June 5, 1997

The shape of things that came

The transistor changed the components we use, the way we design, what we design, the way we manufacture, and every facet of the industry infrastructure.

A discovery 100 years ago by British physicist and mathematician Sir Joseph J Thomson showed that atoms are not internally uniform but have a nucleus surrounded by electrons. At first, scientists used an electron valve, or vacuum tube, to control the flow of these electrons. But, a half-century after Thomson's discovery, John Bardeen, William Schockley, and Walter Brattain, scientists at the Bell Telephone Laboratories of American Telephone & Telegraph Co (better known as AT&T, now Lucent Technologies), invented the transfer resistor--which later became the "transistor"--an amplifier that offered a better way to control these electrons. Unfortunately but not surprisingly, the media is for the most part ignoring the anni-versary of this invention, which caused an unforeseeable revolution in electronics.

Although electronics existed before 1947 (radio, radar, basic TV), Bardeen, Schockley, and Brattain's accomplishment radically changed electronic design, our industry, and society. Early transistors were expensive, unpredictable, low-yield, low-frequency devices, but relentless R&D, along with production enhancements, produced a device that was more reliable, smaller, and more efficient. A decade later, the transistor became the building block of the IC.

It's hard for us to think of a time when we didn't have transistors as active devices, either as discrete circuit elements or within ICs. Eventually, the transistor overturned a circuit designer's mindset and changed the design options: Instead of minimizing the use of active devices and employing more of the passive ones, you now have the luxury of using more transistors or ICs with more transistors at a relatively low incremental system cost. The transistor changed the components we use, the way we design, what we design, the way we manufacture, and every facet of the industry infrastructure. Even in these days of relentless hype, the device's pervasiveness and implications are almost unimaginable.

Ironically, as we move from million-transistor CPUs and memories and reach for billion-transistor ICs, it is also easy to forget that the Bell Labs trio was searching for a replacement for the linear tube amplifier. Although digital concepts were known and there were some digital systems, no one grasped the true im-plications for circuitry, information, and systems that occur when you run these transistors in a binary mode.

Research, development, and invention are often portrayed as extrapolations that connect somewhat linearly on the work of predecessors, and they are. But the intensity of connection varies. Sometimes, inventions result from smart luck, and, sometimes, they are a combination of disparate advancements. The transistor's inventors were deliberately searching in a new direction for a vacuum-tube replacement. The approach they came up with changed everything in ways that no one could anticipate.

Do today's competitive pressures permit the investigatory research that Bell Labs was famous for? Does it make a difference? What far-reaching or radical advances do you anticipate? Where do you think these will take us? Does anyone know?

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