor."

No wonder AMD is getting the crap kicked out of them when Intel is working four iterations ahead of current technologies.

[Yubastard @ Dec 16th 2007 9:44PM]

I'm glad they invented transistors! long live the gate and the electrons flowing thru!!

[Ipaq3115 @ Dec 16th 2007 9:52PM]

My life would be extremely boring if transistors hadn't been invented...

Either that or someone would have invented something 10 times better and I would be 10 times happier...

[DAZA @ Dec 17th 2007 7:29AM]

You wouldn't know you were 10 times happier though, you would just think it was 'normal'. You would also probably be thinking there is something else that could have been invented 10x better and 10x faster :) Remember, without evil we wouldn't know what good is!

[Ipaq3115 @ Dec 17th 2007 9:04AM]

Ya you're probably right...

Maybe they should just invent something 10x faster now...

[AVMaxMan.com @ Dec 16th 2007 9:54PM]

It's hard to believe how far technology has come! I remember blowing up a few transistors in high school electronics class!

[Reader @ Dec 16th 2007 9:57PM]

Transistor is one fertile bastard, just look how many of them there are only 60 years later.

[podphreak @ Jan 4th 2008 2:55PM]

I have this bizarre impulse to make some sort of reference to a shadowy being which has control OVER us... something like a medieval LORD or some sort. hmmm... odd indeed. Well happy B-Day transistor!

[Clinton @ Dec 16th 2007 10:38PM]

Sex. Do it for the kids.

[Timerider @ Dec 17th 2007 5:30PM]

@Clinton
Lol.
Kids in the backseat cause accidents. Accidents in the backseat cause kids.

[jbcaro @ Dec 16th 2007 11:09PM]

Thanks to the transistor we are able to enjoy pornography in the virtual digital 3D form, although I still prefer my porn in the more natural and realistic analog 3D form.

[mushrooshi @ Dec 17th 2007 3:26AM]

Anime form.

[Jerome @ Dec 16th 2007 11:09PM]

I want to build a transistor like that picture! I am a nerd! help me!

[Andy @ Dec 16th 2007 11:44PM]

Have alot of gallium arsenide and germanium lying around?

[compmas901 @ Dec 16th 2007 11:27PM]

Happy B-Day, and Thank You, Thank You, Thank You!

[Andy @ Dec 16th 2007 11:49PM]

But, if you feel up to it...
http://www.appliedmaterials.com/htmat/animated.html

[mike @ Dec 17th 2007 12:13AM]

They older they get the better they look.

[DarkLightConnection @ Dec 17th 2007 1:44AM]

And they get smaller instead of growing up :-D

[IndiaTech @ Dec 17th 2007 2:13AM]

60 years! Better make sure he has signed up for Medicare...
Anyways, Happy B'Day!

[Valgas @ Dec 17th 2007 2:23AM]

Why did certain group of the human race get all the brains?

[hackedbyjoe @ Dec 17th 2007 3:05AM]

For anyone who cares,
The device pictured is the Bipolar Junction Transistor (BJT) which is the first mass produced solid-state transistor. The Field Effect Transistor (FET), which is what's in all our shiny devices, was patented about 25 years before the BJT, but it was not widely used until after the success of the BJT because the BJT was easier to produce.

[Fetz @ Dec 17th 2007 4:00AM]

The super nerd gods you mention in this article are actually not the inventors of the transistor technology. The starting shot gave Julius Edgar Lilienfeld, a German physicist in 1928. In 1934 German physicist Dr. Oskar Heil patented another field-effect transistor.
John Bardeen, Walter Brattain, and William Shockley had built operational versions from Lilienfeld's patents, yet they never referenced this work...

That sounds a bit different, huh?
Honor to whom honor is due!

[Galley @ Dec 17th 2007 8:43AM]

So, it was just a few months after the "Roswell Incident". I knew it was alien technology!

[James Durkee @ Dec 17th 2007 9:11AM]

John Bardeen was my great uncle!

[PEZ @ Dec 17th 2007 12:29PM]

DYNOMIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIITE!

[Timerider @ Dec 17th 2007 5:24PM]

December 16 is also my mom's birthday lol.

[Timerider @ Dec 17th 2007 5:33PM]

Would it be possible to build a vacuum-tube NES? It would probably be the size of my house.

[nataraj.k.s @ Dec 18th 2007 5:55AM]

long live transistors

[nataraj.k.s @ Dec 18th 2007 6:03AM]

happy birth day