The Inventors of the Transistor and the Microchip

Abstract

The inventions of the transistor in the 1940s and the planar integrated circuit—the microchip—in the 1960s began a development in electronics that was to have a wide-ranging, profound, and continuing impact on telecommunications, sound and television broadcasting, and computing throughout the world. They enabled electronic equipment to be made more compact, more reliable, and lower in cost and power consumption than was possible using thermionic valves. The microchip in particular enabled circuit operations of far greater complexity to be performed reliably, rapidly, and economically, greatly enhancing the capability of computers to calculate, the service functions available in electronic telephone exchanges, and the quality of color television broadcasting. The transistor and the microchip facilitated the design of larger-capacity land and submarine cable systems and the design of communication satellites. They made possible a vast new range of customer equipment for computing, communicating, and broadcasting; they gave rise to new electronic industries and changed old ones beyond recognition.¹