A 40th Anniversary for Transistors
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A 40th Anniversary for Transistors Where were you on July 1, 1988—the 40th anniversary of Bell Telephone Laboratories' first demonstration of the newly invented transistor? The July 1, 1948 edition of the New York Times wrote: "A device called a transistor, which has several applica-
tions in radio where a vacuum tube ordinarily is employed... was demonstrated in a radio receiver, which contained none of the conventional tubes. It was also shown in a telephone System and in a television unit controlled by a receiver on a lower floor. In each case
The first transistors assembled by their inventors at Bell Laboratories were primitive by today's Standards. This first transistor, a ' 'poinl-contact'' type, atnplified electrica) Signals by passing them through a solid semiconductormaterial, basically thesameOperation performed by present "junction" transistors. Photocourtesyof AT&TArchives.
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the transistor was employed as an amplifier, although it is claimed that it can also be used as an oscillator in that it will create and send radio waves. "In the shape of a small metal cylinder about a half inch long, the transistor contains no vacuum, grid, plate or glass envelope to keep the air away. Its action is instantaneous, there being no warmup delay since no heat is developed, as in a vacuum tube " As part of the demonstrations, Bell Labs created as giant model of a transistor— eight feet long, and on wheels! Two weeks after the public relations demonstrations, Physical Review (July 15, 1948) published the first scientific paper about the transistor, written by John Bardeen and Walter Brattain, the co-inventors of the transistor. Bardeen and Brattain, along with William Shockley — who developed the "junction transistor" that dominated the field of microelectronics — shared the 1956 Nobel Prize in physics for their work. Where were you on December 23, 1987—the 40th anniversary of the transistor's actual discovery? Since it was invented in late December, the transistor has been called AT&T Bell Laboratories' "Christmas gift to the world." The governor of Illinois recently issued a proclamation stating: ". . . . WHEREAS, the transistor spawned today's worldwide semiconductor electronics industry and made possible dramatic changes in Communications, Computing, entertainment, medicine, space exploration, and a host of other fields; and "WHEREAS, the most far-reaching impact of the transistor's invention has been in Communications. Modern Communications networks wouldn't be possible without the transistor, as transistors underlie every aspect of worldwide Communications today... "THEREFORE, I, James R. Thompson, Governor of the State of Illinois, proclaim December 23, 1987, as a day to pay tribute to AT&T Bell Laboratories on the occasion of the 40TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE INVENTION OF THE TRANSISTOR." The tiny transistor superseded the outdated vacuum-tube amplifier with an inexpensive and reliable Substitute for the relays in electromechanical telephone exchanges. But none of this happened overnight, of course. Other resear
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