Purdue celebrates the 75th anniversary of the invention of the transistor.

The transistor, the basic building block of electronic systems, was invented on December 16, 1947 at Bell Labs. In 2022, we celebrate the 75th anniversary of this powerful little device. Having been called one of the most important inventions of the 20th century, transistors are pervasive in modern technology, including billions used on silicon chips, which are used in telecommunications, aviation, data communications, audio and video recording equipment, and much more. As the world continue to advance in manufacturing and microelectronics design, transistors will have an even greater impact in the 21st century.

• Mark Lundstrom, Don and Carol Scifres Distinguished Professor of electrical and computer Engineering and interim dean of the College of Engineering: Transistors in the 1950s
• Mike Manfra, the Bill and Dee O’Brien Distinguished Professor of Physics and Astronomy, professor in the Elmore School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, and professor of materials engineering: Purdue’s development of germanium technology in the 1940s and the invention of the germanium transistor at Bell Labs in 1947
• Muhammad Ashraful Alam, the Jai N. Gupta Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering: Demonstration of the 1960 silicon MOSFET (metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistor), the mainstay of today’s electronics, which was co-invented by Purdue alumnus Mohamed M. Atalla at Bell Labs
• Ekaterina Babintseva, assistant professor in the Department of History, who will discuss the role of transistors in the race to the moon

Researchers should cite this work as follows:

• Mark Lundstrom, Michael J. Manfra, Muhammad A. Alam, Ekaterina Babintseva (2023), "The Transistor at 75," https://nanohub.org/resources/36841.

  BibTex | EndNote

1. Bell Labs
2. history
3. Moore's law
4. mosfett
5. NCN Transistor @ 75
6. transistors