01Overview
In 1947 Bardeen, Brattain and Shockley made the point-contact transistor at Bell Labs; the silicon transistor followed in 1954. Compared with fragile, hot, power-hungry vacuum tubes, transistors were smaller, more reliable and cheaper to run. In 1958 Kilby built the first integrated circuit on germanium; in 1959 Noyce proposed the planar silicon process that made mass production possible.
In 1965 Moore observed that the component count per chip doubled every year, later revised to about two — an empirical regularity that held for half a century. It was not only a hardware victory; it reshaped software. As transistors got cheap, moving logic into software and handing generality to the compiler became the better bargain.
02History
- 1947
The point-contact transistor
Bardeen, Brattain and Shockley at Bell Labs.
- 1958
The first integrated circuit
Kilby puts several components on one piece of material.
- 1959
The planar process
Noyce and Moore make integrated circuits manufacturable.
- 1965
Moore's law
Component counts roughly double every two years.
03Core concepts
Semiconductor
Conductivity controlled by doping — the physical basis of the transistor.
Moore’s law
An empirical regularity: transistor count per area doubles about every two years.
Process node
The naming of process generations, such as 7 nm or 3 nm, no longer matching the actual gate length.
04Hands-on
Do it once — it beats reading it ten times
Estimate how many transistors a modern GPU has and how many doublings that took since 1971 — check the exponent against Moore’s law
05Self-check
Say it in your own words first, then open the answer. Whatever you cannot explain is what to review next.
Can you explain "Semiconductor"?
Conductivity controlled by doping — the physical basis of the transistor.
Can you explain "Moore’s law"?
An empirical regularity: transistor count per area doubles about every two years.
Can you explain "Process node"?
The naming of process generations, such as 7 nm or 3 nm, no longer matching the actual gate length.
What problem did it solve, and why was there nothing better at the time?
Go back to the history section: how was this done before, and what did it cost?
If you had to build it today, how would you break it down?
Use the hands-on task above: write a plan of at most three steps before you start.
06Key people
William Shockley
1910 – 1989
Co-inventor of the transistor and an early force behind Silicon Valley.
Robert Noyce
1927 – 1990
Co-inventor of the integrated circuit and co-founder of Intel.
07Further reading
- Chip War
- Fire in the Valley