Spectrum and curated this special issue, looks at what the transistor might be like when it turns 100. The best explanation of the point-contact transistor is in Bardeen’s 1956 Nobel Prize lecture, but even that left out important details.Īnd while we’re celebrating this historic accomplishment, Senior Editor Samuel K. According to our editorial director for content development, Glenn Zorpette, the best explanation of the point-contact transistor is in Bardeen’s 1956 Nobel Prize lecture, but even that left out important details, which Zorpette explores in classic Spectrum style in “ How the First Transistor Worked” on page 24. Spectrum special issue if we didn’t tell you how the original point-contact transistor worked, something that even the inventors seemed a little fuzzy on. It is a testament to imagination and ingenuity of three generations of electronics engineers who took the (by today’s standards) mammoth point-contact transistor and shrunk it down to the point where transistors are so ubiquitous that civilization as we know it would not exist without them. In fact, each of us is surrounded by billions, if not trillions of transistors, none of which are visible to the naked eye. What amazed me most besides the fact that the very thing this issue is devoted to was here with us? I’d passed by it countless times and never noticed it, even though it is tens of billions times the size of an ordinary transistor today. This article is part of our special report on theħ5th anniversary of the invention of the transistor.
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